"I cried to write. "I wrote to sing and I sang to live," Attik used to say. One of the most important exponents of light Greek song, who only offered to Art, which he served faithfully until the end of his life. Art and life for Attic (Kleon Triantafyllou was his real name) were interrelated concepts. He made his life an art, through his songs, while he could not live without music.
And love… Even if he did not play a dominant role in the life of the great artist. Joys, sorrows, bitterness, disappointments, heartbeats, betrayals, all the emotions - positive or negative - that love begets in a person, Attic experienced them all in a superlative degree. And he made sure to give them a voice and a melody, giving a temporary cure to his soul (when he wanted to express his pain) and a great legacy in music.
After all, several of his wonderful pieces hide a story behind them. Sometimes sweet, sometimes bittersweet and sometimes sad. There is, however, a song written in the "foot", but it includes all the pain of the artist. And it was the birth of a love story, which for a long time was a favorite gossip of the then secular Athens. It was then that his second wife Marika Filippidis fell in love and then married her father Melina Mercouri, who left his family for her sake.
The blows of fate
On March 19, 1885, Kleon Triantafyllou was born, the tender son of a wealthy family, as his father Dimitris was a cotton producer and merchant. Little Kleon and his brothers grow up in the feathers, but also in an environment with a love for the arts and especially for music. After all, this was taken care of by his mother, Erithelga, who insisted on educating her children.
At the age of 8, Cleon loses his father and all the weight falls on his mother. The family moved to Athens, where they maintained their own house in Patision. The fortune left to them by Dimitrios Triantafyllou was large, so they continued to live comfortably and move as well, comfortably in the secular salons of the capital.
Cleon and his brother go to Paris to continue their studies in Law and there the tiny and lively young man will come in contact with music, where he decides to study it. In the City of Light and Love he meets the first woman of his life, the French-Polish Marie-Ellen, with whom he soon marries and has a child. However, fate played its hardest game and within a famous six months, he lost first his child and then his wife.
The pain of double loss never left him for the rest of his life. And he channeled him into his music. After all, many of his songs were based on this untold pain. Life, however, a year later brought him the woman who will mark him more than any other, Marika Filippidou. The actress and writer was the most beautiful in Athens and as it turned out a fatal woman…
The great love of Attic and Melina Mercouri's father
The diary showed 1910, when Attic "surrendered" to love. Marika Filippidou was an impressive woman, with blue eyes, who never went unnoticed. Love inspires him and he writes songs about his beautiful muse. But, fate was there and "took care" to remind him of her hard face.
In 1911, his family was plunged into financial ruin and returned permanently from Paris to Athens, where Atticus now devotes all his weight to music, as it is the only source of income. 1914 is the worst year for him. Nora's sister becomes seriously ill and dies shortly afterwards. The new loss crushes him, however, the final blow comes from the woman of his life.
Marika Filippidou abandons him and this living death brings him to his knees. He loved Marika and for her sake he writes the wonderful "I saw eyes". A few years later, his second wife falls in love with the married doctor, Stamatis Mercouri, Melina's father. Their love is thunderous and the two of them soon become an illegal couple.
Stamatis Mercouris surrenders to the vortex of this love, indifferent to the scandal that had broken out. Worst of all, he did not care about his family. He was so in love with the beautiful Marika, that he left his wife Irini Lappa while she was pregnant with their son, Spyros, with Melina being only 6 years old. The calendar showed 1926.
Melina's grandfather and mayor of Athens, Spyros Mercouris, is angry with his son. it was forbidden, even to mention his name in the house. Although his mother, Amalia, made sure to visit him secretly. In fact, her father's love with Filippidou was described by Mercouri herself in her autobiography "I was born Greek".
Mercury and the beautiful actress (Melina had said about her that she had the most beautiful eyes in Athens, after her) get married and it goes without saying that the scandal is well underway and is still a favorite topic in secular salons.
The song was written in 10 minutes
In 1930, Attik founded the legendary "Mantra", which for him is not just a place of entertainment. It was his very identity, a testimony of his soul, as he wanted to integrate his own perception of the song through it. There, in "Mantra", one of his most beautiful songs will be written.
Although the years had passed and he had remarried, he had not completely overcome Marika. One night she persuaded her husband Mercury to go to "Mantra", despite his initial objections. The couple sits in the first places, with the people next to them shouting the song "I saw eyes", which was known to everyone that was written for her.
It is said, then, that Attic, hearing the voices of the people and seeing his great love from below with another, leaves the stage sullen. He retires to his dressing room, with the audience watching the scene awkwardly. Nobody leaves their place. He stays there to see what will follow…
Attik stays in his dressing room for 10 minutes and returning to the stage sings the song that was inspired musically and lyrically when he was missing. Yes, within 10 minutes this great artist "gave birth" to the wonderful "You ask me to tell you", where through his lyrics he described in a unique way, what he felt that night that he saw Marika.
In fact, they say, that the moving words of the song made Filippidou cry and leave "Mantra" with Mercury.