The
first cycle of songs which Theodorakis composed at Zatouna were
settings of his own poetry.
On the 29th of December 1968, Myrto and Margarita Theodorakis
went to Tripolis to meet Jacques Perrin, producer of the film
Z. They were to collect the scenario of the film from him so
that Theodorakis could compose the score. On their return they
were kept waiting in rain and fog while seven policemen searched
them. Mikis's fury at the police's behaviour and his frustration
at being unable to intervene led him to compose the poems which
make up the cycle he called Arcadia I.
The songs have rarely been performed in Greece. They are difficult
songs for the Greek Left to accept because of their bitter,
almost anarchistic lyrics. In his songs Theodorakis attacks
the great powers. Admittedly America suffers by comparison with
Russia (the Russians send 'love songs and flowers'
to Greece while the Americans 'dispatch their marines at
the Gulf of Phaliron'), but the message is equivocal and
the focus of attention is on Theodorakis's own sense of isolation
and rage...
I am European, I am European and I have two ears;
One doesn't listen and the other doesn't heed.
Let the Czech, the Russian and the Pole groan,
Man aches, the sky falls.
Let the Negro, the Greek and the Indian suffer,
What do I care? Let God care.
The melody of this song is a theme of Hadzidakis. It is almost
as if Mikis is acknowledging, for a moment, the validity of
his fellow-composer's non-political stance.
The most personal song of the cycle describes the experience
of Theodorakis's son Yorgos, who was stripped and searched by
the police in front of the villagers, and who suffered a nervous
breakdown as a result...
My son is nine years old
Nine winters, nine summers.
We put thunder in his glance
He holds the seas in his two hands.
There is no real unity between the musical material except for
the Russian flavour of several of the melodies and none of the
songs stays in one's memory. It is as if Theodorakis cannot
produce his best music when his suffering is personal...
Gail
Holst: Theodorakis. Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music,
Hakkert, 1980
Arcadia I - Poems | Arcadia
II | Arcadia III | Arcadia
IV | Arcadia V: March of the
Spirit | Arcadia VI | Arcadia
VII: O Epizon | Arcadia VIII
| Arcadia IX | Arcadia
X | Home