The Genesis of Canto General

Neruda Nobel Prize Laureate 1971

Theodorakis has been working for a long time on his final version of Canto General. In January 1971 he had been the guest of Allende and Neruda in Chile and had heard settings of some of the poems of Canto General by various Chilenian composers. He decided to set some of the poems himself as a gesture of solidarity and friendship with the people of Chile and because he felt drawn to the culture. He began composing in Paris and presented the original version of the work for the first time on his tour of South America in 1972. In 1973 he was to have presented it again in South America, with Neruda reading his own poetry at some of the performances.

He spoke to Neruda on the telephone from Argentina to arrange the details of the performance in Santiago stadium the following week. That was the week that made Santiago stadium infamous as the place where, among others, the Chilean composer Victor Jara was tortured and killed. It was not until the Festival de l'Humanité in September 1974 at Paris that Canto General was performed (...). By then Greece was free and Chile had become a cause of international leftist concern.

When he composed Canto General, Theodorakis - (n.b.: in exile since 13 April 1970) - believed that he might never see Greece again. He enjoyed living in Paris because he thought it represented the best of western European civilisation, but as a Greek he could never feel really at home there. His South American tour was not only the most successful of his overseas tours in terms of audience response; but he and his musicians felt themselves to be among familiar people. As a composer, Theodorakis knew he must take his inspiration not only from literature, but from direct contact with people. It seemed that he had found a possible solution to his problems as an exile. He would adopt South America as his new homeland, and its people and poetry as his new source of inspiration. This is why he had retained the original Spanish of Neruda. His Canto General is, in some ways, an overture to the Chilean people, a plea for acceptance as well as an attempt to effect a musical amalgamation of two cultures.

© Gail Holst: Theodorakis. Myth & Politics in Modern Greek Music.