Nikolaos Mantzaros

Mantzaros was born in Corfu in October 1795, the only son of an aristocratic family; his father, Iakovos, was a lawyer. His mother, Regina Turini, whose family came from Zadar in Dalmatia, gave him his first lessons in theory and piano. His father had hoped he would study medicine, but the boy went on to train with the best teachers on the island. Like his family, he never treated music as a profession: until the end of his life he described himself as a κτηματίας (landowner), and he taught without accepting fees.

His first works, three concert arias and the one-act comic piece Don Crepuscolo, were presented in Corfu in 1815. From 1819 he spent long periods in Italy, especially Naples, where he came to know the veteran composer Niccolò Zingarelli. He settled in Corfu again in 1826 and later declined an offer to direct a music school in Naples. When Dionysios Solomos moved to Corfu in 1828, the two became close friends. In April 1841 Mantzaros became artistic director for life of the Philharmonic Society of Corfu, founded in 1840, which combined a free music school with concerts. The Ionian Islands, under British protection since 1815, joined Greece in 1864. He died in Corfu in 1872.

Mantzaros’s early works, written between 1815 and 1827, absorbed the operatic style of Italy; their texts were in Italian. From the late 1820s he began setting Greek poetry, much of it by Solomos. His first setting of the Ύμνος εις την Ελευθερίαν, written around 1828–1830 for four-part male choir, is the one whose opening became the anthem. He returned to the poem several times. In 1844 he offered King Otto a new, more elaborate setting in the hope that it would become the national anthem; it was not adopted, but he received the Silver Cross of the Order of the Redeemer. In 1861, at the request of the minister for military affairs, he made a further version in march style.

The words and the music have different authors: Solomos wrote the poem in 1823, and Mantzaros composed the music later. After the union of 1864, King George I heard the hymn in Corfu, and in 1865 its first two stanzas were made the official national anthem. Mantzaros also wrote sacred music, piano sinfonie and works for band. From the 1840s he turned increasingly to counterpoint and wrote harmony manuals such as the Studio pratico dell’Armonia for his students. A 2023 doctoral thesis at the Ionian University describes him as the first Greek to teach Western music theory systematically.

Greek school celebrations, medal ceremonies and national holidays feature Mantzaros’s melody, usually without his name. In Corfu his legacy is especially visible: the Philharmonic Society of Corfu still teaches music and plays in public processions, another band is named “Mantzaros”, and in 2022 the island’s philharmonic bands were entered in Greece’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2025 the Academy of Athens presented an exhibition about him. Try this: listen to a choral performance of the anthem, which is sung in Solomos’s Greek, while reading the first stanza, which begins Σε γνωρίζω από την κόψη (I know you by the edge). Then write two sentences with ο ένας… ο άλλος…, for example Ο ένας έγραψε τους στίχους, ο άλλος τη μουσική (One wrote the words, the other the music).

• The same melody serves as the national anthem of both Greece (since 1865) and Cyprus (since 1966).
• Mantzaros called himself a landowner, not a professional musician, and taught without fees.
• His one-act comic piece Don Crepuscolo of 1815 has an Italian libretto.
• A handwritten piano sinfonia by him is shown in the Music Museum of the Philharmonic Society of Corfu.