Maria Farandouri, Mikis Theodorakis, London 1970-1971; Maria Farantouri

Maria Farandouri: Memories of three London Concerts, 1970-1971

1970, 13 April: Theodorakis landed in Paris, a free man.

1970, 26 April: Royal Albert Hall, “Eleftheria, An Evening of Free Greek Music and Drama”, directed by Minos Volonakis, sponsored by The Greek Committee Against Dictatorship. First performance of Theodorakis's work (based on Sikelianos' poem) “The March of the Spirit”, with Maria Farandouri, conducted by Evdoros Demetriou. The second part of the evening, “For the Attention of the Censor”, was devoted mostly to banned Greek drama and the absurd preventive (and pre-publication) censorship. Even the ‘subversive’ plays of Ancient Greek authors were liable to be censored or banned, although Alexis Minotis, director of the National Theatre, would claim that it was not the texts of the tragedies that lead to their cancellation in 1967, but the music by Theodorakis. The evening featured Ian McKellen, John Neville, Janet Suzman, Patrick Wymark, Alan Bates, Mai Zetterling, Joss Ackland, Glenda Jackson and Nyree Dawn Porter. There was a message (in the programme) from Theodorakis in Oropos Prison, sent before his release on 13 April, “I call on the untamable Greek youth to become inspired by the words of our national poet and turn into action his patriotic command ‘Let us raise the sun over Greece’.”

1970, 29 June: Royal Albert Hall, the official premiere of Theodorakis’ oratorio, “March of the Spirit”, conducted by Mikis Theodorakis; the concert was dedicated to the poet Yannis Ritsos, “still in the hands of the Junta”.

1971, 11 June: Maria Farandouri sings Theodorakis, at the Overseas Students Centre, London.

The programme note stated that “Following the military coup d’état in 1967 and the subsequent banning of Theodorakis’ music, Maria left Greece and, to the cultural movement to promote Greek music she has added an inseparable political dimension.”

Songs included, “Ena to Helidoni” and “Tis agapis aimata” from “To Axion Esti”, “I Kalogria i Tsiggana” (from Lorca’s ‘Romancero Gitano’), “Silva”, “Kleise to Parathiro” (from “Ta Tragoudia tou Agona”/“Songs of Strife”), “Oi Evchai” The Vows” (Sixth Ode of Andreas Kalvos), “To Yelasto Paidi” (from “The Hostage” and later “The Theme from Z”), “Rodostomo” (from “Archipelagos”), the English folk song “The trees, they grow so high” (‘My bonny boy is young, but he’s growing’) and “Zavarakatranemia”, the anti-Dictatorship protest song (with largely nonsense words aimed to bypass censorship) by Yannis Markopoulos, who had first gone to Britain in 1967, after the Coup, to study modern music under Elizabeth Lutyens.

Of the Kalvos poems he’d set to music, Theodorakis wrote, when in exile in Zatouna, that “his call to arms must strike a chord in sensitive Greek hearts” and “I am happy to have set Kalvos to music. This poet’s speech is like a torrent of lava which will submerge the Greeks and burn its mark into their skin….In my mind’s eye I saw the great multitude of young Greeks storming the streets of Athens and Salonika and chasing out the tyrants” (“Journals of Resistance”).

While held in Oropos Camp, Theodorakis composed some of the “Songs of Strife” (Polydor, 1971) like “Kleis’ to Parathiro” (an ironical kantada-style song, of the type that prisoners sang under their breath in cells or during transportation, set to a lyric by Manos Eleftheriou, about the horrors of torture by electric shock in the notorious No.18 Bouboulinas Street HQ of the Greek Security Police (Asphalia). Originally recorded in London, January, 1971.

“To Yelasto Paidi”, a free translation of the song “The Laughing Boy”, from Brendan Behan’s play, “The Hostage”, became associated with the murder in Thessaloniki (May 22, 1963) of the MP Gregory Lambrakis, and the theme of the political thriller “Z”. Behan’s lyrics were written in the manner of an Irish freedom-struggle song, but the song had become a very Greek anti-Fascist anthem by the time of the Dictatorship. Theodorakis (“Journal of Resistance”): “Our people had associated it with the memory of the deputy from Piraeus after his assassination.” Theodorakis had dedicated the song to Lambrakis; it became the song of the Lambrakis Youth Movement.

These are some of the lyrics (by Manos Eleftheriou; my translation) of “Kleis’ to Parathiro” (‘Shut the Window’):

“Tonight don’t talk about poems
Nor of the pain which pierces your kidneys.
The prisoner in the next cell can’t hear the taps-
I can’t make out the messages, because of the rain.
Shut the window, the water gets in.

The corridor reeks of iodine
And the one over there was carted in.
From dusk they’d take him to the basement;
The wire they shoved on his tight-clenched mouth
Must have been electrified.”

The programme notes had the following to say about this song and some of the others:

Kleis’ to parathiro: The words establish an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. Everybody hears and sees things happening and each thinks that perhaps he will be next. The light music and la, la, la’s imply that people know what’s going on- they won’t be terrified because they’ve been through it before and will endure it.

Ena to Helidoni: Freedom requires sacrifice and blood must be shed before the sun and springtime can arise.

Tis agapis aimata: A man has a vivid memory of a love while involved in an armed struggle.

Silva: A love song, which Theodorakis wrote about a woman...when they were both in hiding with the underground following the 1967 coup.

(NB: the sleeve notes on “Songs and Guitar Pieces by Theodorakis”, John Williams and Maria Farandouri, stated that “Silva” was written in his cell in Bouboulinas Street police station in September-October 1967. “Silva is a woman’s name. She was imprisoned in another cell and tortured for her participation in the resistance”. The song finishes: “Kangala, kangala, kangala, Silva, Silva”- “Bars, prison bars, Silva, Silva”).

Zavara: the few lyrics mix ancient words and nonsense syllables, which essentially poke fun at language, and at the language of politics in particular.

The just-released “Songs of Strife” LP (Polydor, 1971) on sale at the Students’ Centre that night also included Theodorakis’ London settings of some of Alexandros Panagoulis’ poems such as, “The First of the Dead” (“Lefterias lipasma oi protoi nekroi”, “Freedom’s fertiliser, the first of the dead”), and “In Greece Today” (“Pne(v)ma kai alithea stis filakes”, “spirit and truth, locked up in prisons”).

Panagoulis’s group failed in an attempt to assassinate (by blowing up) the dictator George Papadopoulos on 13 August, 1968. Elected to Parliament in 1974, he was killed on May 1st, 1976, in a mysterious car accident in Athens. Alekos’ poem or battle-hymn, “The first of the dead”, was published in English in “Greek Report, 1”, (‘a Monthly Publication of Uncensored Information about Greek Affairs’), ed. P. Lambrias, London, February 1969:

“Shed no more tears
For Freedom is nourished
By earth that enfolds them-
The first of the Dead”

The other LP on sale that night was “In a State of Siege”, with Farandouri and Kaloyannis).

See also, The Laughing Boy:

https://corfublues.blogspot.com/2012/02/laughing-boy-to-yelasto-paidi-brendan.html