NIKOS XYDAKIS - DIONYSIOS SOLOMOS "TO MR. GEORGIOS DE ROSSI"

From 22.04.2026 to 22.04.2026

On Wednesday, 22 April, at 19:30, the National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum will host composer Nikos Xydakis at its Corfu Annex, where he will present the musical performance DIONYSIOS SOLOMOS “TO MR. GEORGIOS DE ROSSI”. This musical-poetic work is composed and performed by the artist himself. He will be accompanied by Alexandros Kapsokavadis (guitar, lafta, vocals), Efi Zaitidou (kanun), Despoina Spanou (cello, vocals), Fotis Mylonas (flute, vocals), and Yannis Koutagiar (double bass).

The performance will take place on Wednesday, 22 April, 2026, at 19:30 in the exhibition space of the National Gallery’s Corfu Annex, serving as the capstone event of the public programme held as part of the exhibition Painting in the Ionian Islands: 18th–19th century that was organized in collaboration with the Ionian University.

From his earliest Arcadian explorations to the fiery verses of revolutionary romanticism, the poetry of Dionysios Solomos has inspired Nikos Xydakis, giving rise to a unique melodic interpretation rich in aesthetic insight, rhythmic tension, and inner resonance.

The exhibition presents significant works, ranging from Panagiotis Doxaras to Pavlos Prosalentis, so one might say that Solomos’s presence is palpable among the displayed exhibits. He is introduced to us through a portrait of him as an infant, painted by Nikolaos Koutouzis. Nearby, visitors can see the portrait of his fellow Zakynthian and contemporary, Elizabeth Moutzan-Martinegou, a champion of women’s rights to education and freedom of expression. We think of him, too, as we encounter the portrait of Eugenios Voulgaris, a scholar predating Solomos, who as early as 1772 defended the ideals of the European Enlightenment and wrote passionately about homeland, liberty, and language – all concepts inseparable from Solomos’s own work. We find ourselves murmuring verses from The Free Besieged and the Hymn to Liberty as we stand before works devoted to the Greek War of Independence.

In the manuscript titled Thoughts on Count Solomos (Zakynthos, 1848), penned by Greece’s national composer Nikolaos Chalikiopoulos Mantzaros, the musician writes of his poet friend: “He owed the quality of his voice to the strength of his vocal powers: it was harmonious, supple, and expressive, capable of stirring inspiration in him and of conveying the resonance of his verse. As a result, he instinctively composed much of his poetry in song, improvising melodies that gave full voice to the poetic vision of a deeply musical spirit.”

The performance at the National Gallery – Corfu Annex sheds light on this profound relationship between music and Solomos. As Nikos Xydakis notes:

“These sketches and songs were written many years ago. Though initially intended for private use, they were eventually recorded in 1990 under the title To Mr. Georgios De Rossi. They became a kind of journal: a personal, solitary, melodic reading of Dionysios Solomos’s poetry, from his early poems to excerpts from the Hymn to Liberty and fragments of The Free Besieged.

“This journal,” he notes, “was a first impression born of this musical reading — perhaps somewhat arbitrarily, yet unmistakably from the musician’s point of view. Whether Dionysios Solomos writes of the death of a child in Psychoula, of Lord Byron, of Eurykomi, of To a Dying Friend, of The Free Besieged, The Cretan, or the Hymn to Liberty, he is always deeply moved — neither mournful nor heroic.

“Over time, new fragments and excerpts were added to the work, drawn mainly from the Sketches for The Free Besieged, The Cretan, and the Hymn to Liberty.

“And as a litany begins to take shape, an endless psalmody, a procession for absent loved ones — almost a sacred love song — another song rises, erotic and filled with death… Like a brass band at the end of a procession, its musicians gradually dispersing, it ends in the same way — like Solomos’s fragments. Amid the ruins of the text and its poetic fragments, traces of psalmody and new instrumental interludes form a musical vigil.

“I believe this profound song survives in Solomos, this breaking voice… and in the end his poetry itself scatters into fragments. This is a musical reading made of notes, sounds, and dreams – dreams so frequent in Solomos’s work, suspended between sleep and waking. And with them comes, almost always, the evocative presence of Solomos himself, in the image we know from painted portraits: black-clad, almost clerical, high-browed, flame-haired, his gaze half sorrowful, half contemplative… ‘A faint and distant light in a vast and desolate darkness…’”

Credits

Musical Direction: ALEXANDROS KAPSOKAVADIS
Production Management: Artway – Technotropon Cultural Productions
Photography: George Spanos

Date: Wednesday 22 April
Time: 19:30
Venue: National Gallery, Corfu Annex, Castellino Building, Kato Korakiana
Contact numbers: 26610 93333 / 26610 80233
Information: Marina Papassotiriou