Nikos Skalkottas Archive

Nikos Skalkotas 2

The Nikos Skalkottas Archive began to be created practically immediately after his untimely death in 1949. Thanks to the initiative of his friends and admirers, the “Society of Friends of Skalkottas” was founded with the aim of gathering, preserving and disseminating his work. After the death of Yiannis G. Papaioannou, who was in charge of this entire effort, the archive came into the possession of the Emilios Kourmouzios and Marika Papaioannou Foundation. From June 2018, a new period began in terms of efforts to highlight and promote the work of Nikos Skalkottas, as the complete archive of the leading Greek composer was transferred to the “Lilian Voudouri” Music Library of the Friends of Music Association at the Athens Concert Hall, so that after it has been processed by the expert staff of the Library, it will be made available to researchers.

 

The archive is divided into three categories:

1

The composer’s music archive consists of 85 original compositions in various formats and has been fully digitised. These manuscripts include some of his most famous works such as “36 Greek Dances”, “The Return of Odysseus”, “32 Pieces for Piano” etc. It is also important to emphasise that many of these works include handwritten notes of the composer relating to their performance.

2

The non-musical part of the archive includes the composer’s original correspondence, photographs, programs, texts, etc. This part of the archive includes material from the period when Skalkottas was alive. Although the volume of this material is scarce, the evidence is important and rare. There is, for example, correspondence with Marika Papaioannou during his studies in Berlin, concert programmes with his works, publications in magazines, family and personal photos as well as the first edition of the “Greek Dances” by the French Institute of Athens.

3

The material that started to be collected immediately after his death by the “Society of Friends of Skalkottas”. This includes correspondence with musicians, publishing houses and researchers, concert programmes with the performances of his works, texts of radio broadcasts, publications, arrangements of works, statutes, studies, audio material, etc.