The contemporary cultural environment of Greece has very often shown its aversion to culture in its true sense. An almost permanent glorification of the mediocre and the pretentious, which devalues the significant and exalts the insignificant. Greek art music could not but be a victim of this devaluation. By extension, victims are all those people who have produced and continue to produce work. Composers such as Levidis, Nezeritis, Kazasoglou, and many others do not enjoy the posthumous recognition they deserve and are entitled to based on their work. It is the author’s firm opinion that Greek music deserves to be noticed and promoted as much as possible.
In this article, we will focus on the personality and work of Georgios Kazasoglou, a composer and music teacher whose compositional style belongs to the broader field of the national music school. Indeed, as he himself states: “every worthy intellectual cannot but have placed himself within the framework of his national region, and through that, within the whole of global life. The more substantial and spontaneous this spiritual positioning becomes, with elements of awareness of his obligations to his nation, the more the intellectual, subconsciously, becomes the bearer of his homeland’s culture, wherever he may be… Only in this way can I feel that work which has a homeland is universal” (this text is found in the volume accompanying the composer’s first album of chamber music, published by JMK media-solutions). Kazasoglou’s artistic credo leaves no room for doubt about the existence of a national element in his music, but at the same time integrates Hellenism into the international artistic firmament as a self-existent style.
Kazasoglou was born in Athens in 1908. He received his first music lessons in 1918 when he was in Edessa, where his family had moved in 1915. After his return to Athens in 1920, he continued his studies at various conservatories. Alongside his music studies, he enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Athens. His teachers included some of the most important Greek musicians such as Varvoglis, Kalomiris, and Lavrangas. After graduating from the conservatory, he enrolled at Panteion University, where he attended courses in the Department of Political Sciences. As musicologist Valia Vraka states in her article The unknown composer Georgios Kazasoglou: “[Kazasoglou] left to study abroad, specifically in Paris, where he took composition lessons with Arthur Honegger and orchestral conducting with Andre Jolivet, and in Frankfurt, where for a short period he studied contemporary music and opera conducting with Professor F. Kruse.”
In 1933, he was appointed to secondary education, having already begun his compositional activity. With Greece’s entry into World War II, Kazasoglou was conscripted and left for the front. Upon his return, he composed one of his most famous works, the Four Preludes of the Return from the Front, while also writing several works for voice. Regarding the Four Preludes, it is important to note that the work was first performed in the midst of the Occupation, with its final part absent, which the occupation authorities demanded not be presented because it contained the melody of the National Anthem. This work is also part of the by no means negligible list of works written on the occasion of Greece’s participation in World War II alongside the Allies. Incidentally, it would be good to have a comprehensive review of the works written on the occasion of this war at some point.
After the war, the composer continued to write music, while his interest in Ancient Greece grew day by day. Kazasoglou had already composed the Archaic Triptych, and he was also given the opportunity to compose music for the tragedies Orestes, Ajax, and Andromache. His work, the Olympic Hymn, set to lyrics by Kostis Palamas, which he composed in 1946, should also be considered significant.
Later, Kazasoglou also ventured into composing music for cinema, scoring films such as Black Earth, Dangerous Mission, and others. In 1961, he composed another work belonging to the National School, titled The Last Night of Byzantium, which thematically “accompanies” one of Manolis Kalomiris’s most important works, Constantine Palaiologos, which Kalomiris also completed in 1961.
The composer was a fervent supporter of introducing musical instruments into the Orthodox Church, an effort that ultimately did not succeed. Kazasoglou sought and achieved a meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Damaskinos in 1952, and although the Patriarch viewed his reasoning with sympathy, he ultimately failed to achieve his goal. However, this idea never left him, and he continued to strive for it in the remaining years of his life.
During the 1970s and until the end of his life, Kazasoglou was honored with various awards. However, he considered the award of the Golden Cross by the state to be the most significant, while he was also honored with the Golden Medal of the city of Nea Smyrni, an area where he resided for many years.
Kazasoglou died in 1984, and the Municipality of Nea Smyrni honored him once again by providing a specially arranged space in the area’s cemetery for one of its most important citizens to be buried.
The composer’s work might have fallen into oblivion, as happens with other highly esteemed Greek composers, had it not been for his grandson and son, who have meticulously undertaken the preservation of his work. Through their own efforts and continuous endeavors, all of the composer’s works are gradually being published, and two CDs of Kazasoglou’s chamber music have already been released, offering a small sample of the composer’s capabilities.
In conclusion, Kazasoglou was a lover of the Greek spirit and a tireless worker for modern Greek art. With a substantial catalog of works and a sound quality that many composers would envy, he deserves to be heard much more than he is today. Twenty-two years have passed since his death, but his musical contribution has not been appreciated accordingly, so it is up to the younger generations to listen, judge, and ultimately reward the quality of Kazasoglou’s music.
