The cultivation of musical modernism in the wider sense of the term, as a personal creative process (composition), as a reproduction of the work of art (performance, recording), and as a means of education (addressed to both audiences and critics), accords with interrelated features of the artistic personality of Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960), consecutively represented throughout his career. His works, coming from the 1920s, constitute the earliest examples of Greek prewar modernism, assimilating elements of current European musical trends and evoking the personal creative character and the artistic uniqueness of their begetter. The main objectives of this book are to outline, classify and report the origins and features of Greek musical modernism in the 1920s as an integral part of Greek art music and Greek music history, to specify Mitropoulos’s pioneering steps along this path, and to provide evidence and facts of his strong affiliation to prominent European exponents of modernism like Arnold Schoenberg. Such findings serve as incentives for a broader, international appreciation of Mitropoulos’s life and work, and as a starting point for further dissemination of current Greek musicological studies on prewar and postwar Greek musical modernism to the international academic, musicological, and musical community.

“In the central part of this book, after a thorough description of Greek politics and culture, Sakallieros presents Mitropoulos’s modernistic compositions; he does it in a superbly comprehensive way, through the fusion of systematic and historical musicology. Besides a technical analysis, all the steps in the creation of each work, and the most important steps of its reception, are presented through excellent documentation from archives in Athens, in Europe and in the United States providing, on several occasions, absolutely new though essential knowledge.”

“An important contribution to Mitropoulos’s American years and to his role in the dissemination of modern music −and one of the great assets of this book− is the first ever publication of his correspondence with Arnold Schoenberg. All 37 items of this correspondence, brilliantly commented on by Sakallieros, are presented in beautiful, high-quality facsimiles, which, added to the numerous pages from Mitropoulos’s music autographs, and other precious reproductions scattered in the entire book, make this exquisite musicological study a sumptuous edition and a great delight to the eyes.”

Katy Romanou, University of Athens

CONTENTS

I. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
II. LIST OF TABLES (& DIAGRAMS)
III. LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
TABLE OF GREEK NAMES
ABBREVIATIONS — SYMBOLS
PREFACE (BY KATY ROMANOU)
INTRODUCTION

PART I. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, MODERNISM(S), AND MITROPOULOS

CHAPTER 1. 
GREECE, 1870-1940
1.1. History and politics
1.2. Fine arts
1.3. Letters
1.4. Musical life in Athens
1.4.1. The Greek National Music School

CHAPTER 2.
INTRODUCTION AND PERSPECTIVES OF MUSICAL MODERNISM IN THE 1920s AND ‘30s

CHAPTER 3. 
DIMITRI MITROPOULOS (1896-1960)
3.1. A life in music
3.2. Catalog of works
3.3. Mitropoulos’s works in the 1920s: an overview

PART II. THE WORKS

CHAPTER 4. 
THE INTRODUCTION OF ATONALITY: PASSACAGLIA, INTERMEZZO E FUGA (1924)

CHAPTER 5.
OF POETRY AND (ATONAL) MUSIC: SIKELIANOS, CAVAFY AND MITROPOULOS (1923-25)

CHAPTER 6. 
THE INTRODUCTION OF DODECAPHONY: OSTINATA IN TRE PARTI (1926-27)

CHAPTER 7. 
REFORMING THE VOCABULARY: CONCERTO GROSSO (1928)

PART III. POSTWAR ECHOES OF PREWAR MODERNISM

CHAPTER 8. 
THE SCHOENBERG - MITROPOULOS CORRESPONDENCE (1945-1951)
8.1. Mitropoulos in America and the Second Viennese School
8.2. The letters. Indexing and commentary

APPENDIX

THE ORIGINAL LETTERS OF THE SCHOENBERG - MITROPOULOS CORRESPONDENCE (1945-1951)
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX