Greek Music
Greece has a long tradition of music, going back to ancient
years. Several gods and goddesses were connected with music and
dance and the very word music comes from the Nine Muses of ancient Greece.
They were the course of
inspiration for all artists and even today many artists speak of
their Muse.
We also have many musical terms from the Greek language:
harmony, melody, tune, choir, orchestra, chromatic, scene, lyre,
hymn, psalm, rhythm.
A common question young Greeks ask one another is "Do you listen
to Greek or foreign music?". They separate the two, and even
though you can like both, it is more often one or the other.
During its long journey through the ages the Greek music adapted
elements from the Romans, the Byzantium and later from the
Renaissance. In the 19th century the Greek musing is moving
forward with composers like Nikolaos Mantzaros (the composer of
the Greek National Anthem) and Spyridon Samaras the composer of
the Olympic anthem, both of those composers where from the
Ionian islands. The Ionian islands beeing closer to Italy had
affections from the Italian serenades those serenades later
became the so called "Kantades" of Athens of the beginning of
the 20th century. Until the 30's those songs together with the
Operettas like 'O Vaftistikos' of the composer Theofrastos
Sakelarides and the songs of Kleon Triantafylou who was known as
Attic where the most popular for the urban population of Athens
mainly. Attic was also the creator of the famous "Mantra tou
Attic" one of the first repertory troupes in Greece.
Nikolaos Astrinidis considered one of the leading post-war
Greek composers. The international career of Astrinidis was
impressive, including about 3000 concerts in four continents,
collaborations with leading soloists (among them, Jacques
Thibaud, Henryk Szeryng) and premieres in major theaters and
festivals. Amongst his works include Agios Dimitrios, Cyril and
Methodius, Alexander's early years,the Cypriot Rhapsody,
Symphony 1821.The documentation and study of his works has been undertaken by Dr.
Ilias Chrissochoidis.
During the early 50s the Greek music, or certainly what you
could hear in the mass media of radio and films, was the Laika
(music based on the bouzouki) with sounds that the Greeks from
Asia Minor brought with them back in the 1920s. The Greek soft
music (elafra mousiki) with flavours of western European sounds,
the most representative of which came from the songs of Manos
Hadjidakis and Mimis Plessas that was sung by famous performers
like Nana Moushouri, Tzeni Vanou, Giannis Vogiatzis and others,
was also very popular. Also, during this time, the music of
famous duos and trios like the Katsamba Brothers and Trio Athena
became fashionable. Their particular sound was an imitation of
Spanish and Mexican music which they transformed into Greek. ,
As well as this, there was the other kind of music, the Demotica
or Greek folk music which unfortunately negative memories for
many older Greeks as Demotica was promoted as Greek nationalist
music during the seven years under the dictatorship. Hopefully,
as the years have gone by, these bad connotations are beginning
to fade.
Laika developed from the Rebetika which was popular among the
underclasses during the 1940s and 1950s. It was not well known
to the masses until around the 1970s when George Dalaras and
many others reproduced many old Rebetica songs. This coincided
with the making of the famous Greek film, Rebetico (that tells
the story of Marika Ninou one of the first rebetiko woman
singers) which popularised this kind of music even more. The
Laika was, for many years, neglected by the Greek middle class.
It is said that it was Manolis Hiotis who brought the bouzouki
music into the middle-class drawing room. Manolis Hiotis was
probably the best virtuoso of the bouzouki though he was a
former guitarist, he also invented the eight string bouzouki and
created unforgettable songs using for the first time in modern
Greek pop music the styles of Jazz, Samba and many Latin music
elements integrated with his bouzouki.
From the end of the 1950s onwards, the Greek Laika became more
and more popular. This is partly to do with the economic
development of Greece that was slowly recovering from the two
wars, the Second World War and the Civil War. More and more
Greeks could afford to buy radios and record players. The Greek
record companies, seeing the potential of Laika, signed
contracts with singers, musicians and composers and the mass
production of popular Greek music really began to take off.
Throughout the 1960s saw the growth of the well-known tavernas
that offered live music shows, the Bouzoukia. This occurred
particularly in areas of Athens. One of the most fashionable
area at the time was Tzitzifies. The 1960s saw the absolute
domination of Laika. Great performers became known to all Greek
households. Names such as Grigoris Bithikotsis, Stelios
Kazantzidis, Stamatis Kokotas, Manolis Angelopoulos, Marinela,
Giota Lidia, Doukisa, Poly Panou, Panos Cavalas with Ria Kourti,
Viky Mosholiou were all singing the songs of famous composers
like Vasilis Tsitsanis, Giannis Papaioannou, Markos Vamvakaris,
Giorgos Zambetas, Giorgos Mitsakis, Apostolos Kardaras and many
others.
There is a big dispute about what is considered as Greek popular
music during those days because, as is well known in the modern
Greek music world, many composers of those years were tuning
their radios every night to the short wave frequencies and
listening to the music from several Arabian countries as well as
India. The music they then went on to compose was highly
influenced (and in some cases even copied) from songs of these
countries. I can recall personally that, back in the 1980s, I
was playing in a Greek folk band where we had amongst our
members a bouzouki player who was Iranian. He taught us a famous
Persian folk song (Masta) which, some years later became a top
hit in Greece but played by a completely different Greek band.
Many they say that authentic Greek folk music was developed
firstly by Marcos Vamvakaris, with his famous song Fragosyriani
. With this song Vamvakaris introduces new musical roots with
more Western sounds that blend perfectly with the old sounds of
Rebetiko. The same happens also with Vasillis Tsitsanis and his
song Omorfi Thessaloniki. Both these songs are the typical
Hasapiko dance songs. Finally, there is George Zambetas with the
song Syko Horepse
Syrtaki which seals a whole era that follows with the name
'Greek tourist music'. At this point it is interesting to
mention that during the 1960s The Beatles were said to have
visited Greece and met with Zambetas to learn some of the
techniques of Greek music and bouzouki. It is not strange
therefore that, to the Greek ear, the Beatles' song 'Girl' is a
typical Greek Hasapiko.
In the middle of the 1960s a new kind of music began to be heard
in Greece. this was the Greek New Wave music which was inspired
by Western ballads and styles that were first introduced in
Paris in the Boifes music halls. the New Wave became the
favourite music style of the young Greek intellectuals and
sophisticates. The Buite Esperides of Yiannis Argyris and
Apanemia of George Zografos, both in Plaka in Athens, became the
shrines of this New Wave. It was the time of great performers
like Dionyssis Sourpopoulos to make a huge turnaround in the
Greek music scene developing it towards Western ballads, Blues
and Rock. During this time new performers of the Greek new wave
like Giannis Poulopoulos, Kostas Hadjis, Arleta and others make
a significant presence.
Of course, the composers that made the Greek music known
internationally are Mikis Theodorakis with his famous Zorba the
Greek Manos Hadzidakis with Never on Sunday , and Stavros
Xarhakos with his music in the film The Red Lights. These three
composers are acknowledge as the greatest composers of modern
Greece and you will often hear their names mentioned in musical
circles as 'the fat' (Hiadjidakis) 'the tall' (Theodorakis) and
'the short' (Xarhakos). Of course, we should not forget another
great composer, Vangelis Papathanasiou, who left Greece with
Demis Roussos in the late 1960s to set up the famous group,
Aphrodite's Child, in Paris France which was the beginning of
their international careers.
From the 1970s and 1980s onwards, the Greek music became more
and more distant from the original sounds of the 1950s and 60s.
This decade saw the introduction of new sounds, digital
recordings with sound effects and the absolute domination of the
synthesiser keyboard pushing away the original folk instruments
of 25 years before and, in particular, delegating the bouzouki
sound to a backing role.
