Dissertation

    The subject of this thesis is the study of the musical style of Georgios Poniridis (1887-1982), as it is transformed and shaped through his works for solo piano, through the examination of his entire long creative path, from his early chromatic, tonal and modal works to his later twelve-tone and atonal works. The piano works were considered the most appropriate for studying the evolution of the composer's musical style, as they are present in every creative period of the composer, between 1916 and 1976. This thesis attempts to present for the first time the works of Poniridis for piano, to investigate his compositional style and to detect through their analytical approach any evolution of his piano writing, tracing these changes chronologically and ergographically. This is where the originality of this study lies, as no similar research has been conducted at any university in Greece or abroad.

     As the title suggests, the thesis includes a second part, which constitutes an important “by-product” of the main topic and concerns the critically edited digitization of selected piano works by the composer. Despite the fact that there are several bibliographical references for Georgios Poniridis, when they are examined individually, it is found that their content is limited. The information illuminated in each case is fragmentary and is selected with criteria that depend on the initial purpose of each source. For this reason, the first chapter includes a comprehensive biographical and ergographic overview of the composer, which results from the mosaic interconnection and overlap of these sources, in order to present a complete picture of his origin, his youth and his studies. The periodical structure of the life and work of Poniridis, based on geographical criteria related to his studies and the beginning of his compositional activity, can divide his creative work into three periods: the Brussels period, the Paris period and the Athens period. The second subchapter examines the first compositional period in Brussels (1910-1918), the third subchapter examines the second compositional period in Paris (1919-1937), which is accompanied by the annotated work catalogue of the period, and the fourth subchapter examines the third compositional period in Athens (1938-1982), together with the annotated work catalogue of the specific period. The last subchapter presents the remaining activities of the composer, highlighting the multifaceted personality of Poniridis and his various qualities. In the second chapter of the thesis, the research objective, the research material, the composer's piano catalogue, as well as the methodological framework of the analyses are presented. Chapters three and four contain extensive and brief analyses respectively.

   Regarding the analytical approach to Poniridis' piano works, the application of a single analytical theory or method was not sought, neither to the works composed before 1956 nor to the twelve-tone and atonal works composed from 1956 onwards. In the fifth and final chapter of the thesis, which includes the conclusions and the discussion, an attempt is made to answer the research questions of the thesis and to highlight the evolutionary changes in the pianistic texture of Poniridis. Initially, in the first sub-chapter, a stylistic periodization of the composer's work is proposed, with a presentation of the criteria and parameters that determined the categorization of his compositional periods. Subsequently, in the next two sub-chapters, the characteristic compositional features of the works belonging to his first and second stylistic periods are described. As previously mentioned, the second volume of the thesis includes the critically edited digitizations of works by Georgios Ponyrides. The usability of these digitizations, as interpretive Urtext editions, aims to transform the medium of the musical text form, from manuscript to digital, with the ultimate goal of easier access and study by future researchers and pianists. Finally, in order to give the reader a more complete picture of the work carried out, the same volume includes an exemplary commentary on selected excerpts and makes a selective reference to the principles that were formulated based on the needs of the primary manuscript material itself.

National archive of Phd. Thesis of Greece

https://www.didaktorika.gr/eadd/handle/10442/59985?locale=en