Where Music Resides: Educational and Artistic Institutions,Nationalism,and Musical Debates in Nineteenth-Century Athens

Abstract

The article details the institutional, political and cultural conditions in nineteenth-century Athens, in relation to the reception and development of Western opera and Greek ecclesiastical music. Through the examination of important institutions such as the Theatre of Athens and the University of Athens, the article compares the popularity of Italian opera with the underdevelopment of institutions for education in church music, it analyses the impact of limited musical education in the country, and explains how the absence of musical policy –either for Western music or the Greek-Orthodox chant – resulted in music turning into a token of local cultural resistance against Western European influence.