Vassilis Tsitsanis, Memorial Concert at Tsepelovo

Last night we drove to Tsepelovo for an outdoor tribute concert marking the quarter century since the death (in London) of Vassilis Tsitsanis. He died on 18 January 1984, in Brompton Hospital.

Why Tsepelovo? His mother came from that Zagori village. “Echo mia agnosti patrida’, wrote Vassilis.

The eight piece group (the Tsitsanis Orchestra from Trikala) and three singers were outstanding, and the lead bouzouki player was a real virtuoso (there were three bouzouki players).

We didn’t stay until the end, because of the mountain road and bends at night. The concert reminded me what a great song-writer, poet and composer Tsitsanis was, and how fresh and exciting his songs remain today.

Organised by the Tsepelovo Cultural Committee, the spokesman introduced the evening (pity about the 45 minute delay in starting) by talking of the way that Tsitsanis managed to bring the Eastern and Western musical elements together.

This reminded me of a poem I wrote in 1983 (it's in “Corfu Blues”, Ars Interpres):

Memories of Asia Minor: Improvisations in a Minor Key
Don’t put down that old bouzouki,
Tsitsani virtuoso!
Explore all the roads,
Extend that taqsim,
Scatter the clouds
That darken each dream.

Take me back to the East
As I move further West.
Make the rhythm more heavy
To lighten my soul:
“We’re refugees all”
Your silver streams scream.


It also appeared in Ars Interpres

The Vitsa Panigyri, 14-16 August

It's been a marathon panigyri (one of the best in the whole of Greece) for those who stayed up all night for three nights in a row, for the musicians and singers, the organisers and dedicated members of the Cultural Association, the souvlaki and sausage grillers, the dancers and, last but not least, for those who had to clean up and wash up every day.

I had a taste of each of the three nights; the atmosphere got better every night. The panigyri was still going strong at 10am this morning, with Grigoris Kapsalis (portrait above), the 80 year old klarino player from Elafotopos, playing his heart out with a moving miroloi or lament.

The panigyri finished with a "Pied Piper" procession up the kalderimi from the platanos tree in the main square.

I admire the energy and stamina of the people, young and old, who danced all night.

Other highlights of the festivities included an updated version of Dario Fo's play "Can't Pay? Won't Pay!" and an exhibition of photographs. I was proud that my own were included.

It's extraordinary to be in Vitsa with such crowds and intense activity, with so much socialising. The village is usually almost deserted. Then people have the Vitsa Blues, although many people prefer it peaceful and quiet.

I'll never forget the tragic miroloi played by Grigoris Kapsalis, in memory of one of our neighbours who died not long ago.

After so much Dionysian dancing, abandon and drinking, people broke down in tears. Such is the power of music.

Vitsa, Directions

John Fowles and the Aegean Blues

John Fowles often talked about "the Aegean Blues", a form of depression he blamed largely on endless sunshine and cheap wine.

"The Greece of the islands is Circe still; no place for the artist voyager to linger long, if he cares for his soul."

("Why I rewrote The Magus", 1978)

"A novelist has to enter deeper exile still. In most outward ways the experience was depressive, as many young would-be writers and painters who have ever gone to Greece have discovered. We used to have a nickname for the sense of inadequacy and accidie it produced – the ‘Aegean blues’. One has to be a very complete artist to create good work among the purest and most balanced landscapes on the planet…The Greece of the Islands is Circe still; no place for the artist-voyager to linger long, if he cares for his soul."

"This Circe-like quality of Greece" (The Magus, 1966)

The Aegean Sadness

Sun upon sun distils the land
Over the pulsing, cobalt sea;
Sun upon sun and endless sun,
Scent of wild resin, cicada-song.

Olives and wine and small fried fish,
Aeon-dark islanders lost in a shade;
Day after day we sit on the terrace,
Over the waves and unknown lives.

So strangely sad, this heat and sun.
Is this why they left to sail for Troy?
To make the same sadness seem complete-
To kill Astyanax and call it joy?

John Fowles, from Poems , The Ecco Press, 1973

The Corfu Blues are different: they're more profoundly existential, and frequently environmental.

Another missed opportunity: the opportunity to have a drink with John Fowles. We could have discussed the differences between the Aegean Blues and the Corfu Blues. Strange that we we were both drawn back to Dorset.

From The Journals, Volume 2, 2006, John Fowles on Crete, 25 March, 1986:

Kazantzakis on Corfu

Letter of October 21, 1926 (translated by Amy Mims; "Nikos Kazantzakis, A Biography" by Helen Kazantzakis, 1968)

"Corfu marvelous-but only for a short time. The mountains, the sea, the colours all exquisite, but pathetic, amolissants (devitalizing), soporific, fatal to any fighting soul".

I know what he meant about the island being devitalising and soporific- especially in the heat of August.

Kazantzakis had the Corfu blues.

The British Council in Corfu, 1946-1955

Did you know that the British Council once had a branch in Corfu?

I’ve just been looking at a small archive of files concerning its activities from 1946 to 1955, when it closed down because of the Cyprus situation.

The Institute was situated at 46 George Theotoki Street, and moved at a later date to 43 Leoforos Alexandros. Possibly the greatest loss to Corfu was the library. A few reference volumes can still be found on the shelves of the Municipal Library inside the Old Fortress.

The Council in Corfu published an excellent literary periodical, “Prospero”, edited by Marie Aspioti, the local director of the Corfu Institute.

Lecturers (there were 99 lectures given between 1946 and 1955) included Paddy Leigh Fermor, Irene Dendrinou, Francis King, Edwin Merlin and… Professor Anthony Blunt on “Royal Portraiture”. He’d only just been interrogated for the first time (according to Francis King in “Yesterday Came Suddenly”, 1993) about the defection of Burgess and Maclean. He was under considerable strain when in Greece.

There were some outstanding exhibitions (one was attended by King Paul and Queen Frederika) and in 1953 (for example) there were dramatised readings from the works of Shakespeare and Wilde.

Marie Aspioti resigned towards the end of 1955, and returned her MBE.

Lawrence Durrell had tried to get a British Council posting to Corfu in 1940, which was confirmed for the following year, according to Gordon Bowker's biography (pp 132-133), but he went to Kalamata instead, shortly before he was evacuated from Greece. In a letter to Henry Miller (Spring 1940), Durrell wrote, "I have finally got Corfu, where we shall retire in May to lose the world I hope and be lost to it".

The Council in Corfu received 62 photographic sets for exhibition between 1946-1955, some of the earlier sets being on topics like Windsor Castle, English Ballet, British Scenery and English Cathedrals.

There were Gramophone Record Recitals every week (October-April) from October 1949.

It doesn’t sound very exciting, but Corfiots remember the Council Institute with gratitude and affection (prior to the Cyprus struggles).

As Charles Climis writes in “The Illustrated History of Corfu” (1994): “The British Council hosted a major post-war effort to keep the intellectual standards to a level, if not raise them, considering always the dire circumstances. Marie Aspiotis, Michael Desyllas, Irene Dendrinos and other literati met there and gave lectures twice a month.”

You may wonder why this is of interest to me. I’m doing research for a chapter on a forthcoming book on “Britain and Greece since 1945”. My chapter will be on Cultural Relations. What a different world it was then. How many of you know Francis King's Corfu novel, "The Dark Glasses" (1954), which was dedicated to Marie Aspioti? It's an interesting read. He spent a sabbatical year in Corfu between postings. Cyprus also seems to have brought their close friendship to an end. Perhaps the novel didn't help.

Update 2017, There is an interesting letter from Patrick Leigh Fermor, plus a partial facsimile (on British Council Corfu Office letterhead) to Marie Aspioti, in The Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor, Dashing for the Post, 2016 , written after his lecture tour, which included Corfu. He is fairly blunt about his British Council employers in Athens, after they 'let him go'.

Vido Island and Bourdetto

We’ve taken the short caique-trip to Vido Island a number of times in recent days. At two Euros for the return trip, it’s great value. The swimming is wonderful, the island unspoilt, the view of Corfu Town and the fortresses unparalleled.

The island is full of pheasants and rabbits, which are very tame.

The British may have upset the Corfiots by destroying the fortifications when they ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece. There is a memorial to the many Serbs who died there and who were buried at sea. Flora Sandes has told the story of the Long March. The scouts have a tented camp there, much more appealing than the old reform school/prison which used to make the island out of bounds for visitors (until the 1980s, I think).

There is a pleasant place to have a drink after a stroll round the island’s well-maintained tracks.

I was lucky on one occasion to order a dogfish bourdetto for lunch. It was delicious. Dogfish may not be the most attractive-looking fish (otherwise known as huss, flake or rock-salmon; ask for skylopsaro at the fishmongers’). If you like hot spicy fish stews with plenty of red pepper, try it!

I made a bourdetto myself yesterday, and followed the recipe, but didn’t put in nearly enough paprika or cayenne pepper. Next time I’ll pour in half a bottle of Tabasco sauce- or go back to Vido for the real thing. That should banish the Corfu blues.