Giannis Marinos Hall, The Friends of Music Society, Athens 5th September 2023
Paris Konstantinidis,
Our Livaneli and the Revolution of Reconciliation
“People believe in songs. Because songs never let them down. Politicians, military and businessmen have lied to people. But songs have never lied.”
With these verses, Livaneli defended the Truth of the song, attributing to music-with- lyrics a political function that simultaneously transcended politics. However, this beyond politics-political function of art is not so new. The realization of Truth beyond mundane experience; the transcendence of the world as it is – weren’t these anticipated by absolute music, music-without-lyrics, during the Romantic period?
The above-mentioned verses were written in the program of a series of concerts that focused precisely on that: transcending the world as it was, transcending political reality. These were the joint concerts of Theodorakis-Livaneli in 1997, which aimed at promoting Greek-Turkish friendship in the aftermath of the Imia crisis. The concerts, naturally, did not function beyond politics through the indirect means of autonomous art, but rather directly, as a result of politics itself. Yet, this was a politics not mobilized by third parties for a purpose, but emanating from the artists themselves, in a way similar to Emile Zola’s, that is, as an intervention from the field of art, with its universal values, into the field of politics.
In this sense, it is not paradoxical that both Livaneli and Theodorakis originated from the field of autonomous art: Livaneli wanted to become a writer and Theodorakis a composer of European art music. Both of them temporarily neglected their initial goals when they felt the need to intervene in the field of politics (also) through song writing. After all, both of them had suffered political persecution and ended up facing imprisonment and/or exile. Both of them responded to the dreadful events of their time by moving from the abstract universality of autonomous art to song as an expression of the collective-self.
We shall therefore see, in parallel, certain aspects of the musical history of the two friends, Zulfü and Mikis. We will see them in parallel because in that way, we will be able to better understand each one individually. We will also be able to reflect on our own cultural history from a new, refreshed perspective. At the same time, we will be able to open a new door of familiarity with the musical culture of Turkey.
So, when Livaneli was imprisoned for political reasons in 1971-1972, he listened on a small radio to the music of Theodorakis, who was twenty years older than him, and that gave him courage. When he was released from prison, he wanted to do something similar with Turkish music.
Theodorakis set music to the works of significant Greek poets, such as Odysseas Elytis, Giorgos Seferis, but primarily, Yiannis Ritsos, who had been in exile. Through his songs, Theodorakis also gave voice to the struggles against dictatorship. In 1973, Livaneli, a political refugee in Sweden, released the “Turkish Revolutionary Songs”, which soon began to be sung by dissidents in Turkey. In 1975, he released an album featuring the poetry of the great poet, Nazım Hikmet, who had already died exiled from his own country. The work of Hikmet was initially banned in Turkey and later considered taboo. Setting Hikmet’s poetry to music was therefore a daring endeavour that was ultimately met with success.
A daring endeavour was, also, of course, the musical adaptation of poetry with bouzouki in rebetiko style, which Theodorakis had ventured into. One of the issues that arised, subsequently, was the incompatibility of rebetiko with the official perception of Greek identity. Rebetiko, having its roots in the Greek-speaking version of the popular music of the urban centers of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire, had been accused of being “Turkish”, and thus was considered unsuitable to express the “genuine” Greek, national identity.
The situation was similar in Turkey, which had also initially rejected its multi-ethnic Ottoman past as not genuinely ‘Turkish’. During the early years of the new state, founded by Kemal Atatürk, Ottoman “classical” music was banned from music conservatories and the radio, as it was accused of being a mixture of Byzantine, Arabic and Persian traditions. It had been replaced by European, “classical” music. The same was also true for folk music, with a notable example being that of the gendarmes who were said to have smashed the seven ‘saz’s of the Alevi ashik “Trouvère”, Âşık Veysel.
During Livaneli’s childhood, no one played saz anymore in the cities. Only in folklore radio broadcasts could one hear it, albeit “embellished”, with a sound that left Livaneli coldly indifferent. However, when he heard it from an elderly man in Anatolia, he was moved and wanted to learn to play it himself. Just as Theodorakis based his music on the once-disregarded bouzouki and the nationally “controversial” rebetiko, Livaneli also made the once-overlooked saz and the nationally “controversial” tradition of the ashiks central instruments in his music.
However, neither Theodorakis nor Livaneli limited themselves to imitating the style of music they believed could express the collective – self. Theodorakis indeed drew from the rhythms of rebetiko, but not its folk scales (he engaged with scales after the 1980s). He basically used scales familiar to a European-trained ear, major and minor scales. Livaneli reintroduced one of the “forgotten” tunings of the asiki tradition to the saz. Here, it’s important to bear in mind that this tradition is based on pentatonic scales, rather than maqams. At the same time, he added European harmony to his previously monophonic playing, either with chords or arpeggios. He gradually enriched his orchestration with other Western instruments, making this tradition accessible to younger Turks, as well as western audiences, who had been nurtured on rock music sounds.
Although they sought to express the collective – self through musical genres accessible to broader social strata, they did not embrace all types of popular music as suitable for this purpose. Theodorakis had said that light, pop music makes us forget, while folk music makes us remember. Livaneli distinguishes the popular arabesque music from the “genuine” folk song by saying that the lament of arabesque is of fatalistic self-pity dreaming of vain riches, while the lament of the “genuine” folk song of the Mediterranean peoples reflects the sorrow of a philosopher.
Both having the ideal of European autonomous art as their starting point, they had also adopted the respective dipoles that this value system entailed, such as the dipoles of mind and body, art and entertainment. Theodorakis transferred these values to the art-popular genre he invented. In his popular concerts, for the first time, we witnessed popular music with focus on listening to the music rather than dancing, as in a taverna. While the dances of rebetiko are present in the art-popular genre, one dance is completely absent. It is the most physical and the one most closely associated with cheerful entertainment dance: tsifteteli. As for Livaneli’s music?
In response to my provocative question, he himself answered: “My music is in the field of culture, not entertainment. Of course you can’t dance. Especially belly dancing, unthinkable. […] But just as sirtaki is performed with Mikis music, halay, a folk dance, can be performed with some of my compositions.”
Livaneli, therefore, managed to take a once marginalized and even hunted musical tradition of Turkey and make it express, not just a specific social group, but the collective – self, the Turkish national identity. He managed to bring Nazim Hikmet’s poetry to people who, without his songs, would never have had the opportunity to hear it. Through his music, he managed to become the voice of those who struggled for freedom, human rights and social justice.
In Greece, we first met him through his collaboration with Maria Farantouri and then through his collaboration with Mikis Theodorakis. Their joint performances paved the way for collaborations between other Greek and Turkish artists, something that seemed unthinkable until then. Their joint concerts also showed us that the pursuit of our national identity does not need to equate to the belittlement of another. Faithful to their international ideals, they showed us that despite our individual cultural differences, we can discover what we have in common and ultimately work together!