Ανδρέας Νεζερίτης (1897-1980): η ζωή και το έργο του

Abstract

The present thesis examines the life and the work of the Greek composer Andreas Nezeritis (1897-1980). Nezeritis was born in Patras but moved at the age of 20 years to Athens where he lived the rest of his life. He studied piano, harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatory of Athens and thereafter orchestration and composition with Dionyssios Lavrangas. Nezeritis was a founding member of the Greek Composers Union where he was joined by Manolis Kalomiris and the rest of the other composers of the National Music School having as a common ideal the development of the Greek art Music. Nezeritis was initially influenced by impressionism, and then for a decade (1931-1940) he was a loyal “fellow traveller” to the trend of the Greek National School of Music when he eventually turned into neo-classicism through the application of traditional classical forms (sonata, rondo, scherzo-trio, etc.) mainly to orchestral music but always in the frame of expanded tonality. At the same time, after 1940, his personal harmonic idiom consolidates, as it coexists with characteristics of his premature impressionistic music language (parallel motion of perfect 4ths and 5ths or dissonant harmonic intervals of 2nds and 7ths, mixture of tone and modal writing, the use of whole-tone and pentatonic scale, an overturn of the order of the conventional succession to harmonic functions) and to the “national colour” (folk-like themes, rhythmic dance motives, use of traditional modes etc.). His personal harmonic idiom is also always structured in accordance with classical patterns in terms of macrostructure, as mentioned above, and of microstructure (established thematic structures, contrapuntal processing treated with techniques such as canon, fugato, diminution, augmentation etc). This eclecticism is guided by a personal aesthetic attitude which develops a special musical symbolism, that is evident not only in works combined with poetic text but sometimes also in purely musical ones through the constant matching of musical data and non-musical content. In his latest complete work, Symphony no. 3 (1969) along with some of his posterior unfinished projects, (i.e. Symphony no. 4) it can be distinguished a concluding move to neo-romanticism through the use of free forms that are intended to attribute an emotional expression associated with 19th century Romanticism. In this thesis a detailed biography of the composer is initially recorded, based on information obtained from studying his personal archive and other material collected from every possible source. Besides, a composer’s works thematic catalogue in chronological order is edited presenting, for the first time, the inclusive series of his works (complete and incomplete), in combination with the most useful information regarding them (date, duration, first performance, etc.) Indeed, a special effort has been made in order to present the exact form of the starting extract (incipit) of each work. In addition, all the information that is collected and related to the following performances of the compositions is also recorded because it is an important indicator of the historical realities in relation to the progress of every individual creation. After that, a classification of every piece of Nezeritis’s work has been prepared, according to the compositional types, followed by a study in each category by the means of general analytical observations and through methodical analysis of at least one exemplary work of each category. The outcome of this study is the evolution of Nezeritis’s music language and the main characteristics of his personal idiom. Finally, there was an attempt to correlate Nezeritis, as a person and as a composer, to the standards of his era. An effort has been made to discover the interactions through the succession to socio-historic and artistic events, both in Greece and the global community that were vital for him, through time, to optimize and crystallise his hallmarks both as a human being and a musician. Primary emphasis was given to the cycle of birth and growth of the Hellenic National Music School and the compositional eclecticism as a general phenomenon that exists worldwide during the 20th century. Through this final chapter, it is demonstrated Nezeritis’s intense interest in the evolution of the Greek classical music along with his strong will to fight against the lack of interest of the Greek state.