Nikos Skalkottas

Nikos Skalkottas was a Greek composer and a leading figure in the Greek musical avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century. Born in Chalcis on March 8, 1904, he came from a family with a musical tradition. From 1914 he studied violin at the Athens Conservatory, graduating with distinction in 1920. He continued his violin studies in Berlin with Willy Hess from 1921 to 1924 and also learned to play the piano.

In 1924 Skalkottas decided to leave a career as a violinist and focus on composition. In Berlin, he studied composition with Philipp Jarnach from 1925 to 1927, supporting himself by playing in nightclubs and silent cinemas. Arnold Schoenberg’s master classes, which Skalkottas attended from 1927 to 1932, had a major influence on his development. After his relationship with Schoenberg ended in 1932, Skalkottas experienced a four-year depression during which he composed no new works.

Skalkottas returned to Greece in 1933 and worked as a violinist in the Athens Conservatory orchestra and, later, in other Greek orchestras. He continued composing, although his works were rarely performed during his lifetime and gained recognition mainly after his death in Athens on September 19, 1949. Between 1998 and 2008, the Swedish recording company BIS Records released most of his works in a series of 17 albums.

His music combined the twelve-tone method associated with the Second Viennese School with an interest in Greek traditional culture and folk music. Skalkottas developed his own “multi-series” approach, using several tone rows at once rather than relying on a single row, and sometimes softening the method’s structural restrictions with tonal or modal harmony and simple accentual rhythms. His works include the First Symphonic Suite (1929), the Octet (1931), the Piano Trio (1936), the Concerto for Piano and Ten Wind Instruments (1939), and 32 Piano Pieces (1940). His later works include the overture The Return of Odysseus (1944), the unfinished Second Symphonic Suite (1946), the ballet The Sea, a Piano Concertino, and Greek Dance in C minor (all 1949). His tonal works also include the Classical Symphony (1947) and 36 Greek Dances, which draw on folk and popular Greek melodies, as well as melodies he fashioned in a folk style.