Nikos Skalkottas String Quartet No3. Movement I

Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949) is one of the greatest Greek composers of the first half of the 20th century. He was born in Chalkis into a family of musicians and was a child prodigy as a violinist, graduating from the Athens Conservatory at the age of 16. He spent the next 12 years in Berlin where he undertook classes with notable German teachers and composers including Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg who counted Skalkottas among his best and most talented students. During his stay in Berlin the composer developed his personal musical idiom based on Shoenberg's twelve tone theory. His compositions written after 1925 are nowadays considered mature. In 1933, as Hitler was rising to power, he returned to Greece, leaving his many compositions behind.
In Athens he was working as a violinist in various orchestras and producing arrangements and orchestrations for other composers, theater and ballet. Some of his personal work, especially those that were in a tonal idiom were performed by the Athenian orchestras. His true genius was never acknowledged in Greece until after his death.




Recording: BIS, September 1999 at the Megaron Concert Hall, Athens,Greece

New Hellenic Quartet
Georgios Demertzis - violin I
Dimitris Chandrakis - violin II
Paris Anastasiades - viola
Apostolos Chandrakis - cello

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Category:

Music

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• skalkottas
• greek classical music
• 20th century music
• greek composers