Citation (1)
Map of Greece
Citation (3)
Listen to Greek Music!
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music-Greece
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Books
Ancient Greek Music by
This book endeavours to pinpoint the relations between musical, and especially instrumental, practice and the evolving conceptions of pitch systems. It traces the development of ancient melodic notation from reconstructed origins, through various adaptations necessitated by changing musical styles and newly invented instruments, to its final canonical form. It thus emerges how closely ancient harmonic theory depended on the culturally dominant instruments, the lyre and the aulos. These threads are followed down to late antiquity, when details recorded by Ptolemy permit an exceptionally clear view. Dr Hagel discusses the textual and pictorial evidence, introducing mathematical approaches wherever feasible, but also contributes to the interpretation of instruments in the archaeological record and occasionally is able to outline the general features of instruments not directly attested. The book will be indispensable to all those interested in Greek music, technology and performance culture and the general history of musicology.
Call Number: ML254.6 .H34 2010
Music and Image in Classical Athens by
Sheramy Bundrick proposes that the depictions of musical performance in fifth century BC Athens were intimately linked to contemporary developments in the field of music itself, such as the debate over music in education, theories of musical ethos, and the growing popularity of professional musicians. Moreover, she argues that music became a visual metaphor for the harmony or disharmony of the city. Her book is the first to consider the broad range of musical images in the dynamic classical period, as well as their sociocultural and artistic implications.
Call Number: ML169 .B96 2005
Rebetika by
In 1923-24, over a million and a half Greeks were forced to leave their lands which they settled on for 3000 years. From the hoards of refugees, there emerged a group of musicians that would mark the century forever: the rebetes. Although the endured constant hardships and discrimination, rebetika allowed them to not only record their struggles through the evolution of their music, but to also become enriched by their new challenges and embrace their circumstances with the tragic stoicism for which the Greeks are renowned. Rebetika has been compared to the American blues, the Portuguese fado, and the Spanish flamenco. Music From the Old Greek Underworld is an electrifying story of the anguish of a people uprooted from their ancestral homes. Through innovative musical forms, the songs of these refugees arose from their poverty and suffering, their fruitless dreams, their current and lost loves, and, underlying it all, their spirited and determined will to survive. Though many of the original composers and singers are no longer living, this book captures the soul of their work to pass on and keep alive the tradition of the rebetika for new generations of singers and players.
Call Number: ML3499 .G8 C55 2012
Greek music in America by Call Number: ML3560.G74 G74 2019
Facts in Brief
Capital: Athens
Official language: Greek
Official name: Elliniki dimokratia (Hellenic Republic)
Area: 131,957 sq km
Current Population: 10,718,565
Climate: Hot, dry summers with mild, wet winters near the Mediterranean. Cooler in northern mountains.
Religions: Christianity
Citation (2)
Traditional Greek Music
Greek traditional music (dimotiki mousiki)
Greek traditional music (dimotiki mousiki) consists of several autonomous regional styles with similarities that are apparent only at a second glance (the skopos principle, verse forms etc.). It includes the music both of minorities on the mainland (Vlachs, Albanians, Bulgarians, southern Slavs, and Roma) and of Greek communities outside the state of Greece itself, particularly in Italy, the USA, and Australia.
The music of Greece divides into three major stylistic areas: the mainland, the islands, and Asia Minor. It can be further divided into urban and rural musics. The emergence in the 20th century of a small pan-Greek repertory (the kritikos, pentozalis, kalamatianos, tsamikos, and sirtos) was the result of media influence (radio, records) and the promotion of folklore for tourists. Another pan-Greek form is rebetika, arising from an urban sub-culture and developing between 1810 and 1955 into a taverna song and dance form. Folk terminology distinguishes between the secular singer, tragoudistis, and the Orthodox church singer, psaltis.
Traditionally, song and dance titles are formed in terms of a personal possession (e.g. skopos tou Georgiou, ‘tune of George’), denote function (e.g. tou gamou, ‘wedding song’), or involve place names and regional names (e.g. kalamatianos, a dance from Kalamata; pogonisios, a dance-song from Pogoni). Titles relating to content (e.g. zoumpouli, ‘hyacinth’) or quoting the opening line of the text are rare, and often derive from collectors. Songs with standard texts (ballads) are called stereotipika. Various ballad texts are frequently sung to the same melody (idiomelos).
The musicians themselves hardly think at all in terms of scales and chords, or if they do they describe them as maiore (‘major’) or minore (‘minor’). Folksongs employ syllabic lines of 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, and, very rarely, 13 syllables.
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Citation (4)
Composer Highlight: Theodorakis Mikis
Greek composer. As the son of a civil servant, he spent his childhood years in various Greek provincial towns. At 17 he gave his first concert in the town of Tripolis, presenting his composition Kassiani. After a demonstration against the Italian occupiers of Tripolis in 1943, he was arrested and tortured. After his release, he left for Athens, where he studied music at the Conservatory and was recruited into the resistance against the German occupation. During the Civil War that followed World War II, Theodorakis was active on the side of the Left. He was arrested and exiled, first on the island of Ikaria and later on Makronissos. He was severely tortured and barely escaped with his life, but it was on the notorious prison island that he began composing his first symphony.
Citation: Holst-Warhaft, G. Theodorakis, Mikis. Grove Music Online. Retrieved 14 Sep. 2021, from https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000027797.
Citations
(1): "Panorama of The Four Bells and a Greek flag - Santorini" by "Jorge Láscar"
(2): Country Profile (Greece), in Europa World online. London, Routledge. University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Retrieved 31 August 2021 from http://www.europaworld.com/entry/gr.is.1
(3): https://www-europaworld-com.proxy.lib.utk.edu/entry/gr.MAP
(4): Romanou, K., Mathiesen, T., Lingas, A., Maliaras, N., Chaldaiakis, A., Plemmenos, J., Bamichas, P., Kardamis, K., Kontossi, S., Economides, M., Tragaki, D., Tsagkarakis, I., Chardas, K., Seiragakis, M., Chianis, S., & Brandl, R. Greece. Grove Music Online. Retrieved 13 Sep. 2021, from https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-3000000167.