Dimitris
Mitropoulos ΔΗΜΗΤΗΣ ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ
Born, Athens, 1896 Died November 1960
The Mitropoulos Enigma Invites Speculation
Section 2, Number 30B
Many excellent musicians are buried in the First Cemetery and quite a number of them have grave markers clearly acknowledging that fact – a favourite motif is one with bars of music. But the stele that marks the grave of Dimitris Mitropoulos is not ornate. On the contrary, it is elegant in its simplicity. On it are written his name and dates; nothing more. Not being well up on my music history, I might have passed by were it not for its location outside of Agios Lazaris church and beside the graves of Ioannis Kolettis and Kitsos Tzavellas, two famous heroes of the Greek revolution. This is distinguished company indeed, but there is more. From his stele I could throw a pebble and reach the monuments of Constantinos Kanaris, Michael Tositsas, Adamantias Korais, Katina Paxinou, Richard Church and even Prince Georgos Karatzas. The man buried in this stellar company was important enough to have had a place created for him in this spot and, as it turned out, justly so, because Dimitiri Mitropoulos was one of the greatest musicians, composers, and orchestra conductors of his era.(1)
His genius was recognized at home and in Europe even before he went to the United States in 1936, but it was there that he achieved his greatest acclaim, first as conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and then as conductor of the New York Philharmonic. He was, by all accounts, kind, generous, and charming. During his career he mentored many young musicians including Leonard Bernstein who would follow him at the Met. He introduced a new style of conducting, leaving the baton aside, and using his body instead to exhort the best performance possible from his musicians. His style was as idiosyncratic as it was successful and audiences loved it for its drama and for the music it brought forth.
When he conducts, he crouches, gesticulates, and grimaces (Life Magazine)
In 1946 Life magazine wrote an adoring article about him – lauding his work and fascinated by a famously ascetic life style punctuated at intervals by an endearing love for B movies, jazz and his Cadillac. His kindness to fellow musicians, his shunning of the limelight except in the concert hall, his photographic memory - even his sayings, were recorded for posterity. A personal favourite of mine is this:
An artist is a lot like a prostitute - you have to make people happy no matter what, before passing the hat.
The public were fascinated by his aura of spirituality which was manifested by a love of religious images, his prayers before concerts, and by his often professed admiration for Saint Francis of Assisi. During that decade, and most of the next, he was lionized by the public and praised for his original interpretations, his ability to draw out the best in his musicians, and his effort to introduce a more modern repertoire in the orchestras he led.
The maestro at work
Mitropoulos often described himself as a missionary of music. He travelled a great deal, bringing the best of classical music to Europe and all across America, introducing less often heard twentieth century composers such as his favourite Gustav Mahler, to a wider audience. He did not shun Greek music but he did not highlight it either. Unlike many Greek contemporary musicians, he was not at all interested in promoting any kind of ‘national’ music, just what he considered to be the best music.
It would be fair to say that he contributed to his own myth in the interviews he gave. Still, there were aspects of his life that he chose not to share. His homosexuality may have been common knowledge in his own milieu but this was not an era when that aspect of his life would have been either understood or appreciated. That this sometimes caused him difficulty can be inferred by his advice to Leonard Bernstein to marry because being married would make his professional life easier. As a famous ‘lonely wolf’ (his description), he was often asked by interviewers why he remained single and his response was that music was his life partner and that having come from a very religious family (many of whom had become monks or priests) he felt most comfortable leading a monastic life in the real world.
From art.com
With someone like Mitropoulos, seeing is believing and that is why I have recommended a youtube video at the end of this entry. He was and is simply mesmerizing.
His Life
Dimitris was born to a family with roots in a small town in Arcadia. His father, Ioannis, owned a leather goods store on Agiou Markou Street between Kolokotronis and Evripidou Streets in central Athens. According to his son, he was not a very successful businessman. Mitropoulos would muse that his love of music seemed to have sprung pretty much out of nowhere in a family that had mainly distinguished itself by serving the Greek Orthodox church as clerics. His mother was apparently both open minded and ambitious for her son. It is to her influence that he attributed much of his early success.
Mitropoulos with his mother
He received a good education at the famous Varvakeion School in Athens, but academia was not his metier. He was a mediocre student, achieving a grade average of 5.5 out of ten, a number that would have had any Greek parent very concerned. His talent lay elsewhere and was already manifesting itself during those years. He would host musical gatherings at his home on weekends and was already composing. Some of these early works have been lost, but others are still played today.
His studies at the Athens Conservatory, starting in 1910, were far more successful than his high school years. He received the first (and rarely given ever after) gold medal for his expertise on the piano, and on April 29, 1915 was given a chance to conduct the Conservatory’s Orchestra.
The Conservatory on Piraeus Street
Before he graduated in 1919, he would sometimes accompany a talented young vocal student named Katina Paxinou. Even before graduation he had begun to compose the score for Soeur Beatrice, a religious opera based on a play by Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck in which the Virgin Mary takes on the role of a humble nun. It was a popular play at the time. Immediately after leaving school, he and Katina worked together to produce the opera in its entirety in Athens on May 11, 1920.
Katina as Beatrice. She would have
been 20 and Mitropoulos just 24
French composer Camille Saint-Saens was in the audience one evening and knew talent when he saw it. He reviewed the production favourably, an accolade that helped launch Dimitri towards Brussels and further studies.
It is interesting that these two future super stars started out together and that each would abandon their first career choice. As time passed, he would abandon the piano and she would give up singing for the theatre and cinema. They remained good friends. (2) Seventeen years later, in 1937, she would star as Phaedra Euripides’ Hippolytos at the Herodion in Athens and Mitropoulos would compose the music.
Mitropoulpos on the left and Katina second from the right, dressed as Phaedra.
Reaching the Peak
From 1921 to 1924, Dimitiris assisted Etrich Kleiber at the Berlin State Opera. There he came under the aesthetic influence of composer, pianist, and teacher Ferruccio Busoni. During this period, he worked in Greece as well and returned in 1924 to become the director of the Symphony Orchestra of the Greek Conservatory. From 1925-7 he led the Symphony Orchestra of the Concert Club, and from 1927 to 1937 was again director of the Athens Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. As time passed Mitropoulos began to focus more and more on conducting.
On February 17, 1930 he was to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic but, finding out that his soloist was ill, he played the piano solo himself in Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 while conducting the orchestra from the keyboard. It was a great success and something of a first for a musician to conduct and play at the same time. More performances in centres like Paris, Moscow and Milan followed.
The American Interlude
In 1936, he made his first journey to the United States, making his debut conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was 39 years old. Then, in 1937, upon the invitation of Serge Kousevitski he became the principal conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and remained in that post until 1949. His refusal to use the baton fascinated his audiences as did the fact that he never needed the musical score with him on the podium.
Mitropoulos in 1937 from the Minneapolis archives
He became a US citizen in 1946. Just how comfortable he was in America is hard to say. He once wrote to his long time friend Katy Katsoyianni that he felt that he had perhaps been too old when he moved to America to ever feel entirely at home there. His living arrangements were idiosyncratic. He lived in a college dorm in Minneapolis for many years and became a mentor and friend to many of the students, even composing a boogie woogie piece for them called Beat Me Dimitri. When he did move from the dorm, he chose a hotel setting. ‘Home’ in the traditional sense, did not appeal to him. In fact, he seemed to feel truly ‘home’ only when he was conducting or perhaps when mountain climbing. He was an avid climber all of his life and had been a guide for the Athens Alpine Club in his youth. As with music, there was a mystical element to this choice: when I reach a high place, I am filled with both zest for life and a realization of how near I am to death.
Grand Teton in Wyoming
The Peak
In 1949 Mitropoulos began his association with the New York Philharmonic. He was initially co-conductor with Leopold Stokowski but became conductor and artistic director in 1951 and remained at the Philharmonic until 1957.
A Return of Sorts
After 12 long years in the United States, he and the Philharmonic began to make appearances in Europe, beginning with the Edinburgh Festival in 1951. Wherever they went, critics praised the Orchestra and its conductor. In 1955, after having been absent from Greece for 17 years, he brought his orchestra to the Herodion in Athens. The Festival was, from the outset, conceived as a springboard for introducing the work of major international artists to the Greek audience, an ideal forum of interaction between Greek and world-renowned artists. This would have been a goal dear to his heart. By all accounts their performance was the stand out moment in the Festival’s inaugural year, a performance that would bring other renowned performers to the festival. (3) There is a rare nine minute recording of that important concert (See footnote 3 below)
At the Herodion in 1955
Then, on November 20, 1957, headlines were splashed all over the New York newspapers:
Leonard Bernstein has been named musical director of the New York Philharmonic for the next three years, succeeding Dimitri Mitropoulos.... Mr. Mitropoulos who announced his successor said he was not resigning but "abdicating with joy." 11/20/57-New York:
Publically, at least, it was a friendly transition but many saw it, if not the machinations of an ambitious prince ousting the king, at least as a coup d’état by the Philharmonic’s board of directors who were not comfortable with Mitropoulos’ increasingly forward looking programs and were displeased with his refusal to be led by their preferences. It was also said that he had alienated some members of the orchestra. Whatever the reasons, no one would hear explanations from the Maestro himself. He was famous for refusing confrontation of any kind or any attempt to defend his positions from detractors.
Bernstein had it all: as a performer a composer, a conductor, an author and a lecturer. He was American born, a first for the Philharmonic, and a publicist’s dream complete with an attractive wife and family, an important accessory for public figures in the fifties. (4)
He and Mitropoulos had a lot in common. Both were passionate about introducing modern music but Bernstein was willing to make the programming more eclectic, more in keeping with tastes of a post Korean war era. His West Side Story would capture the imagination of the American public in the 50s. But he too was a great conductor and populariser of the classics. His association with the Philharmonic would last an astounding 47 years.
Just how close he and Mitropoulos had once been is a matter of some speculation. He had met the maestro in 1937 when he was still a sophomore in college and had been overwhelmed by his charisma, talent and style of conducting. Mitropoulos had certainly tried to get him a position with the Minneapolis Orchestra early on but internal rules forbade the position on offer to be given to someone not born in the state. Nonetheless, Bernstein did guest conduct some years later and there is no doubt that, even if the personal relationship had cooled, Bernstein had already absorbed much of the maestro’s flair for innovation and presentation.
The last Years
Mitropoulos did not entirely relinquish his role with the Philharmonic. In January 1960, he guest conducted a performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony which was recorded at the time. He devoted most of his talent to conducting theatrical performances in America with the Metropolitan Opera and with opera companies abroad.
Then, on November 2, 1960, he suffered a fatal heart attack while conducting a rehearsal of Mahler’s Third Symphony at the Scala in Milan.
The Enigma
I am a man who seeks love; and my art is still used for this purpose.
Mitropoulos had once mused that a fitting death for him would be falling down a mountain. Still, dying on the podium while conducting his favourite, Mahler, seems like a finale he also might have also found attractive. If he ever did find the love he sought is a moot point. His inner life, although apparently so well documented, still remains a mystery, perhaps even to himself. He once wrote to his friend George Seferis that he had led his entire life with discipline, doubts, and humility. The word doubt speaks volumes.
He left specific instructions in his will requesting that he be cremated rather than buried in the Orthodox tradition. And, in spite of a 23 year absence from his native land, he wanted to come home to Greece.
His ashes were brought to Athens and immediately taken to the Herodion so political dignitaries and artists could pay their respects before they were taken to the First Cemetery and interred.
His ashes and the ceremony at the Herodion
In life, he had received many honours. The location of his final resting place in the First Cemetery was just the last in a long list. (5) His is not a family grave. He is buried alone. Perhaps that is fitting for a man who was once described as so unique in the musical world that he was, in truth, a pantheon of one.
Section 2, Number 30B
To see him in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl-dSoNHx8Y&ab_channel=MichalisEconomou for nine glorious minutes of his conducting style and prowess in rehearsal and in concert.
Footnotes.
(1) Mitropoulos wrote about 40 works for orchestra, piano, and voice and one opera, Sister Beatrice Ο Δημήτρης Μητρόπο(«Αδελφή Βεατρίκη»). There is more that can be easily found on the internet as can a great deal of his music. It is well worth the search.
(2) (See https://www.dimitrimitropoulos.gr/2010-04-11-08-14-38/-soeur-beatrice-1918.html
(3) For a youtube video of part of that concert, see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvh8mAZGeWA
(4) Bernstein’s wife knew about his homosexuality but felt the marriage could work anyway, It did, for a time...
(5) His Honours: – Academy of Music of the Academy of Athens (1927)- Officer of the Order of the Italian Crown (1931) - Prosecutor Member of the Academy of Athens (1933) - Knight of the Legion of Timis (1935)Honor - Silver Cross of the Order of the Savior - Diploma of the University of Minnesota (1949), Temple LegionaryOfficer (1951)– Doctor of Fine Arts at Syracusse University (1951)– Doctor of Music of the University of Chicago (1951)– Metallion A. (1952)– Philosophy Doctor of Harvard University (1952)Critic– Honorary Diploma of the MusicAssociation of New York (1953)– The Cross of the Taxiers of the Order of the Phoenix (1954)– Doctor of the Music of the University New York (1955)– Metal of the Friends of Music Association, Athens (1955)– Mantua City’s “Golden Orpheus” (1956)– Honorary Diploma of the National Council of Music / UNESCO, USA (1957)– Accademico onorario of the National Academy of Ag. Cecilia of Rome (1958)– Medal of the City of New York (1958)– Honorary Company of the Academy of Athens (1959)
A tree in his honour was planted outside of Carnegie Hall and in 2016 his head appeared on the 2 drachma coin in honour of the 120 years after his death. Even with all that, he is not as well known in Greece as he should be.
Sources
1. www.ellines.com/en/myths/38979-the-legendary-maestro
2. http://notesmuthoikaielpida.blogspot.com/2018/11/blog-post_2.html
4. https://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2018/05/10/the-untold-story-of-bernstein-in-minneapolis
5. http://gayinfluence.blogspot.com/2012/12/dimitri-mitropoulos.html
6. https://www.dimitrimitropoulos.gr/
7. https://oldlifemagazine.com/february-18-1946-life-magazine.html
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