The event held at the Academy of Athens on April 2, 2026, in the early afternoon, was dedicated to the recent discographic releases of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Athens, and was co-organized by the two institutions. Presented were the 3-CD package with Dionysios Lavrangas’s Dido – the first time a Greek opera has been recorded by a Greek orchestra! – and a selection of symphonic and other works by the same composer, as well as the single CD Symphonic Works by Yiannis A. Papaioannou, both from Melism Records.

The multi-faceted and interesting event illuminated in an exemplary manner how a rare, almost forgotten work from the repertoire progresses from manuscript to the realization of a functional score and finally to a recording, making it accessible to both specialists and the wider public. The event, held in the magnificent Eastern Hall of the Sinaean Mansion, was attended by members of the Academy of Athens and representatives of the music world and the media.

In his welcoming address, the Vice President of the Academy of Athens, Professor Athanasios Fokas, a multi-awarded mathematician known to the general public for his book Paths of Understanding, praised the importance of music for human cognition and the pioneering work of the orchestra. A Kefalonian himself, like Lavrangas, he also shared his personal experience, recalling his father singing Spyros Samaras’s Oath and Dionysios Lavrangas’s Psaropoula from his childhood – without, of course, then associating them with the history of art music in Greece, but experiencing them as a living tradition, which is now reconnected with its historical dimension as conscious knowledge.

Professor Nikos Maliaras first referred to Lavrangas as a composer and institutional pioneer, founder of the Greek Melodrama (the organization from which the Greek National Opera evolved). The president of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Athens emphasized that Lavrangas’s effort to establish the Greek Melodrama was a private initiative to meet a need in Greek musical life, just as today, for the past ten years, the also private Philharmonia Orchestra of Athens strives to introduce Greek art music to the world.

Even today, only a small part of the public is aware of our musical heritage, the speaker pointed out. So far, the Philharmonia has performed over 200 Greek works, of which about one hundred have been uploaded to our YouTube channel, and we have already released 12 CDs, while we have recorded material for another 5. These are significant recordings ready for release, as soon as the necessary funding is secured.

However, before reaching the recording stage, extensive scientific and artistic work precedes. Scores were studied, errors corrected, and new material created: scores, parts, and vocal scores (* in symphonic music and opera, a part is the score for each individual instrument of the orchestra used by the musician during the performance of the work, a vocal score is the score for voice and piano of an opera or other vocal work, with which singers practically work, while the full score with all instruments and voices is used by the conductor during performance, and consulted by researchers and students who wish to understand a musical piece).

The practical material produced is housed in the archive of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Athens, and publishing activities will soon begin, so that the works can become accessible to musicians who wish to perform them. Greek classical music hides masterpieces, Nikos Maliaras emphasized, but also works perhaps less significant, which, however, must also be heard for the public to form an opinion. Finally, he stressed that peripheral countries have a greater duty to strengthen efforts for the dissemination of their musical production internationally. The speaker did not fail to thank the Research and Documentation Center of the Athens Conservatoire for their cooperation in the revival of the work.

The conductor Byron Fidetzis, who followed, has for decades identified his name with the search and promotion of forgotten or even lost works of Greek musical creation – “if he hadn’t existed, a part of Greek musical heritage would have been lost,” Athanasios Fokas had already noted in his welcome, and it is well known that there is no exaggeration in this. The artistic director of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Athens spoke with his characteristic passion, briefly reviewing his long personal journey of contribution to Greek opera (having conducted 24, recorded 12, and orchestrated 5 operas, which he musically edited, comparing manuscripts, and music-technically, by adding bowings, defining dynamics, etc.) reaching back to his own life and musical beginnings in post-war Thessaloniki.

Recalling his personal memory, he mentioned that there were very few instances where complete works of Greek opera, or even excerpts, were performed in his hometown during the first 20 years of his life. As he said: “the musical world had knowledge of some isolated Greek melodramatic works, but not a conscious awareness of the existence of a timeless national corpus of opera with evolving style and aesthetic values.” The broader societal awareness of Greek opera, founded on the publicly accessible existence of musical texts, their theatrical realization, and the frequency of their exposure and evaluation, was entirely absent.

Occasional performances like Pavlos Carrer’s Markos Botsaris in the interwar period did not fill the void, nor did music histories, usually translations of international manuals with an appendix by the translator for Greece, in which the author merely mentioned the existence of composers and works, often confusedly. It was the realization of this gap that led him to search for Greek music, starting with Lavrangas, whom he knew as a musician because in the 1950s the Greek Suite, and especially its third movement, the Village Dance, was part of the repertoire of the then Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra, and he himself had the opportunity to conduct it in the following decade at the beginning of his conducting career. In the 1980s, he met Lavrangas’s daughter Dido, Lavrangas’s collaborator, conductor Totis Karalivanos, and the composer’s first biographer Giorgos Raftopoulos, starting with them the gradual revival of works, until the first presentation of the opera Froso, at the 6th Greek Music Festivals in 2010.

He concluded by referring to the challenges posed specifically by the score of Dido and the choices he was led to by comparing the musical material, thanking all collaborators, especially the copyist Ms. Louisa Antypa, and especially the Vice President of the Academy of Athens, Professor Athanasios Fokas, for his help in realizing the recording. Referring to Yiannis Papaioannou’s symphonic work, he said that Vasilis Arvanitis (one of the works in the recording) could be described as a Greek Scheherazade.

Stella Kourbana, Curator of the Research and Documentation Center of the Athens Conservatoire (KETOA), characterized the activities of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Athens as a national endeavor. KETOA is connected in a dual way with the two recent recordings. Lavrangas’s granddaughter, Froso Bekatorou (let us note for anyone who hasn’t already noticed that the composer’s daughter and granddaughter were named after the leading female figures of his melodramas) entrusted the composer’s archive to KETOA, a process that had begun during the time of its founder, composer and historian of Greek music Haris Xanthoudakis, who was a student of Yiannis A. Papaioannou. As also evident from the surviving archives at KETOA, Lavrangas taught at the Conservatoire, for which he also wrote educational manuals, and it was there that his works, such as the famous Greek Suite, a foundational work of the Greek national school, were first performed in 1905.

It is important for archives to be housed in an institution that can make them accessible to the public, as well as to researchers, the speaker emphasized, as a basis for their further utilization, which also requires significant work. The wealth of works in the archives is unimaginable, she added, but if they are not published, there is no way for them to be performed and become known, as is now happening with Dido. Regarding the work, she pointed out that Polyvios Dimitrakopoulos’s libretto and Lavrangas’s scenic and musical demands stylistically approach it as a Greek analogue of French Grand Opera. She concluded by mentioning that there is a Lavrangas Avenue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, because the city authorities wanted to honor composers from all over the world, and she rhetorically asked the question, where is the corresponding Lavrangas Avenue in Athens?

The contribution of the music producer to the artistic outcome of a recording was the topic of Nikolaos Samaltanos’s speech. Referring to the role of the producer in the golden age of discography (1950-1970), he reminded that recording is not a technical but an artistic activity, resulting from the collaboration of performer and producer. The examples of Walter Legge and André Charvin remain significant.

The challenge becomes greater for a work that has not been previously presented to the public, or at least has not been previously performed by the artist. This necessarily happens in the case of rare works. “But how can the recording of an unknown work remain timeless?” he asked, and I believe we can all recall initial recordings that today are politely described as merely “historical,” as the interpretive tradition of the work began to be built afterwards. There, the speaker explained, performers must simultaneously remain absolutely faithful to the letter of the work, but also imagine how the interpretation of the work could have evolved over time.

His experience with such cases began as a pianist when he recorded Dimitris Mitropoulos’s 16 Inventions for voice and piano with Angeliki Kathariou, as well as Nikos Skalkottas’s 32 works for piano – after 10 years of preparation! – for the then BIS, in a world premiere recording, where to ensure the best result he took on a dual role, performer and producer. This is what led him to this new activity. He eventually founded his own label, Melism, to fulfill this artistic ideal according to his own high standards.

The last speaker was Stavros Beris, director of the Athens Municipality Choir, which participated with the Philharmonia Orchestra of Athens in the recording of Dido. Giving a very brief overview of the Greek works the choir has performed, especially at the Olympia Municipal Music Theatre Maria Callas, he concluded with the proposal that one Greek opera work be staged in a full theatrical production each year.

Summarizing the event, the coordinator, music critic and journalist Dimitris Kiousopoulos, pointed out that the speeches highlighted the many and diverse actions required to make a recording or present an unknown work. Specifically, Byron Fidetzis’s speech reminded us of a not-too-distant era, during which the names of the composers who formed the corpus of national opera were indeed footnotes in music histories, and anyone who wanted to listen found only scattered fragments from recordings or commemorative events.

Today, thanks to the tireless efforts of many people, some of whom were the speakers at the event, these works are much more accessible and are gradually becoming the property of a wider audience. The next step to be achieved is for them to become the property not only of the Greek but also of the international audience, that is, to be integrated into what we call the international repertoire.

The conference concluded musically with the participation of soprano Sofia Kyanidou (Dido) and tenor Philippos Modinos (Aeneas), who, accompanied by Dimitris Giakas on piano, performed excerpts from the opera Dido. Specifically, we heard Dido’s Monologue from Act IV, Aeneas’s Monologue from Act I, and the Duet of Aeneas and Dido. Their performances brought Lavrangas’s demanding score to life with absolute knowledge and expression, as both lyrical artists performed these roles in the recording, while Dimitris Giakas was responsible for the overall musical preparation of the singers.

The event concluded with a glass of wine, sponsored by Gentilini Winery & Vineyards from Kefalonia, the homeland of Dionysios Lavrangas.