Portrait of Theodorakis, 1971 © Heinrich Klaffs,        CC BY-SA 2.0

2025 marks 100 years since the birth of Mikis Theodorakis (1925–2021), arguably the most globally renowned Greek composer of the 20th century and, for many, the architect of modern Greek musical identity. While the bouzouki theme of Zorba’s Dance from the film Zorba the Greek (1964), alongside his other popular film scores, continues to dominate public memory, Theodorakis was far more than the composer of these iconic melodies. Over the course of his prolific career, he composed more than 1000 works, including operas, symphonic and chamber music, and politically charged song cycles. He also published numerous monographs on music theory and analysis, and on music’s relationship to its social, cultural, political and historical context. Anchored in a deeply patriotic political-cultural vision, Theodorakis's music gave voice to the collective struggle of the Greek people for freedom from oppression.

The British Library holds an array of material relating to Theodorakis: editions of his published scores including in various arrangements, recordings of his music, and a number of his monographs. This blog post spotlights a selection of these collection items to illustrate how Theodorakis’s published legacy offers crucial insights into his enduring cultural impact on both the musical and political life of the twentieth century, and the complex relationship between the two.

Early years: Political background and musical studies

Born on 29 July 1925, Theodorakis moved to Athens in 1943 and began studies at the Athens Conservatoire. During the Second World War and the Nazi Occupation of Greece (1941–1944), he became involved in the military wing of the largest and most popular resistance group, the Greek People’s Liberation Army or ELAS (Ellinikós Laïkós Apeleftherotikós Stratós).

The relief at the withdrawal of German occupying forces from mainland Greece in October 1944 was short-lived, as Athens descended into brutal internecine fighting. The clashes between leftist resistance organisations and right-wing groups became known as the December Events (Dekemvrianá). These escalated into a full-scale Civil War, which raged until 16 October 1949.

Due to his communist convictions and involvement in ELAS, Theodorakis was arrested and exiled to the prison islands of Psitalia and Ikaria, and later to Makronisos. There, a programme of forced anti-communist re-education was implemented under conditions of unscrupulous violence and terror and Theodorakis was brutally tortured. Owing to family connections, he was released from Makronisos in August 1949, after which he travelled to Crete.

During his recovery, Theodorakis began to write essays on Greek music. In these, he condemned the musical establishment and its entrenched divisions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. After completing his mandatory military service in 1950, he graduated from the Athens Conservatoire and began working as a journalist. He continued publishing critiques of the Greek musical landscape, especially its failure, in his view, to produce an ‘authentic’ national music.[i]

In 1954, he moved to Paris, where he studied musical analysis with Olivier Messiaen and conducting with Eugene Bigot.

Between two worlds: Studies in Paris

In Paris, Theodorakis encountered a musical climate characterised by high modernist, avant-garde aesthetics. He faced the challenge of navigating these prevailing musical trends while remaining faithful to his nationalist and Marxist ideals: to create art that was accessible, inclusive, and politically edifying for the people. Expressing this tension, he stated in 1960: ‘I am unable to follow strictly any of the aesthetic trends prevailing in the West, [within which] my Greek sensibility feels more than restricted: it feels betrayed.’[ii]

Sonatina No. 1 for Violin and Piano, Op.13 was composed in Paris in 1955 and could be seen as reflecting Theodorakis’s efforts to reconcile his vision of Greek musical identity within the French context. This score, published in Athens, is held at the British Library, shelfmark g.619.j.(7.)

Theodorakis returned to Greece in 1960, coinciding with the publication of a manifesto he co-authored entitled  A Draft Plan for the Reorganization of Greek Music. The text, published in the journal Kritiké (Criticism), declared that ‘Most sectors of [Greek] musical life are seriously ailing’, and called for reforms in music education, the creation of independent symphony orchestras, and a greater emphasis on the study of both Greek Church and popular music. [iii]

Music for the masses: Art-popular song 

Theodorakis’s vision for a politically conscious, national-popular aesthetic was beginning to take shape, but it was not emerging in the concert hall. In the 1950s and 1960s, he rose to prominence with the consolidation of a genre which became known as éntechno laïkó tragoúdi, or art-popular song. Assuming the role once occupied by representatives of the Greek National School of Music including Manolis Kalomiris (1883–1962), Theodorakis sought to redefine Greek music for a new era. Art-popular song aspired to bring high art to the masses by setting renowned Greek poetry to music that brought together elements of Western symphonic tradition, rebetiko (Greek urban blues), Greek folk song, and Byzantine musical idioms such as modes and plainsong.

Theodorakis’s musical setting of Odysseas Elytis’s epic poem Axion Esti is widely regarded as a landmark in Greek music. The oratorio remains one of the composer’s most influential works. This score was published in Athens in 1975 by Philippos Nakas, British Library shelfmark H.1053.g.

The agenda of art-popular song was fuelled by Theodorakis’s communist political beliefs and his relationship with the Soviet Union, qualities that set him apart from fellow composer Manos Hadjidakis (1925–1994), who also helped define the art-popular song genre but was not as politically engaged. Although Theodorakis maintained that there could be no fixed ‘communist principles in art’,[iv] his art-popular song was nonetheless ideologically grounded in in the social, cultural, and political principles of Socialist Realism. He was not just, as musicologist Jim Samson writes, ‘politically committed to the Marxist left; he had political ambitions and indeed a political career’,[v] and these politics were channelled into his art-popular songs, which ‘substituted for a possible socialist popular music’.[vi]

Solidarity and resistance: Theodorakis’s legacy

Widely regarded as a symbol of resistance and solidarity against fascism, Theodorakis went into hiding during the right-wing military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. Listening to and performing his music was banned, and he was once again arrested and eventually interned in a concentration camp. Following an international solidarity campaign calling for his release, he was able to return to Paris in 1970.

Journals of Resistance is Theodorakis’s account of his experiences under the Greek dictatorship of 1967 to 1974. It includes descriptions of his imprisonment, torture, and exile. First published in French, this English translation by Graham Webb was published in London in 1973. British Library shelfmark: W64/3977

Theodorakis made a triumphant return to Greece from his exile in Paris in 1974. He continued to compose and remained active in Greek political life, though some of his political activities, including a brief alliance with the centre-right New Democracy party, provoked controversy among his supporters.

Although his political career involved affiliations with various political parties, Theodorakis remained committed to the political ideals that shaped the genre of art-popular song. A few years before his death in 2021, he elucidated his stance in a political testament sent to the General Secretary of the Greek Communist Party or KKE (Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas):

Now, at the end of my life, at the time of reckoning, the particulars are erased from my mind and the “Big Picture” (ta Megála Megéthi) remains. This is how I recognise that my most crucial, powerful, and mature years were spent under the banner of KKE. For this reason, I want to leave this world as a communist.[vii]

This year, events are unfolding around the world to commemorate Theodorakis as a composer who challenged aesthetic boundaries and fought—through both music and politics—for a different world. He is remembered not only for his masterful and wide-ranging works, but also for the life of exile, resistance, and profound struggle that shaped them.

Dr Eirini (Irene) Diamantouli, Content Developer, Discovering Music

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Notes

[i] Gail Holst-Warhaft, Theodorakis: Myth & Politics in Modern Greek Music (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1980), p. 24.

[ii] Mikis Theodorakis, Gia tin Ellinikí mousikí (On Greek Music) (Athens: Kastaniotis, 1986), pp. 124–5. Quoted in and trans. by Dimitris Papanikolaou, Singing Poets: Literature and Popular Music in France and Greece (1945– 1975) (Oxford: Routledge, 2017), p. 80.

[iii] English translation by George Giannaris in Mikis Theodorakis: Music and Social Change (New York: Praeger, 1971), p. 294.

[iv] Mikis Theodorakis, ‘Otan synántisa ton Sostakóvits’ (When I Met Shostakovich), Interview with Vasíli K. Kalamára, n.d.

[v] Jim Samson, Music in the Balkans (Leiden: Brill, 2013), p. 521.

[vi] Ibid., p. 423.

[vii] ‘KKE Press office announcement: I epistolí tou Míki Theodoráki pros ton Dimítri Koutsoúmpa’ [The Letter of Mikis Theodorakis to Dimitris Koutsoubas], KKE.gr, (2021), available online.

Theodorakis' archive is held at the Lilian Voudouri Music Library in Athens. A summary of the contents is available here. 

Scenic view over Salzburg. Photo by Dominic Bridge.

A few weeks ago, Rupert Ridgewell (Lead Curator, Printed Music) and Dominic Bridge (Content Manager, Discovering Music) packed their umbrellas and headed off to the 2025 Congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML), in Salzburg, Austria. For one week, the birthplace of Mozart and the home of The Sound of Music became a bustling hub of music librarians from across the globe.

Dominic was there to share updates on the British Library’s Discovering Music project, which has entered a new and ambitious phase: a project team is currently commissioning articles and developing content for an online space focused on Classical and Romantic music. His presentation drew a keen audience interested in how the British Library will be bringing these collections to life online for school students, scholars, and the musically curious.

As the current President of IAML, Rupert gave several speeches, chaired working meetings, and helped launch a new study group for national libraries. Legal deposit was a hot topic at the group’s first meeting, with lively discussion about how different countries manage the collection and preservation of music in the digital age.

Though the weather seemed determined to test the limits of everyone’s waterproof jackets, the rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of attendees. Salzburg’s historic streets, mountain-fringed skyline, and the delicious Mozartkugeln provided the perfect setting to the week’s events. And of course, it wouldn’t be a IAML congress without music: delegates enjoyed an excellent programme of concerts, including an evening of new compositions for Piano and Electronics inspired by Mozart, a recital of sacred music by Michael Haydn and Johann Ernst Eberlin by the soloists, choir and orchestra of St Peter’s Abbey, a concert of songs by women composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as performances by traditional Austrian folk music groups.

A Mozartkugel, about to be eaten. Photo by Dominic Bridge.

Postcards from Salzburg, 1906

This post also provides a good opportunity to share a couple of intricately-designed commemorative postcards made for the celebrations in Salzburg of Mozart's 150th anniversary (1756-1906), which we came across recently during a cataloguing project. The decades immediately around 1900 are often referred to as 'the golden age of the postcard': the medium took off quickly after it was introduced around Europe in the 1870s, and reached its height of popularity in the years just before the First World War. Souvenir cards, often with specially-commissioned illustrations, were made to capture the attention of both the tourist industry and collectors, and there were several firms active in Austria and Germany with particular interests in producing postcards relating to culture and the arts.

Commemorative Mozart postcard, 1906

These postcards belonged to the music collector and expert Mozartian bibliophile Paul Hirsch, who was visiting Salzburg for the Mozart Festival organised by the Mozarteum. While Hirsch didn't include these pieces of Mozart ephemera as part of his extremely important collection of music and books about music, he did keep them as personal souvenirs of his visit. They were kept together with other pieces of festival memorabilia, information, and notes that helped him when, 40 years later, he wrote an article for the journal Music Review titled 'The Salzburg Mozart Festival, 1906. Reminiscences of an amateur'. They can be found in the Paul Hirsch Papers.

Commemorative Mozart postcards, 1906

As a music cataloguer at the British Library, part of my job involves recording the medium of performance for which a score was intended. This can range from string quartet to brass band, solo accordion to symphony orchestra, and even, as was the case recently, pyrophone with piano accompaniment.  

This unusual instrumentation was chosen by French composer Théodore Lack (1846-1912) for an arrangement of ‘God save the Queen’, published in Paris in the late 19th century. As it was my first time cataloguing a score for pyrophone, I ended up spending a few hours researching what I could about the origins and history of the instrument.  

Front cover of 'God Save the Queen' by Théodore Lack

Invented by Alsatian composer and scientist Frédéric Kastner (1852-1882) in the early 1870s, the pyrophone was an innovation for its time in that it relied on combustion, as opposed to air pressure, to produce notes. Kastner was in turn inspired by Irish chemist Bryan Higgins’ 1777 discovery that a hydrogen flame positioned at the lower end of a glass tube could produce a note. This set Kastner's instrument apart from the traditional pipe organ, which the pyrophone design was based on, leading to the alternate term ‘Fire Organ’.  

There are very few scores written for pyrophone at the British Library, so we can assume that the instrument didn’t take off in the way Kastner had hoped. However, a book published in 1876, Le pyrophone : flammes chantantes (British Library 8706.aaaa.1), details Kastner’s activities in promoting his invention. An excerpt from an article in The Times, published on 11 April 1876, prefaces the book. The writer describes a gathering at Kastner’s residence on Rue de Clichy, Paris, where members of the public were invited to hear a demonstration of the instrument and were “deeply moved at hearing those jets sing with extraordinary power, purity, and correctness.” They go on to state the following: 

The audience was still more astounded at suddenly hearing the gaseliers placed in the centre of the room, and set in motion by invisible electric wires, execute ‘God save the Queen’ in sonorous and penetrating tones.

Black and white ilustration of a pyrophone by Henri Dunant (1828–1910), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

‘God save the Queen’ must have been a favourite of Kastner’s, as according to the same preface, he also performed the anthem for the Royal Society of Arts on 17 February 1875. One can imagine Kastner conjuring up a musical combination of fire, light and sound, the perfect setting for a patriotic anthem like ‘God save the Queen’. It’s possible that Theodore Lack, a French pianist and composer, was in attendance at one of these meetings and felt inspired to pen his own arrangement. Either way, Lack was one of very few composers to have written specifically for the pyrophone. His other related works include an arrangement of ‘Ave Maria’ for soprano voice, pyrophone, and piano, and a choral work entitled ‘Prière’, both available at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Elsewhere at the British Library, the only other searchable piece of pyrophone music comes from Miroslaw Koennemann (1826-1890), a German-Bohemian conductor and composer who published Paraphrase sur un vieil air d'église Italien for pyrophone circa 1879 (British Library h.1850.l.(3.)). 

Kastner’s 1876 book documents an excited response from the scientific community, including the eminent Irish scientist John Tyndall, who was also experimenting within the field of “singing flames”. It was through technological innovations such as the pyrophone that listeners of the time were able to experience something beyond everyday sounds, inviting them into a more otherworldly, spiritual realm, much like electronic synthesizers were to do in the mid-20th century. An 1875 journal article from Popular Science Monthly, written by Swiss humanitarian Henry Dunant, gives a romantic description of the effects of the pyrophone:   

The sound of the pyrophone may truly be said to resemble the sound of a human voice ... like a human and impassioned whisper, as an echo of the inward vibrations of the soul, something mysterious and indefinable; besides, in general, possessing a character of melancholy, which seems characteristic of all natural harmonies...

His words give some idea of how the pyrophone might have first sounded, almost 150 years ago, to listeners who were more accustomed to hearing acoustic instruments. 

Pyrophone from the Science Museum Group Collection, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 License, via the Science Museum

And what of the modern day pyrophone? The Science Museum houses a version of the instrument, which according to a blog article from 2012 lies in a dark corner of the Museum’s storage facility, unplayed. Elsewhere, on the internet, thanks to the imagination and persistence of a marginal few, Kastner’s legacy lives on. 

Gail Tasker, Music Cataloguer

Kastner, Frédéric. La Pyrophone. Flammes chantantes ... Quatrième édition. (Paris: N.p., 1876). [accessed 8 April 2025].

M. Dunant, 'The Pyrophone', Popular Science Monthly, 7 (1875). [accessed 8 April 2025].

Sommerlad, R., ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kastner’s Miraculous Pyrophone (Part One)’, Science Museum Blog, 2019 https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/pyrophone1/ [accessed 27 May 2025].