This essay analyzes ways in which music becomes attached to the growing demand for national culture by the Greek middle class since the last decades of the nineteenth century.

In modern Greece of that period, the predominant notions of ‘historic continuity’ and ‘Hellenism’, or ‘Greekness’, interpret Greek history as an uninterrupted evolution from the classical past to Byzantium. In terms of music, continuity was believed to be found from ancient Greek music to Byzantine hymns and folk songs. This theory, supported by important scholars and composers both in Greece and abroad, placed tradition in a privileged position both in composition and reception of music; composers incorporated rhythms, scales and the character of Greek folk songs and Byzantine hymns in their works and the middle-class audience was eager to accept folkloristic styles and the embodiment of tradition in art music because they reflected the notion of ‘national’. Musically, the theory of ‘historic continuity’ was strengthened by the links between German romanticism and attitudes to ancient culture. Moreover, German models, or the organic romantic perception of music, influenced representatives of the so-called National School of Music; the consequence was a growing alienation from Italian music in terms of offering aesthetic standards to composition and reception.

The question of a European-type local music was raised in modern Greece as early as during the first years of its independent life, and within the context of a rapid Occidentalizing and modernizing process. The earliest Greek professional musicians to serve this social, as well as ideological, need came from the Ionian Islands, but soon other parts of the national territory saw the birth of some important composers who added specific German, French or Russian components to the basically Italianate flavour of the Ionian musical tradition. In their respective works the main trends of nineteenth-century European music found their Greek way, although a sparse use of local folk elements was only gradually, hesitantly, and – in any case – partially accepted by a middle-class public, willing to keep its distance from its own Ottoman past. It was mainly for that reason that a Herderian-type musical nationalism, although already visible around 1850, had to wait until the end of the century before obtaining its clear and definite shape, and before occupying the central Greek musical scene during the early years of the new age.

This article explores the music education of the Greek people in the nineteenth century, as revealed through the description of music education in Constantinople, Corfu and Athens.

Before the establishment of the new state of Greece early in the nineteenth century, both Greeks and Europeans speak of ‘Greece’, referring to Greek communities beyond its borders. Music education in those communities consisted mainly of the music of the Greek Orthodox Church – applying a special notation, appropriate to its monophonic, unaccompanied chant – and Western music, and was characterized by the degree to which either culture prevailed. The antithesis of those music cultures was best represented, at least up to the 1850s, among the Greeks living in Constantinople – the seat of the Greek Orthodox Church – and Corfu of the Ionian Islands – where Italian music was assimilated. Athens was elected in 1834 as the capital of the Greek state because of its ancient monuments and did not attain the significance of a contemporary cultural centre before the 1870s. In Athens, these two musical cultures were absorbed and transformed through their confrontation and interaction. However, the new state's political orientation determined the predominance of Western music in music education in the capital.

The birth of music criticism in Greece is connected with the creation of the Greek state and the consequent reception of opera in Athens, its capital. In the newly formed Greek society, opera was not only considered as a cultural fact, but also as the principal symbol of the European lifestyle, which stood as a model for the new citizens of the European community. The young Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos, before becoming the principal founder of the Greek nationalist historiography, published a number of music reviews on the opera performances in Athens in 1840, eager to contribute to the musical cultivation of his compatriots. According to his opinion, opera, thanks to its aesthetic quality, but mainly because of its universal influence (which goes beyond nations and classes) was the appropriate means to ‘mould’ the musical taste of the Greek nation. Paparrigopoulos’ insistence on Italian opera as the vehicle which could introduce the Greeks to the musical profile of European civilization is significant for his ideas on the cultural identity of his nation. In these early writings of the future historian we can distinguish the main topics of his later theory.

Nikolaos Halikiopoulos Mantzaros (1795–1872) was a noble from Corfu and is better known today as the composer of the Greek national anthem. However, recent research has proved his importance as a teacher and as one of the most learned composers of his generation, renowned, in Italy and France as well as Greece.

The aim of this article is to present Mantzaros’ developing relationship as dilettante composer to the emerging European nineteenth-century music and aesthetics, as featured through his existing works and writings. In his early works (1815–27) Mantzaros demonstrates a remarkable creative assimilation of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century operatic idioms, whereas his aristocratic social status allowed him an eclectic relationship with music in general. From the late 1820s, Mantzaros also began setting Greek poetry to music, in this way offering a viable solution to the demand for ‘national music’.

From the mid-1830s onwards, Mantzaros’ already existing interest in Romantic idealism was broadened, affecting his work and thoughts. He stopped composing opera-related works and demonstrated a dual attitude towards music. On the one hand he continued composing popular music for the needs of his social circle, but on the other he developed an esoteric creative relationship with music. The latter led him as early as the 1840s to denounce the ‘extremities of Romanticism’ and to seek the musical expression of the sublime through the creative use of ‘the noble art of counterpoint’. This way he attempted to propose a re-evaluation of nineteenth-century trends through an eclectic neoclassicism, without neglecting the importance of subjective inspiration and genius.