Many of the composers who have shaped the musical life of the Greek state are not from the mainland. Initially, they came from the Ionian Islands, which were not occupied by the Ottoman Empire and remained firmly in the sphere of influence of the Italian cities. They were replaced by their colleagues from the centers of major Hellenism, such people as Manolis Kalomiris, Petros Petridis, Georgios Sklavos, Georgios Poniridis and some others. Perhaps it could not have been otherwise, since in the 19th century in such cities as Smyrna, Alexandria, Constantinople, Braila, Odessa and Mariupol, the necessary bourgeoisie formed, which allowed, as elsewhere in Europe, the development of classical music.

Vasilis Kalafatis was born in 1869 in the Crimea, and a few years later, in 1875, Georgios Axiotis, the father of Melpos, was born in Mariupol. Circumstances bring both to the fore. The coincidence is not (only) the tragic war currently unfolding in the region, but also the coinciding LP release of Kalafatis’ compositions in 2020 and Axiotis just a few months ago. Axiotis’s birth mother was a Ukrainian, a member of the family’s service staff, since his father’s wife could not have children. The family settled permanently in Athens in 1887, where Axiotis received his first music lessons. He continued in Naples, at the famous Conservatory of San Pietro a Magella with the teacher Paolo Serrao, whose pupils were famous operatic composers such as Leoncavallo, Chile, Giordano, Alfano, and also another Greek, George Labellette.

His intensely melodic and emotionally direct music is part of the “verismo” aesthetic.

The intensely melodic and emotionally direct music of Axiotis is part of the “verismo” aesthetic, while at the same time it is equally connected to the municipal member and his ways. Works such as “Deilino”, “Memories of a Dance” or “Lyrical Interlude” are equated with the finest symphonic pages of such “veristic” composers as those mentioned above, and in such works as the “Trilogy of Love” Axiotis successfully combines the national element.

Since he inevitably came into conflict with the influential circles of the Athens Conservatory, which supported German music, Axiotis eventually retired to his family’s homeland, Mykonos. Part of his composition was given by his son Panagos to Theodoros Vavagiannis, for many years the permanent main musician of the Athens State Orchestra, and an important part was found in 1995.

The musicological restoration was supervised by the main musician Baironas Fidetsis, who recorded almost all the works for the world premiere in 2003 in Sofia with the New Festival Opera and Symphony Orchestra of the Bulgarian capital. Their release almost twenty years later adds yet another mosaic to our musical culture and raises all sorts of questions. But mainly those that concern our attitude to the musical heritage, which is no less than that of other peoples, and ultimately is ours.