Writing something about Manos Hadjidaki is like trying to fit all the world’s seas into a small bottle. It was once said of Klaus Nomi, the German singer who died of AIDS in the early 80s, that “he was from another world, not this one.”
I think the same gauntlet fits the case with Manas Hadjidakis. I am writing these lines and the speakers are playing “night walk” from the album “Fifteen Vespers” and I can’t help but wonder how great an artist you were that in less than three minutes your notes overflowed and filled us with all this feeling of sadness, melancholy, anticipation? How did you achieve that bittersweet taste that makes your body tremble when you taste it and brings tears to your eyes?
Hadjidaki’s music gives birth to ideas, images, emotions, it overwhelms from the first to the last second. Now playing on the speakers “Waltz of Lost Dreams”, a bombastic title with such a simple yet so intoxicating melody. How much beauty and how much bitterness can the creator hide in himself? How many tests does he have to go through until the note written on paper, timidly heard for the first time on the piano, becomes a whole, wonderful world?
I remember myself a few years ago, in the yard of St. Olga’s hospital. My mother was dying of cancer and those hours of waiting for it to be over were the worst I have ever experienced in my life. My company then consisted of songs and music of Manos. And no matter how many are offered, I remember myself to remain steadfast, not to shed a single tear from the impending losses.
It cooled after two months. I remember, quite unconsciously, at some point I put it on “When the clouds come.” Raised and raised, just like the mother who was not there.
In Hadidaka’s work, mainly orchestral pieces, you will also hear Rota, Morricone and Legrand, the sound signatures of all these great composers of his generation. At the same time, you will see Manos in their own works. One cut and the other sewed, and we listen.
I really can’t imagine what kind of career he would have had in another country. Let’s not forget that we are talking about a man, an artist, who refused to accept an Oscar “Children of Piraeus”, while others in his place would turn over for such an honor. Perhaps, then again, this place made it big. With his sadness and love, with his history and temperament, with tears and joy, with his lightness and sadness.
The Greece of Manos is the one we all wish we could live in. Hiding in his scores, blooming in his melodies, dances at eleven eight and improvises for his present and future which wanders as Antenna on the road of your dreams.