Nikos Skalkotas: He wins the Averof scholarship and leaves to continue his violin studies in Berlin

Nikos Skalkotas settled in Berlin and continued his violin studies at Hochschule für Music under Willy Hess, who introduced him as his best student at his concerts. Thanks to a scholarship by Manolis Benakis, in 1924, he enrolled in Paul Kahn's composition class at the same school. In September 1927, he became a student of Arnold Schönberg in the master class of the Akademie der Künste (Academy of Fine Arts). He studied composition with him until 1931, and they remained in touch until 1933 when both left Berlin. Skalkotas was a composer much appreciated by Berlin's more progressive musical circles. Schönberg himself, although always modest in his critiques, said: "The harshness of my demands is the reason, out of the hundreds of my students, only a few became composers: Anton von Webern, Alban Berg, Hanns Eisler, Karl Rankl, Winfried Zillig, Roberto Gerhard, Nikos Skalkotas, Norbert von Hannenheim, Gerald Strang, Adolph Weiss. [...] all my students differ greatly from one another and, although perhaps the majority of them compose twelve-note music, no one would identify a school here. Everyone had to find his way by himself [...]'.