He also wrote anthems of wartime resistance and socialist tone poems about the plight of workers and oppressed peoples. During World War II, he joined a Communist youth group that fought fascist occupation forces in Greece. Mr. Theodorakis studied at music conservatories in Athens and Paris in the 1950s, writing symphonies, chamber music, ballets and assorted rhapsodies, marches and adagios. He set to music the verses of eminent Greek poets, many of them Communists. He also deepened his ties to Communism: When Greece became a Cold War battleground, he blamed not Stalin but the C.I.A.

Source: International New York Times September 02, 2021 07:41 UTC