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1936: A mother mourns her son
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Thessaloniki, May of 1936. A mother, in the middle of a street, laments for her dead, killed child. AIl around, demonstrators, tobacco workers on strike, pass by her and over her, like human waves during their powerful protest. She keeps on lamenting.
"I wrote Epitaph, - Yannis Ritsos states some years later (1978) -, at a time when aIl the intellectual movements around the world were creating diversions from tradition... as a fortification of our national, racial identity through purely folklore metres...
.. .For me my senses, my basic auditory perception, come from the people. And this is what came out of me. It is what I sang, danced, and listened to, since I was a child."
The initial form of the poem was printed on the Athenian newspaper RIZOSPASTIS*, on May 12 of 1936, by the title LAMENTATION. Its' first publication on a book volume followed, by the title EPITAPHIOS (1936). ln 1956, the second and final publication was presented.
Mikis Theodorakis, who set the poem to music, in Paris on the year 1958, has written about it:
"As we are, more or less, part of EAM** and we belong to the Communist party, and as the elections of 1958 were approaching, we decided to celebrate them in advance, in our own homes It was like as if we had a presentiment about the 28% that EDA**" was going to receive in votes.
Il was during those days, that I started receiving from Yannis Ritsos, one after another, the books he began republishing upon his retum from exile. I remember his dedication to me, on the volume of EPITAPHIOS: "This book was bumt by Metaxas"****, in 1938, under the columns of Zeus the OIympian" *****...
Il was raining outside and I stayed in the car. By coincidence, I had taken the copy of EPITAPHIOS with me and, while I was browsing through the pages, I felt a deep, strong desire to set the poem to music.
... When I retumed home, I wrote down some of the songs and I rehearsed them on the piano. I wanted to sing them that night to our group of friends, mainly to see their reactions. And so il happened...
... I made three copies of EPITAPHIOS and mailed them to Yannis Ritsos, Vyron Sarnios and Manos Chatzidakis.
In a short while spring was about to come which is the most beautiful season in Paris."
Passages from the book POETRY SET TO MUSIC by Mikis Theodorakis
Notes
* The newspaper of the Greek Communist Party
** Greek initiaIs for National Liberation Front, a group created during the Second World War by Communists, to fight against the Germans "
*** Greek initials for the Communist Party, at the time
**** Dictator, Prime Minister of Greece before and during the Second World War
***** ancient monument in the centre of Athens
cf: CD Nena Venetsanou sings Mikis Theodorakis
EPITAPHIOS, AST 112
Composed: 1.5.-11.5.1958 in Paris
Parts:
1. Where did my boy fly away (Pou petaxe t'agori mou)
2. Your sweetly scented lips (Chili pou moschomyristo)
3. On a day in May you left me (Mera Mayiou mou misepses)
4. My star you've set (Vassilepses asteri mou)
5. You were kind and sweet of temper (issoun kalos issoun glykos)
6. Whenever you stood near the window (sto parathyri stekossoun)
7. If only i had the immortals' potion (T'athanato nero)
8. My sweet lad you have not been lost (Glyke mou essy den chathikes)
Creation: 5.10.1960 in Eleusina
Grigoris Bithikotsis,First popular Orchestra of Mikis Theodorakis, with Yannis Didilis, piano, Kostas Papadopoulos and Lakis Karnezis, bouzoukis, P. Petsas, guitar, Vassilis Papangelidis, bass, dir.: Mikis Theodorakis
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