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Nikos Skalkottas
March 21, 1904 - September 20, 1949
born in Halkis, composed during the Modern period
Biography
Nikolaos Skalkottas is easily among the most important Greek composers from the first half of the twentieth century. Extremely talented from his early childhood, he mostly wrote serial and atonal music in his mature compositions and remained an almost totally unknown figure in his homeland and abroad throughout his short lifetime. His music eventually attracted some attention after his death, but still remains largely neglected.

Skalkottas' family moved to Athens when he was two, and at age five the precocious Nikolaos began studies on the violin with his father and uncle, both good amateur musicians. He entered the Athens Conservatory in 1914 and graduated six years later as a virtuoso violinist, but with relatively little knowledge of composition. In 1921, he enrolled on a scholarship at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where he furthered his studies on the violin with Willy Hess and also began instruction in composition. He befriended Dimitri Mitropoulos, then also a student there, who may have encouraged his interest in the more modern methods of composition. Despite his successes on the violin -- Skalkottas had already given many stunning concerts, not least his rendition of the Beethoven violin concerto at his 1920 graduation from the Athens Conservatory -- he decided to shift his focus to composition in 1925.