by Myrto Economides
The
Symphonic poem Minas The Rebel was
brought to completion on 16 September 1940, as one can see on the last page of
the hand-written full score which is kept in Kalomiris’ house in Faliron.
There is one more hand-written full score which only mentions the year 1940.
The piece is based on Kostis Bastias title-novel, which was
brought out in the late 1930s. It met with great enthusiasm by both the critics
and the public; in 1940, Bastias was awarded the Stefanos Mavrogenis’ literary prize by the Academy of Athens.
Kalomiris
expressed his heart-felt admiration for the author and the work in a book review
which was published in the newspaper The
National, on 14 March 1939. Deep in his soul, the great excitement that the
book caused to him, was automatically transformed into music. To mention only a
few of his words in that review, “…my soul is still filled with the complex,
multicoloured sounds of this unique sea symphony, those sounds which moved my
soul with all the fierceness and music of the blue Aegean sea”.
The
work was first performed in the National Theatre of Athens on 18 October 1940,
which is only 10 days before the outbreak of the Greek-Italian war. The Athens
Conservatory Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Leonidas Zoras. Kalomiris
mentions the date and performers of that concert in his hand-written full score,
noting that the performance was excellent as a whole.
Born in Siros, Minas The Rebel, an inexperienced 17 year-old boy, seeking
vengeance upon the corsair Giakoumis having taken his sisters, goes to sea on a
pirate ship. He becomes captain of the ship with the help of Styliani, a woman
taken captive by the previous captain, and marries her when the revolt ends.
With time, he becomes the terror of the Aegean sea. A West European admiral,
defeated by Minas, takes Styliani and her child in order to give them over to
Sultan’s harem. Minas beats the French ships only to find his child dead and
his wife breathing her last. In a fit of rage against God, he sets out to loot
the Mount Athos. On reaching the first monastery though, and on hearing the
abbot and monks praying, he suddenly loses his sight and has a vision of his
wife sitting beside the abbot with her child in her arms. Shattered by this
vision, he repents of his sins, finds peace and joins the monks.