Georgios Lambelet

Georgios Lambelet ( Greek Γεώργιος Λαμπελέτ , born December 24, 1875 in Corfu ; † October 31, 1945 in Athens ) was a Greek composer and music writer. He is considered one of the fathers of the modern Greek National School .

Lambelet came from a family of musicians of Swiss origin. The Geneva- born grandfather Evtychios Lambelet settled in Corfu after a career in Italy as a pianist after concerts as the piano accompanist of Maria Malibran . His father Edouardos Lambelet (1820–1903) was a composer and student of Nikolaos Mantzaros , the older brother Napoleon (1964–1932) worked in England as an operetta composer, the other siblings were all important musicians.

He received his first piano lessons from his mother, his father taught him music theory and harmony. First he enrolled at the Athens University to study law, but then decided to study composition at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Naples , where he stayed from 1895 to 1901. Soon after his return, Lambelet moved to Athens and published an essay there in November 1901 with the title Ethniki mousiki ( Ἐθνικὴ μουσική "National Music") in the magazine Panathinea (Παναθήναια), in which he advocated national music based on folk music and seal pleaded:

Ἡ δημοτικὴ ποίησις καὶ ἡ δημοτικὴ μουσικὴ εἶναι ὅ, τι ἁγνότερον, ὡραιότερον, πρωτοτυπώτερον καὶ αληθέστερον ἔχει νὰ επιδείξῃ ἡ νεωτέρα Ἑλλάς. Εἰς αὐτὴν ἀντανακλᾶται ὅλη ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ Ἑλληνισμοῦ.

“Folk poetry and folk music are the purest, most beautiful, most original and most truthful that new Greece has to offer. In them the whole soul of Greece is reflected. "

Lambelet initially taught at various conservatories in Piraeus , eventually (until 1926) as the first music teacher at the Varvakio High School in Athens , but also worked as a tutor for the Athenian aristocracy. As a critic and music writer, he published among others in his own journal kritiki in which Mousiki Efimerída his brother (under the pseudonym Tzortzis Τζώρτζης), after he was editor of the magazine Mousiká Chronicles (1928-31) and author of the lexicon Engyklopediakó Lexico Eleftheroudáki ( 1927-31). He also wrote several studies, including reflections on the relationship between music and poetry, national aspects of music and the Greek folk song. He also translated some opera libretti into Greek, including La martire by Spyros Samaras .

Much of Lambelet's work is lost. In addition to a symphonic poem I giorti (Η Γιορτή “The Village Festival”, composed between 1903 and 1907, premiered in Athens 1977) and a few smaller orchestral and piano compositions, there are exclusively choral works, songs and folk song arrangements from the period 1900 to 1920. Leotsakos puts the song composer Lambelet in a historical line between the compositions of Samaras 'and Riadis' with mostly folk music-inspired songs based on the Greek language with harmonically simple, suggestive piano accompaniment . As a writer, he was the only opposition to Georgios Nazos and Manolis Kalomiris , who rejected the Italian influence on Greek art music and dominated the Athens Conservatory and thus Greek music education.

literature

• Giorgos Leotsakos : Georgios Lambelet , in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3
• Takis Kalogeropoulos: Georgios Lambelet , in: Lexiko tis Ellinikis mousikis , Athens 1998–99 ( online at wiki.musicportal.gr)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ quoted from Kalogeropoulos (see lit.)