Manos Hadjidakis

Manos Hadjidakis was born in Xanthi, Northern Greece, on October 23, 1925. At the
age of four he started learning the piano, and during 1940-3 he studied theory and
harmony under Menelaos Pallandios, an important composer of the Greek music
school. At the same time, he studied philosophy at Athens University, while being
nurtured in the company of artists and intellectuals of stature, such as Seferis, Elytis,
Tsarouhis, Gatsos and Sikelianos.
From 1945 on, when he began his collaboration with the Greek National Theatre and
the Art Theatre, he composed music for ancient Greek drama, as well as incidental
music for the contemporary repertory: Agamemnon (1950), Choephorοe (1950),
Medea (1956), Ecclesiazusae (1956), Lysistrata (1957), Cyclops (1959), Birds (1959),
Mourning Becomes Electra (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1948), Blood
Wedding (1947), Hamlet (1955), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1956), Othello (1958),
Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), Eurydice (1960), Don Quixote (1972), The Sapling
(1989), et al.
In 1948, he wrote what he considered as his favourite composition, For a Small White
Seashell, Op. 1, for piano.
His famous lecture on the 'rebetiko' (1949) (an underground type of song at the time
which expressed the sentiments of the lower-classes) roused a storm of reaction from
the conservative Greek society. And yet, it radically changed the nature and course of
Greek song writing.
The year 1951 saw the founding of the Greek Chorodrama of Rallou Manou –with
Hadjidakis as co-founder and artistic manager– which staged his four ballets: Marsyas
(1950), Six Folklore Paintings (1951), The Accursed Serpent (1951) and Solitude
(1958).
In 1953, in another series of lectures on the subject of contemporary american
composers, he introduced the hitherto unknown Copland, Menotti, Bernstein and
others to the Greek audience, the latter isolated from the rest of the world following
the Second World War and the difficult postwar situation.
Along with his work for the theatre, from 1946 on, Hadjidakis composed music for a
great number of Greek and foreign films, among which Stella (1955), The Rapist
(1956), America America (1962), Blue (1967), Sweet Movie (1974), Honeymoon
(1978), as well as music for two documentary films by Jacques Yves Cousteau
(1977). In 1960 he was awarded an Oscar for his song for the film Never on Sunday
by Jules Dassin.
Two years later, he staged Street of Dreams in Athens, a milestone in the history of
Greek musicals, directed by Alexis Solomos, stage sets by Minos Argyrakis, and
Dimitris Horn in the leading role.
His long and fruitful collaboration with Maurice Béjart and his 20th Century Ballets
began in Brussels in 1965 with the performance of Birds of Aristophanes, and
continued either conducting works of other composers (Jean Cocteau et la Dance
1972, Traviata 1973), or conducting his own works choreographed by Maurice Béjart
(L'Ange Heurtebise 1972, Dionysos 1988, The Ballads of Athena Street 1993).

During the period 1966-72 he lived in New York, where he wrote some of his most
important works: Rhythmology (for piano), Magnus Eroticus (a cycle of songs based
on poems of ancient and modern Greek poets) and Reflections (a cycle of songs with
the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble). He also recorded Gioconda’s Smile, and
began writing The Era of Melissanthi, an autobiographical musical story in a postwar
setting.
Hadjidakis, a versatile, many-sided personality, used his talents in many more artistic
activities: he founded and directed the Athens Experimental Orchestra (Symphony
Orchestra, 1963-6), the café-théâtre Polytropon (1973), the Music Festivals at Anoyia,
Crete to do with tradition (1979), the Musical August Festival at Herakleion, Crete
(1980-1), the Musical Contests in Corfu (1981-2). He also founded and edited the
cultural magazine Tetarto (1985-6), the record company Sirius (1985), the Symphony
Orchestra of Colours (1989-93), and was head of the Third Programme of Greek
National Radio (1975-81), which he revolutionized.
From the very start of his career, in tandem with his other activities, Hadjidakis had
been active in producing dozens of records which have been acclaimed as classics of
their kind in Greece: The C.N.S. Cycle (1954), Mythology (1965), Liturgical Songs
(1971), Immortality (1975), Irrationals (1976), Dark Mother (1985), Songs of Sin
(1992), et al. Most of his song cycles employ verses by Nikos Gatsos.
Hadjidakis published two books of poems, Mythology and Mythology II, and the
volumes The Mirror and the Knife and Third Programme Commentaries.

On the afternoon of June 15, 1994, Manos Hadjidakis 'began his journey to the stars'.