Death
“Alexis Sorbas” composer died at the age of 96: Mikis Theodorakis was also a Greek national hero
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For decades his music has accompanied many who oppose authority and injustice. Mikis Theodorakis achieved fame not only as a composer, but also as a politician and resistance fighter.
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Mikis Theodorakis (left) 1974 and his father Giorgios in an Athens studio.
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Greek music, Greek resistance, Greek culture – all of this symbolizes Mikis Theodorakis. In his homeland it is said that «Mikis» was able to translate the Greek soul into the language of music so that it was understood all over the world. Theodorakis became internationally famous as a composer, conductor, writer, resistance fighter and politician.
For his compatriots he is still the voice of the people and the “voice of Greece”. On July 29th he celebrated his 96th birthday, now Theodorakis died on Thursday in Athens. “Today we have lost a piece of the Greek soul,” said the Greek Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni.
The music for the film made him world famous
In the film “Alexis Sorbas” with Anthony Quinn in the lead role, his film music made the composer Theodorakis famous around the world in the early 1960s. To this day, the title song is regarded as the secret Greek national anthem – including the dance, in which people all over the world throw their legs up arm in arm at ever faster beats. In terms of popularity, the pithy “Tadam …” of the song could even compete with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, say musicologists. After all: Beethoven had to make do with four notes, Theodorakis two were enough.
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The film is easy to forget, however, that Theodorakis had a very hard time in the resistance behind him. He was a resistance fighter as early as the Second World War. In the civil war that followed (1946-1949) he fought with the left, was interned in a camp and severely tortured. He later fought against the Greek military dictatorship (1967-1974), was arrested and tortured again. Eventually he was allowed to leave under international pressure and lived in exile in Paris until 1974.
Another honor concert in the Athens Olympic Stadium in 2019
The almost two meter tall man looked frail in recent years and had given up conducting, but still took part in a concert in his honor in the old Athens Olympic Stadium in June 2019. Theodorakis was always mentally alert and dynamic. For example, when, sitting in a wheelchair, he spoke out on political issues in his country with a loud voice and shining eyes. He also commented on the events of daily Greek politics on his website.
–At the conductor’s podium in 2001.
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There were waves of excitement every time he performed live. Theodorakis raised his voice especially during the country’s severe financial crisis between 2008 and 2018 and called on the Greeks to look ahead and get the country back on track. At the same time he founded, typically «Mikis», a resistance movement against the tough austerity measures imposed on the country by international creditors. Reason: He could not stand idly by how large parts of the people lived in misery.
–A celebrated folk hero even in old age: Theodorakis in 2018.
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Pictures of Theodorakis, in which he guided the orchestra, singers and often the audience into the musical heaven with outstretched arms (the Greek press called him “eagle”), could only be seen on television or in old film recordings in recent years .
Revered as a folk hero until the end
With his popular music, he accompanied and inspired many Greeks musically and mentally in their struggles for democracy and freedom in historically dramatic times. Theodorakis, born in 1925 on the Aegean island of Chios, came to music through an old German film about Ludwig van Beethoven.
«I saw the film with my father. I was fascinated », he once said in an interview with Greek television. «I asked my father, who was traveling to Athens on business, to bring me everything he could find about music in the capital. That’s how it started. “
Theodorakis later studied music at the Athens Conservatory and in Paris. First he composed classical music. His musical genius did not reveal itself until 15 years later: in the early 1960s he found his way back to the roots of Greek music. He built on the music style Rembetiko, the folk music of the Greek workers and outsiders. He soon produced his “Mikis sound”, which is still unmistakable today – sometimes tragic and melancholy, then again surprisingly triumphant and revolutionary.
Lots of fans – from Wolf Biermann to François Mitterrand
Many of his compatriots say that his music is characterized by a kind of magic. The composer also had countless fans internationally – including celebrities such as Arthur Miller, François Mitterrand, Wolf Biermann, Martin Walser and Roger Willemsen. The latter wrote after a meeting with the composer: «Europe had no Che Guevara, it had Mikis Theodorakis. (…) We were with him.
It is well known that anyone who has never dreamed of the overthrow of dictatorships will never grow up. ” Theodorakis himself put it this way: “I belong to a generation that has dedicated itself to extreme idealism. My whole life has been an endless struggle between the idealistic and the real, the everyday and the vision. “
After the establishment of democracy in 1974, he returned to his homeland and started a political interplay. First, Theodorakis became a member of parliament for the communists. When these disappointed him, he was elected to parliament as an independent candidate with the support of the Conservatives. For a while he was a minister of the Conservative Party, after which he became closer to the socialists.
But he was never seen as an opportunist. Theodorakis always fought against any kind of presumptuous authority, regardless of the political direction. He detested injustice and harsh measures taken against the people and not the rich. That’s why they loved him.
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