Musical settings of Dionyssios Solomos’s (1798-1857) poetry: Philosophical, aesthetic and ideological considerations on the hermeneutics of his poetry as interpreted in art music of Modern Greece

Abstract

Ionian composers have set to music Dionyssios Solomos’s poetry, contributing thus by means of their art to spreading his work not only in the Ionian islands but also in other parts of Greece. This essay attempts to outline the history of setting to music Dionyssios Solomos’ poetry in the Ionian islands by art music composers, starting with Nikolaos Halikiopoulos Mantzaros (Νικόλαος Χαλικιόπουλος Μάντζαρος), and focusing on Mantzaros’ students (Francesco Domenigini (Φραγκίσκο Δομενεγίνη), Spyridon Xyndas (Σπυρίδωνα Ξύνδα), Rafaelle Parisini (Ραφαήλ Παριζίνι) and Pavlos Carrer (Παύλο Καρρέρ));·at the same time, it questions these developments in relation to a wider cultural frame regarding reception of Solomos’s poetry. Similar questions are formed, subsequently, for twentieth-century composers in an attempt to create a wider spectrum of ideas concerning the ways that music and Solomos’s poetry are united into a whole.