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Music of Greece

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Music of Greece
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Music awards
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Music media
Nationalistic and patriotic songs
National anthem
"Hymn to Liberty"
Regional music
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The musical legacy of Greece is as diverse as its history. Cypriot music has certain similarities to traditional Greek music, and their modern popular music scenes remain well-integrated. Today, music is still a huge part of Greek culture, even Greek American culture. Greek music is played at parties and festivals and both children and adults partake in traditional Greek dancing.

Greek music history

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History of Greece
(Ancient · Byzantine · Ottoman)

Greek written history extends far back into Ancient Greece, and was a major part of ancient Greek theater. Later, influences from the Roman Empire, Eastern Europe and the Byzantine Empire changed Greek music. In the 19th century, opera composers, like Nikolaos Mantzaros (1795 - 1872), Spyridon Xyndas (1812 - 1896) and Spyridon Samaras (1861 - 1917) and symphonists, like Dimitris Lialios and Dionysios Rodotheatos revitalized Greek art music. However, the diverse history of art music in Greece, which extends from the Cretan Rennaisance and reaches modern times, exceeds the aims of the present article, which is, in general, limited to the presentation of the musical form that the last few decades became synonymous to 'Greek music'. That is the 'Greek song' or, better, the 'song in Greek verse'.

Ancient Greece

Main article: Music of ancient Greece

In ancient Greece, mixed-gender choruses performed for entertainment, celebration and spiritual reasons. Instruments included the double-reed aulos and the plucked string instrument, the lyre, especially the special kind called a kithara.

Music was an important part of education in ancient Greece, and boys were taught music starting at age six. Greek musical literacy created a flowering of development; Greek music theory included the Greek musical modes, eventually became the basis for Western religious music and classical music.

Greece in the Roman Empire

Due to Rome's reverence for Greek culture, Roman music continued to use the Greek notational system.[citation needed]

Byzantium

Main article: Byzantine music

The tradition of eastern liturgical chant, encompassing the Greek-speaking world, developed in the Byzantine Empire from the establishment of its capital, Constantinople, in 330 until its fall in 1453. It is undeniably of composite origin, drawing on the artistic and technical productions of the classical Greek age, on Jewish music, and inspired by the monophonic vocal music that evolved in the early Greek Christian cities of Alexandria, Antioch and Ephesus.

Greece during the Ottoman Empire (Rum music)

See also: Kanto (music)

By the beginning of the 20th century, music-cafés were popular in Constantinople and Smyrna, primarily owned by Greeks, alongside Jews and Armenians.[citation needed] The bands were led by a female vocalist, typically, and included a violin and a sandoúri. The improvised songs typically exclaimed aman aman, which led to the name amanédhes or café-aman. Musicians of this period included Marika Papagika, Agapios Tomboulis, Rosa Eskenazi, Rita Abatzi, Georgia Mitaki (Μητάκη, not Μυτάκη), Marika Frantzeskopoulou, Marika Kanaropoulou. This period also brought in the Rempetika movement, which featured in Smyrna (İzmir), and had local Smyrnaic, Byzantine, and Ottoman influences.

Folk music

Main article: Greek folk music

Greek folk traditions are said to derive from the music played by ancient Greeks. There are said to be two musical movements in Greek folk music: Acritic songs and Klephtic songs. Akritic music comes from the 9th century akrites, or border guards of the Byzantine Empire. Following the end of the Byzantine period, klephtic music arose before the Greek Revolution, developed among the kleftes, warriors who fought against the Ottoman Empire. Klephtic music is monophonic and uses no harmonic accompaniment.

Paleá dhimotiká

Paleá dhimotiká ("old traditional (songs)" mainly from Peloponnese and Thessaly) are accompanied by clarinets, guitars, tambourines and violins, and include dance music forms like syrtó, kalamatianó, tsámiko and hasaposérviko,as well as vocal music like kléftiko. Many of the earliest recordings were done by Arvanites like Yiorgia Mittaki and Yiorgios Papasidheris. Instrumentalists include clarinet virtuosos like Tasos Halkias, Yiorgos Yevyelis and Yiannis Vassilopoulos, as well as oud and fiddle players like Nikos Saragoudas and Yiorgos Koros.

Greek folk music is found all throughout Greece, as well as among communities in countries like the United States, Canada and Australia. The island of Cyprus and several regions of Turkey are home to long-standing communities of ethnic Greeks with their own unique styles of music.

Nisiótika

Nisiótika is a general term denoting folk songs from the Aegean Islands. Among the most popular types of them is Ikariótiko traghoúdhi "song from Ikaria".

Ikariótiko

Ikariótikos is a traditional type of dance, and also the name of its accompanying type of singing, originating in the Aegean island of Ikaria. At first it was a very slow dance, but today Ikariotikos is a very quick dance. Some specialists say that the traditional Ikariotikos was slow and the quick "version" of it is in fact Ballos. Music and dancing are major forms of entertainment in Ikaria. Throughout the year Ikarians host baptisms, weddings, parties and religious festivals where one can listen and dance to live traditional Ikarian Music.

Modern Nisiótika

Artists such as Nikolas Hatzopoulos, Stella Konitopoulou, and the Mythos Band helped Nisiótika gain occasional mainstream popularity during the 1990s and 2000s.

Cretan Music

Main article: Music of Crete

Crete is an island which is a part of Greece. The lýra is the dominant folk instrument on the island; it is a three-stringed bowed instrument similar to the Byzantine Lyra. It is often accompanied by the Cretian lute (laoúto), which is similar to both an oud and a mandolin. Nikos Xylouris, Antonis Xylouris (or Psarantonis), Thanassis Skordalos, Kostas Moundakis, and Vasilis Skoulas are among the most renowned players of the lýra.

Tabachaniotika

The "tabachaniotika" (IPA: [tabaxaˈɲotika]; sing.: tabachaniotiko - ταμπαχανιώτικο) songs are a Cretan urban musical repertory which belongs to the wide family of musics, like the rebetiko and music of the Café-aman, that merge Greek and Eastern music elements. This genre represents an outcome of the Cretan-Minor Asia's Greek cultural syncretism in East Mediterranean Sea. It developed mainly after the immigration of Smyrna's refugees in 1922, as did the more widespread rebetiko.

Various conjectures are advanced to explain the meaning and origin of the term "tabachaniotika". Kostas Papadakis believes that it comes from tabakaniotikes (*ταμπακανιώτικες), which may mean places where hashish (ταμπάκο "tobacco") is smoked while music is performed, as was the case with the tekédes (τεκέδες; pl. of tekés) of Piraeus. But a quarter named Tabahana (Ταμπάχανα) existed in Smyrna --a name which has the Turkish root tabak: tanner; tabakhane: tannery). In Chaniá too, there was a quarter with the same name, where refugees from Smyrna lived after the 1922 diaspora. Tabachaniotiko was also the name of a song of the amané genre, which was popular in Smyrna in the period before 1922, together with some other songs called Minóre, Bournovalió, Galatá, and Tzivaéri (Kounadis 1993: 23). Compare the performance of Greek-Turkish ballos by a Greek ensemble in New York City in 1928, included in the online article on Mediterranean music in America by Karl Signell.

This detail might be critical for the history of Cretan tabachaniotika, since Cretans frequently had contacts with the people and music of Smyrna during the nineteenth century. Cretan musicians believe that the further development of Cretan tabachaniotika took place mainly after 1922, as a consequence of the refugees' resettlement. The genre was popular until the 1950s.

Music

Major features of the tabachaniotika songs are the following:

  • Dromoi (sing.: dromos - δρόμος), modal types designated by Turkish names, like rasti, houzam, hijaz, ousak, niaventi, and sabak.
  • Instrumental introduction before the song (taximi, pl.:, taximia), where the player explores the dromos.
  • Tsiftetéli rhythm, as in the Turkish "belly dance" music example heard in Signell's article.
  • Musical instruments like bouzouki, boulgarí (the Cretan version of the Turkish baglama, similar to the earliest forms of the bouzouki), and baglamás.
Poetic text

The rebetiko and "tabachaniotika" often share the political verse, that is, fifteen syllable lines divided into two hemistichs - ημιστίχια (8+7), generally realized as couplets. In Crete such couplets are called mandinádes (μαντινάδες), as are extemporary texts sung to the music of dances, mainly the syrtós, and the kondyliés (οι κοντυλιές).

They focus mainly on the themes of existential grief and lost love, also common to the rebetiko. Songs making fun of Turks, narrative songs, and other songs in dialogue form also belong to this repertory.

Unlike rebetiko (which is described below), the "tabachaniotika" did not considered underground music and was only sung, not danced, according to Nikolaos Sarimanolis, the last living performer of this repertory in Chaniá. Only a few musicians played the "tabachaniotika", the most famous being the boulgarí (a mandolin like instrument) player Stelios Foustalierakis "Phoustalieris" (1911-1992) from Rethymnon. Stelios Foustalieris bought his first boulgarí in 1924. In 1979, he said that in Rethymnon, the boulgarí had been widespread during the 1920s; in every tavern one could find a boulgarí, and people played and sang lovesongs. He said the boulgarí was then the main accompanying instrument of the lyra, together with the mandola. The laouto began spreading in Rethymnon not before the 1930s. Foustalieris played for years as accompanist to the lyrist Antonis Kareklás (in feasts and weddings) and performed any kind of repertory (syrtós, pendozália, pidichtá kastriná, taximia, kathistiká (lit.: "sitting-down songs", i.e. music for listening, not for dancing), and even rebetiko). Later, he began playing the boulgarí, as a melodic instrument, with the accompaniment of guitar or mandolin. He also played in a group with musicians (refugees from Asia Minor), who played the outi and sandouri. Foustalieris composed also many songs and recorded them in Rethymnon. In the period 1933–1937 he lived in Piraeus and played together with famous rebetes, like Markos Vamvarakis. He may be considered a musician who merged the musics of Crete, Asia Minor, and Piraeus (see Liavas 1988).

Notwithstanding the dearth of performers, "tabachaniotika" songs were widespread and could also be performed at domestic gatherings. Notable artists of this genre who were originally refugees from Asia Minor include the bouzouki player Nikolaos Sarimanolis (Νικολής Σαριμανώλης; born in Nea Ephesos in 1919) as a member of a folk-group founded by Kostas Papadakis in Chaniá in 1945, Antonis Katinaris (also based in Chaniá), and the Réthymno-based Mihalis Arabatzoglou and Nikos Gialidis.[1]

Cretan music in media

The music theme Zorba's dance by Mikis Theodorakis (incorporating elements from the syrtos dance) which appears in the Hollywood 1964 movie Zorba the Greek remains the most well-known Greek song abroad.

Modern Cretan music

The Cretan musical tradition in its pure form is followed today by several contemporary artists such as the Chainides, Loudovikos ton Anogion, and Giannis Charoulis. Occasionally, it reaches mainstream popularity through the work of artists such as Etsi De and Manos Pyrovolakis who mix its original form with popular music.

Other folk traditions

The other major regional musical traditions of Greece are:

Being largely unaffected by the developments of the European Renaissance, due to the Ottoman occupation that lasted nearly four centuries, the first liberated Greeks were anxious to catch up with the rest of Europe. The flourishing Greek culture of the Ionian islands, which were under the Italian rule and influence, was in sharp contrast to the Ottoman cultural poverty. It was through these islands that all the major advances of the European music were introduced to mainland Greeks. The songs of the islands known as Heptanesian kantádhes "seranades" are based on the popular Italian style music of the early 19th century. Kantádhes became the forerunners of the Greek modern song, influencing its development to a considerable degree. For almost all the next century most later attempts for musical composition had to borrow elements from the Heptanesian style.

The most successful songs during the period 1870–1930 were the so-called Athenian songs, the serenades and the songs performed on the Athenian stage in revues and operettas that dominated the Athenian theatres. Despite the fact that the Athenian songs were not autonomous artistic creations (in contrast with the serenades) and despite their original connection with mainly dramatic forms of Art, they eventually became hits as independent songs. Italian opera had a great influence on the musical aesthetics of the Modern Greeks.

After 1930, wavering among American and European musical influences as well as the Greek musical tradition, the Greek composers begin to write music to the tunes of the Tango, the Samba, and the Waltz as well as the melodies that refer to Athenian serenades (Αθηναϊκές καντάδες) and the theatrical revue songs.

Artists

(1910s-1940s) (in these lists the term 'artists' mostly denotes 'performers' unless indicated otherwise)

Rebetiko

Further information: Rebetiko

Rebetiko evolved from traditions of the urban poor. Refugees and drug-users, criminals and the itinerant, the earliest rebetiko musicians were scorned by mainstream society. They sang heartrending tales of drug abuse, prison and violence, usually accompanied by the instrument called bouzouki (pl.: bouzoukia) (a sort of lute derived from the Byzantine tambourás and related to the Turkish saz).

In 1923, many ethnic Greeks from Asia Minor fled to Greece as a result of the second Greco-Turkish War. They settled in poor neighborhoods in Piraeus, Thessaloniki, and Athens. Many of these immigrants were highly educated, such as songwriter Vangelis Papazoglou, and Panagiotis Tountas, composer and leader of Odeon Records' Greek subsidiary, who are traditionally considered as the founders of the Smyrna School of Rebetiko.

A Turkish tradition that came along with the Greek migrants was the tekés "opium den", or hashish dens. Groups of men would sit in a circle and smoke hashish from a hookah, and improvised music of various kinds. With the coming of the Metaxas dictatorship, rebetiko was repressed due to the uncompromising lyrics. Hashish dens and bouzoukia were banned. Many songs from this period were composed in prison, where musicians would devise instruments out of scavenged equipment.

After World War II, rebetiko became a "calmer" form of music. Out of this music scene came out some of the earliest legends of Greek Oriental music, such as the quartet of Markos Vamvakaris, Artémis (pseudonym of Ανέστης or Ανέστος Δελιάς), Stratos Payioumtzis, and Batis. Vamvakaris became perhaps the first renowned rebetiko musician after beginning a solo career.

Other popular rebetiko songwriters and singers of this period (1940s) include: Dimitris Gogos (better known as Bayandéras), Stelios Perpiniadis, Stratos Payioumtzis, Giannis Papaioannou, Giorgos Mouflouzelis, and Apostolos Hatzichristos.

The scene was soon popularized further by stars like Vassilis Tsitsanis. His song Synefiazméni Kyriakí became an anthem for the oppressed Greeks after it was composed in 1943, though it was not recorded until 1948. He was followed by female singers like Marika Ninou, Ioanna Yiorgakopoulou, and Sotiria Bellou. In 1953, Manolis Chiotis added a fourth pair of strings to the bouzouki, which allowed it to be tuned tonally and set the stage for the 'electrification' of rebetiko.

Rebetiko was revived during the 1967–1974 coup, when the Regime of the Colonels banned the genre. After the end of the Junta many revival groups (and solo artists) appeared. The most notable of them include Opisthodhromiki Kompania, Rembetiki Kompania, Agathonas Iakovidis, Ta Pedhia apo tin Patra, Dimitris Kontogiannis, Marió, and Babis Tsertos.

Éntekhno

Drawing on rebetiko's westernization by Tsitsanis, éntekhno arose in the late 1950s. Éntekhno (lit. meaning "art song") is orchestral music with elements from Greek folk rhythm and melody; its lyrical themes are often political or based on the work of famous Greek poets. Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis were the most popular early performers; however, there are also other significant Greek songwriters like Stavros Kouyoumtzis, Manos Loïzos, and Dimos Moutsis. Significant lyricists of this genre are Manos Eleftheriou, and poet Tasos Livaditis. By the 1960s, innovative albums helped éntekhno become close to mainstream, and also led to its appropriation by the film industry for use in soundtracks. A form of éntekhno which is closer to Western Classical music was introduced during the late 1970s and 1980s by Thanos Mikroutsikos. (See the section Other popular trends below for more information on Modern Éntekhno.)

Artists

Composers:

Performers:

Laïkó

Further information: Laïkó

Laïkó was the mainstream popular music of the 50s and 60s. Laïkó, also known as classic laïkó or soft laïkó (ελαφρολαϊκό - elafrolaïkó), is similar to Turkish Fantezi music. The influence of oriental music on laïkó can be most strongly seen in 1960s indoyíftika, "indian gypsy (songs)", which is filmi with Greek lyrics. Manolis Angelopoulos was the most popular indoyíftika performer, while pure laïkó was dominated by superstar Stelios Kazantzidis and Stratos Dionysiou. Among the most significant songwriters and lyricists of this category are considered to be Akis Panou, George Zambetas, Apostolos Kaldáras, Giorgos Mitsakis, Babis Bakalis, Kostas Papaioannou, and Eftichia Papagianopoulos. Many artists have combined éntekhno with laïkó with considerable success, such as the composers Mimis Plessas, Stavros Ksarchakos, and Giorgos Mouzakis, and the lyricist Lefteris Papadopoulos.

Also, during the same era, another kind of "soft music" (ελαφρά μουσική or simply elafró "soft"), represented by duos and trios of singers-musicians like the Katsamba Brothers duo, the Trio Kitara, the Trio Belcanto, and the Trio Athina, became fashionable. Its sound was an imitation of the sound of its contemporary Spanish and Mexican popular music but it also had elements from early Athenian popular songs.[2]

Artists

Elafró (laïkó)

1950s-1960s

Classic laïkó

1950s-1970s

Contemporary laïkó

1980s-2000s (also known as Éntekhno laïkó)

Laïká

Main article: Laïka

Laïká (not to be confused with Laïkó) is a Greek music-culture. The word "Laïká" means "(songs) of the people" in Greek. This genre is currently the most popular kind of music in Greece.

Renowned songwriters of pop laïká are Nikos Karvelas, Phoebus, and the Pegasos duo (Antonis and Dimitris Paravomvolakis). Renowned lyricists include Giorgos Theofanous and Evi Droutsa.

Due to the considerable influence popular Greek music has from Turkey and the Middle East, there have been exchanges of music and duets with singers from these areas. Greek singers like Sarbel have translated songs from Arabic to Greek and these have become extremely popular. Also, with Greek-Turkish relations warming, there are songs that are the same and sung as a duet in both languages. A good example of a song crossing these three cultures is the song Anavis Foties by Despina Vandi. This song has been made into Arabic by Fadel Shaker and called, Dehket Al-Donya, and a Turkish-Greek duet entitled Aşka Yürek Gerek was done by Mustafa Sandal, a popular singer from Turkey, and Greek singer Natalia Doussopoulos.

Artists

(1980s-2000s)

Tsiftetéli

Further information: Tsifteteli

Tsiftetéli is a type of music that was brought over by refugees from Asia Minor in the 1920s. Basically, it is Greek belly dance music. The Arabic and Turkish influence on this type of music is very clear, and adds to the cultural similarities Greeks have with the Middle East. This is a very popular form of Modern Greek music, and is played almost everywhere in Greece. Some notable modern Laïká artists who include tsiftetéli in their music are Katy Garbi, Anna Vissi, Despina Vandi, Eleni Karousaki, and Giorgos Mazonakis.

Skiládiko

Further information: Skiladiko

Skiládiko (or Skyládika) is the byname of the Greek variation of Arabesque music.

Artists

Similarities

"Trash" singers

The popularity of skiládiko in Greece is considered to be associated with the recent popularity of several so-called "trash" or "decadent" (παρακμιακοί) singers such as Efi Thodi, Vera Labrou, and Stella Bezantakou, and with the 2007 music chart success of several tabloid talk show participants' albums (see Nikos Katelis for further information).

Balkan music

Skiládiko is often considered similar to the Serbian Turbo-folk, since they both feature the same sort of folk melodies combined with dance music, and they both share a distinctive kitch aesthetic. The same cannot be said with equal certainty for modern laïká, since a large part of this genre (at least in its original form) originates in laïkó and Balkanian Pop folk music in general, rather than Western dance music or specifically Yugoslavian popular music.

Folk singer-songwriters first appeared in the 1960s after Dionysis Savvopoulos' 1966 breakthrough album Fortighó. Many of these musicians started out playing Néo kýma, "New wave" (not to be confused with New Wave rock), a mixture of éntekhno and chansons from France. Savvopoulos mixed American musicians like Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa with Macedonian folk music and politically incisive lyrics. In his wake came more folk-influenced performers like Arletta, Mariza Koch and Kostas Hatzis.

Nikos Xydakis, one of Savvopoulos' pupils, was among the people who revolutionized laïkó by using orientalized instrumentation. His most successful album was 1987's Kondá sti Dhóxa miá Stigmí, recorded with Eleftheria Arvanitaki.

Nowadays, a notable composer inspired by éntekhno and writing songs for contemporary éntekhno singers is Dimitris Papadimitriou.

Thanasis Polykandriotis, laïkó composer and classically trained bouzouki player, became renowned for his mixture of rebetiko and orchestral music (as in his 1996 composition "Concert for Bouzouki and Orchestra No. 1").

There are however other composers of instrumental music (filmscores and music for the stage included), whose work cannot be easily classified, such as Giannis Markopoulos, Stamatis Spanoudakis, Giannis Spanos, Giorgos Hatzinasios, Giorgos Tsangaris, Nikos Kypourgos, Eleni Karaindrou, and Evanthia Remboutsika.

A popular trend since the late 1980s has been the fusion of éntekhno with pop and rock music. The most renowned éntekhno pop lyricist is considered to be Lina Nikolakopoulou.

Finally, regarding purely non-oriental pop music, despite the fact that it has never reached the popularity of laïkó and laïká, or even éntekhno, it had always a considerable amount of listeners supporting it, under a wide variety of forms, throughout the history of recent (post 1960s) Greek music.

Artists

The following classifications are conventional and categories may occasionally overlap with each other:

Néo Kýma (éntekhno)

1960s-1970s

Modern éntekhno

1980s-2000s (partial overlap with contemporary laïkó and éntekhno pop)

Éntekhno pop

1980s-2000s

Classic pop

1960s-1970s (songs from this period of Greek pop were mainly Pop ballads)

Contemporary pop

1980-2000s

Teen pop

2000s

Pop rock

1990s-2000s

Pop rap

1990s-2000s crews

Independent music scenes

Since the late 70s various independent scenes of "marginal" musical genres have appeared in Greece (mainly in Athens, Piraeus, and Thessaloniki). Most of them were short-lived and never gained mainstream popularity but the most prominent artists/bands of these scenes are critically acclaimed today and are considered among the pioneers of independent Greek music (each one in their own genre).

Genres

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Cretan Tradition
  2. ^ In2greece.com: Greek Music

References

  • Dubin, Marc and Pissalides, George. Songs of the Near East, 2000.
  • Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp. 126-142. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0


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