Traditional and popular Greek music
As soon as one broaches the subject of traditional or popular music in Greece, images of sirtaki or echoes of bouzouki (the Greek mandolin) immediately come to mind. If these two aspects monopolize the imagination, a world of fabulous depth is nevertheless hidden behind them. Crossroads of the Mediterranean, invaded on many occasions, the history of the country is imprinted in its traditional and popular music. Although the islands, by their past, have their own folklore, Greece as a whole shares three great musical pillars: the dimotiko, the rebetiko and the laïko. The dimotiko is the oldest Greek folk song. It is commonly divided into two movements, the akritic, dating from the 9th century, and the klephtic, which was common throughout the Ottoman occupation (from the end of the Byzantine period to the beginning of the Greek Revolution of 1821). The dimotiko is a good way to hear all the instruments that are the pillars of the country's folk music: the lira (an emblematic fiddle of Crete), the gaida (a bagpipe), the laouto (the Greek lute), the tambouras (another Greek lute) or the daouli (a drum).
The Greek genre par excellence (classified as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity) is the rebetiko. A popular music dating from the early 1960s, this "Greek blues" is the song of the uprooted, the excluded, the marginalized, born in the underground cafés of Athens and Thessaloniki. It tells the story of the daily life of the "Micrasiates", Greek refugees expelled from Asia Minor in 1922, who lived in poverty, pain, hunger and drug addiction. A very beautiful music full of spleen which knew its hour of glory in the hands of Vassilis Tsitsanis, Markos Vamvakaris or Marika Ninou.
The third great Greek current, laïko, appeared in the 1950s and 1960s. Meaning "popular", laiko is pop music in the most literal sense of the word and a descendant of the rebetiko. The term has evolved over time and now refers to modern Greek pop as a whole, even variety. In the 1960s, two of the country's big stars exploded via laiko: Stelios Kazantzidis and Manolis Angelopoulos. Among the great names of contemporary Greek music, its most illustrious ambassador was Manos Hatzidakis (1925-1994). Famous composer of the Children of Piraeus, he is also the discoverer of Nana Mouskouri (a Cretan!) and made the rebetiko travel the world. He is, with Melina Mercouri, one of those artists who gave an international dimension to Greek tunes. Since the 1980s, the great names of Greek popular music have been Dionysis Savvopoulos, Charis Alexiou, Nikos Papazoglou, Giorgos Dalaras or the rocker Vassilis Papakonstandinou.
Cretan specificities
According to mythology, music appeared in Crete at the birth of Zeus, on the mount of Ida: the Crettes, mythical Cretan soldiers, would have begun to dance and make noise by beating their weapons around the newborn in order to cover his cries and screams and protect, thus, the future father of the gods from the wrath of his progenitor, Cronos. Later, Theseus, the victor of the Minotaur, leaving behind him the island of Crete, will dance surrounded by his companions a dance with a rhythm hitherto unknown, imitating the sinuous and helical path he had to follow in the Labyrinth. Thus was born the dance called Geranos, a dance that is still practiced today in the Aegean islands.
The music that gave rhythm to a large part of the life of the Ancient Greeks appeared as early as the Neolithic period. The oldest percussion instrument discovered to date on the island of Crete is a kind of seistron, exhibited in the archaeological museum of Heracleion. Made of clay, it dates from 2000-1900 BC and was discovered in the tomb of a young child during excavations in Fourni, Acharnes. An instrument similar to it is represented on the relief of the famous vase known as "of the harvesters" (1500 BC) discovered during the excavations at the necropolis of Aghia Triada (Archaeological Museum of Heracleion): a man carrying this seistron
is following a procession of harvesters during a procession in honor of the Goddess Earth - Mother primitive. On the same site, archaeologists have discovered a sarcophagus (1500 BC) decorated with frescoes illustrating on one side an aulete and on the other side a seven-stringed lyre player.Among the first musical instruments of the Neolithic, many come from the sea. The triton, a gastropod mollusc that can reach a length of 40 cm, also known as the "Neptune's trumpet", was widely used by the Cretans during religious rituals and other celebrations that brought together the whole primitive community. One of these tritons transformed into a trumpet by a fine opening on its shell is currently exposed in the archaeological museum of Heracleion: it still carries the traces of the red ochre which decorated it. It comes from the palace of Phaistos and dates from 1800-1700 B.C. From the same period, a kind of whistle, made of bovine bone, was discovered in Knossos.
Plato, in his Minos
, tells the anecdote according to which this legendary Cretan king gave the order to bury his son Glaucos with his collection of flutes, adored during his lifetime. The Cretan music would have met the Mycenaean civilization thanks to Thalitas, a Cretan legislator and musician coming from Gortyne, called to Sparta in the 8th century BC. According to Plutarch, he would have transferred to continental Greece the musical wealth of Crete and the important role it plays in the education of young children.At the crossroads of Anatolian and Western civilizations, the musical heritage of Crete was enriched many centuries after the destruction of its ancient palaces. The music was strongly influenced by the Venetians from the 13th century when the Venetians occupied the island. It was then that the violin and the lute were introduced into the local musical compositions. The rhyme appears towards the end of the XIVth century to give birth to the mantinades
, this specific poetic form of Crete which played a considerable role in the evolution of the Cretan musical improvisation.Then came the Byzantine influences, especially after the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans (1453). At that time, the island, under Venetian rule, became a refuge for many teachers of ecclesiastical music. They took advantage of the creative freedom offered in Crete and founded schools of Greek-Byzantine music while cultivating traditional Cretan music.
When the Ottomans finally occupied Crete, the musical heritage was further enriched and the lyre, as we know it today, became the symbolic instrument of the island. During the Ottoman occupation, several Cretans will find refuge in the Ionian islands still under Venetian occupation. It is on this occasion that the Cretan musicians will develop on their adopted homelands the "crypto-Cretan" music that we can still appreciate today.
The most famous Cretan genre is undoubtedly the mantinades. This type of popular song is characterized by its improvised lyrics that must respect a certain metric (2 rhyming verses of 15 syllables each). Originating in medieval Cretan poetry, the lyrics are nowadays often about women and eroticism. The musical accompaniment to mantinades is called kontilia, and usually takes the form of a four-bar melody repeated throughout the song. Another common Cretan form, the ancient rizitika, is an a capella mountain song that likes to tell the wonderful legends of the island. A rizitika sung by Nikos Xylouris (1936-1980) in the early 1970s has remained particularly famous on the island (and in the country). Soberly named The Rizitika of Crete, the song is undoubtedly also famous because of the popularity of its interpreter, mythical singer of the island nicknamed "the Archangel of Crete". Child of a family of musicians of the village of Anogia, Nikos Xylouris learns to handle the Cretan lyre very young. In love with the traditional music of his island - then fallen into disuse -, the artist takes the party very early in his career to try to revalorize it. Successful bet, by marrying it with sounds coming from elsewhere and by modernizing it, Xylouris massively participated in the revival of the Cretan music, while becoming himself iconic. His brother, Andonis Xylouris, known by the pseudonym Psarantonis, is also one of the most recognized Cretan musicians today.Crete is on the whole a fertile land for musicians. Among the most famous today are the singers Stelios Petrakis, a true ambassador of Cretan music, Thanasis Skordalos, a great lyre player, Psarogiorgis, famous for his handling of the laouto and son of the Cretan lyre player Psarantonis (the "Jazzman of Crete"). Recently, it is the group Chainides that has had some success in blending the Cretan heritage with more modern genres.
It is common to hear traditional Cretan music in events such as the patronal celebrations, called panegyries, always accompanied by music and dance. Also, the Summer Festival, held every summer in the Cretan capital, hosts dance, music and shows in a very good program
The dance
Funnily enough, sirtaki is not a traditional dance, but it has become one over time. Created in 1964 by Jean Vassilis (to music by Theodorakis) for the film Zorba the Greek by Michel Cacoyannis, it was nevertheless inspired by a traditional dance, the hasápikos (or hasaposerviko) but did not really exist before that. The most famous traditional dance of the country is therefore not... "traditional". And yet folk dances, in Greece, there are a lot of them - there are even 10,000 different ones all over the country. And although they reflect regional specificities, they share a common base. For example, like syrtos, many dances are performed in circles. Indeed, originally, by forming a circle, the dancers intended to protect themselves from harmful influences. In Crete, by far the most famous and visible dance is the pendozali. Of warlike inspiration, the pendozali is a vigorous traditional dance, all in jumps and dynamism and mixed with improvisations. Still very present in the village festivals, it sees the dancers line up by holding each other by the shoulders and perform the same steps as the dancer next door, following the first one who leads the ball. When the rhythm accelerates, the dance follows in cadence and can become very fast. The pendozali is part of a group of dynamic jump and bounce dances called Pidiktos, of which there are many variations on the island. A little aside, let's not forget the sousta, the only couple dance practiced in Crete.
