Greece - Korina Miller [41]
Music
Greece’s strong and enduring musical tradition dates back at least to the 2000 BC Cycladic figurines found holding musical instruments resembling harps and flutes. Ancient Greek musical instruments included the lyre, lute, piktis (pipes), kroupeza (a percussion instrument), kithara (a stringed guitarlike instrument), avlos (a wind instrument), barbitos (similar to a cello) and the magadio (similar to a harp).
The ubiquitous six- or eight-stringed bouzouki, the long-necked lute-like instrument most associated with contemporary Greek music, is a relative newcomer to the scene. The baglamas is a baby version of the bouzouki used in rembetika (blues songs) while the tzouras is halfway between the two.
The plucked strings of the bulbous outi (oud), the strident sound of the Cretan lyra (lyre), the staccato rap of the toumberleki (lap drum), the mandolino (mandolin) and the gaïda (bagpipe) bear witness to a rich range of musical instruments that share many characteristics with instruments all over the Middle East, as do the flat multistringed santouri and kanonaki.
* * *
The Greek tetrahordo (four pairs of strings) bouzouki was introduced into popular Irish music in the 1960s, and spawned its progeny, the Irish bouzouki.
* * *
TRADITIONAL MUSIC
Every region in Greece has its own musical tradition. Regional folk music is divided into nisiotika (the lighter, more upbeat music of the islands), and the more grounded dimotika of the mainland – where the klarino (clarinet) is prominent and lyrics refer to hard times, war and rural life. The music of Crete, represented in the world-music scene as a genre in its own right, remains the most dynamic traditional form, with a local following and regular performances and new recordings by folk artists. Folk music can be heard in panigyria (open-air festivals) around Greece during summer.
Byzantine music is mostly heard in Greek churches these days, though Byzantine hymns are performed by choirs in concerts in Greece and abroad and the music has influenced folk music.
Greece’s music has always reflected the country’s history and politics. Traditional folk music was shunned by the Greek bourgeoisie during the period after independence, when they looked to Europe – and classical music and opera – rather than their eastern or ‘peasant’ roots.
In the 1920s the underground music known as rembetika (boxed text) became popular, entering the mainstream after WWII.
In the ’50s and ’60s a popular musical offshoot of rembetika – known as laïka (urban folk music) took over and the clubs in Athens became bigger, glitzier and more commercialised. The late Stelios Kazantzidis was the big voice of this era, along with Grigoris Bithikotsis.
* * *
Road to Rembetika: Music of a Greek Sub-Culture: Songs of Love, Sorrow and Hashish by Gail Holst-Warhaft is a fine account of the genre, as is Ed Emery’s translation of Elias Petropoulos’ Songs of the Underworld: The Rembetika Tradition.
* * *
During this period another style of music emerged, led by two outstanding composers – the classically trained Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hatzidakis. Known as entehni mousiki or ‘artistic’ music, they drew on rembetika and instruments such as the bouzouki but had more symphonic arrangements. They brought poetry to the masses by creating popular hits from the works of Seferis, Elytis, Ritsos and Kavadias.
Composer Yiannis Markopoulos continued this new wave by introducing rural folk-music and traditional instruments such as the lyra, santouri, violin and kanonaki into the mainstream and bringing folk performers such as Crete’s legendary Nikos Xylouris to the fore.
During the junta