Historic Corfu philharmonic band to perform in Cyprus for Oxi parade

The Old Philharmonic of Corfu will take part in the 28 Oxi Day parade in Nicosia on Wednesday. According to the parade programme, the band will gather on Heilonos street before joining the historical parade of student youth, and performing the Greek national anthem, the ‘Hymn to Liberty’. In June 1864 the Corfu band played the melody to welcome King George I, himself of Danish descent, whereafter the young monarch adopted the music, and the next year in 1865 it was officially recognised as the Greek national anthem. The Philharmonic Society of Corfu, known as the “Old Philharmonic”, was founded on September 12, 1840 Its creation followed a ban by the British administration on the British army band taking part in Orthodox religious events, notably the procession of the relic of Saint Spyridon, the island’s patron saint. Oxi Day marks the Greek rejection of an Italian ultimatum on 28 October 1940, when the Italian ambassador in Athens, Emanuele Grazzi, presented Greek prime minister Ioannis Metaxas with a demand for Italian troops to be allowed to occupy unspecified strategic points in Greece. Metaxas is recorded as answering in French with the words “Alors, c’est la guerre”, (‘Then it is war’). Italian forces crossed the border from Albania, however Greek troops halted their advance and pushed the Italians back deep into Albanian territory in the following weeks. Following Benito Mussolini’s humiliation, who at the start of the offensive had remarked that he “would be having coffee on the Parthenon by lunchtime”, Nazi Germany intervened in April 1941 and Greece was occupied.