Nikos Skalkottas
[citation needed] Between 1927 and 1932 he was a member of Arnold Schoenberg's Masterclass in Composition at the Academy of Arts (Thornley 2001), where his fellow pupils included Marc Blitzstein, Roberto Gerhard and Norbert von Hannenheim.However, he suffered a nervous breakdown and his passport was confiscated by the Greek authorities (Thornley 2001) (apparently because he had never done military service)[citation needed] and in fact remained in Greece for the rest of his life.Already in Berlin he was taking an interest in jazz and at the same time developing a very personal form of the twelve-note method, making use of not one but several tone-rows in a work and organizing these rows to define different thematic and harmonic areas.Like Schoenberg, he persistently cultivated classical forms (such as sonata, variations, suite), but his opus is divided between atonal, twelve-tone and tonal works, all three categories spanning his entire composing career.According to the Gramophone Musical Guide (2010), which reviewed a recording with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Nikos Christodoulou, "Here Skalkottas's brilliant orchestration shines through in what's much more than a pre-run of The Mayday Spell.Around 1945 he seems to have reappraised his aesthetic direction to some extent and written several works in a more conventionally tonal idiom—many of these have key signatures, for instance, yet the general level of dissonance is not significantly lessened.It was only after his death that Skalkottas' music began to be played, published or critically estimated to a great extent, partly due to the efforts of friends and disciples such as John G. Papaioannou and George Hadjinikos.In 1988 a short documentary (60 mins) about his life and work was filmed with funding from the local authorities of Skalkottas' birthplace (the isle of Euboea) as well as the Greek Ministry of Culture.
Greek composer20th-century classical musicSecond Viennese Schoolclassical repertoireGreek traditionBerlinChalcisEuboeaAthens ConservatoryAveroffPrussian Academy of ArtsWilly HessRobert KahnPaul JuonKurt WeillPhilipp JarnachArnold SchoenbergMarc BlitzsteinRoberto GerhardNorbert von HannenheimRussian-JewishherniaList of compositions by Nikos SkalkottasDimitri MitropoulosovertureNeue Sachlichkeitabsolute musicsonatavariationsatonaltwelve-toneGreek folk musicIceland Symphony OrchestraNikos ChristodoulouMiraculous MandarinDavid HurwitzSecond VienneseBusoniStravinskyBartókiankey signaturesGeorge HadjinikosGreek Ministry of CultureBIS recordsStanley SadieJohn TyrrellKeller, HansInternational Music Score Library ProjectserialHans AbrahamsenGilbert AmyLouis AndriessenDenis ApIvorHans Erich ApostelKees van BaarenMilton BabbittOsvaldas BalakauskasDon BanksJean BarraquéRichard BarrettJürg BaurArthur BergerErik BergmanLuciano BerioKonrad BoehmerAndré BoucourechlievPierre BoulezMartin BoykanOle BuckJacques CalonneNiccolò CastiglioniAldo ClementiAaron CoplandHenry CowellLuigi DallapiccolaKarel GoeyvaertsHenryk GóreckiJosef Matthias HauerBen JohnstonGottfried Michael KoenigErnst KrenekWitold LutosławskiBruno MadernaDonald MartinoLuigi NonoJuan Carlos PazKrzysztof PendereckiGeorge PerleHenri PousseurEinojuhani RautavaaraHumphrey SearleAlban BergAnton WebernRoger SessionsKarlheinz StockhausenRichard SwiftCharles Wuorinen