Dimitrios Levidis

Dimitrios Levidis (; 8 April 1885 or 1886, Athens - 29 May 1951, Palaio Faliro) was a Greek composer, later naturalized French (1929). Background He descended from an aristocratic family with Byzantine roots in Constantinople. Levidis studied in Athens, Lausanne and Munich. His teachers included Friedrich Klose, Felix Mottl and Richard Strauss, the latter being his composition teacher from 1907 to 1908. Levidis won the Franz Liszt Prize for his Piano Sonata op.16. After a short period in Greece he settled in Paris (1910–1932), served in the French Army during World War I and took French nationality in 1929. Career He wrote abundantly, in many genres, with a refined technique combining Straussian harmony and Ravelian impressionism, also exploiting Greek modes, in an appealing style of greater homogeneity than that of many of his Greek contemporaries. Levidis was more impressed by Debussy’s harmonic brevity as shown in his last works. He was a notable experimenter with novel combinations and new instruments: His interest in new sounds led him to be among the first to write for the Ondes Martenot (his Poème symphonique, a modernistic Symphonic Poem for Electrical Instrument and Orches