At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe is living in peace and prosperity. The “Belle Époque” is an outgrowth of previous important historical events and developments. The networks that are created and which evolve funnel both people and their products, tangible and intangible. It is within this multi-layered world that sound recording and sound reproduction is invented. Early record labels send mobile crews literally all over the world to record local musicians. The range of the repertoire is endless. Cosmopolitanism in large urban centers favors polystylisms and polymorphisms. Colonialism, revolutions, conflicts, refugee flows; the theater, cinema, radio, photography, orchestras’ tours, but also circulations in all kinds of commercial channels in a world that evolves dynamically and anisotropically, form a complex network of “centers” and “peripheries” in alternating roles setting musical idioms in motion, both literally and figuratively. TThe networks in which the Greek-speaking musics participate, constantly conversing with their co-tenants, are magnificent. Discography has already provided important tools in understanding the relationships that developed between “national” repertoires. The result of this ongoing research is “Cosmopolitanism in Greek Historical Discography”.

Naturally, in the large urban centers of the Ottoman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea, the “conversations” of the Greek-speakers with their Turkish-speaking Muslim “co-tenants”, the Catholic Greek-speakers, the Armenians, the Sepharadi and Ashkenazi Jews, the Levantine Protestants, and the Europeans and the Americans, were more than intense. Very often, the scope of this network extends to the Balkans, to Eastern and even to a part of Central Europe. Especially regarding relations between Orthodox and Muslims, the relevant evidence demonstrates the musical exchanges between them and elucidate an ecumene where everyone contributed to the great musical “melting-pot”, and where everyone may draw from it, as well as redeposit it, in a new form, with a reformulated text and its meaning, with sometimes clear and sometimes blurred references to its pre-text, until someone else pulls it out again, through the “melting-pot”, so that it becomes clear that there is no end in this recreational and dynamic process where fluidity prevails. A case that comes from such repertoires is this recording.

In the Greek repertoire, the melody was first recorded in Athens in 1936 under the title"Arapina mou skertsoza" by Roza Eskenazy and Dimitris Semsis (violin), Agapios Tomboulis [Hagop Stambulian or Tombulian or Tobulian] (oud) and Lambros Savvaidis (qanun) (His Master's Voice 0GA-430 – AO 2359 and reissue by RCA Victor BS-013291 – 38-3003-A and Orthophonic S-739-A). According to the record label, the song is attributed to Roza Eskenazy. In 1943 "Arapina mou skertsoza" was recorded in United States by Angeliki Karagianni with Nick D. [Nick Doneff] (violin), Theodoros Kappas (qanun), and unidentified musicians on clarinet, oud, and tarambouka (Metropolitan ME-191-A & Melody ME-191-A).

Of particular interest is the Greek-speaking recording “Arapina” made around 1966 or 1967 in the United States (Georgette 225-A SR LW – 225, 45 rpm). It features the collaboration of three American-born musicians, descendants of immigrants originating from three different ethnocultural groups. These are the American-Lebanese violinist Frederick Elias, who is credited with the composition, orchestration and conducting of the orchestra, the American-Syrian Τony Tawa, a virtuoso toubeleki player, together with his orchestra Near East Caravan, and the American-Greek George or Georgie Manis, whose real surname was Karatzas, on vocals and guitar.

The song is also found in the Turkish-language repertoire, in a recording featuring the collaboration of two Armenians and one Greek. This is the present recording, made in the United States in the late 1940s under the title “Halis arap kizi” (True Arab girl, Balkan 4004-A). The ensemble consists of Marko Melkon [Marko Melkon Alemsherian], who sings and plays the oud, Garbis Bakirjian on the qanun, and Athanasios Zervas on the violin.

America, where all four recording were released, is a microcosm of the globe: a “successful Babel”. Naturally, a unique syncretism also dominates in the field of music. The genesis of discography builds a condition that favors conversation and osmosis between the innumerable ethno-cultural groups that make up the population. These processes will lead to the reinterpretation, updating and renewal of old musical trends that arrive in the United States, and, at the same time, to their re-exportation to the “old worlds”, thus setting up a uniquely multi-layered network. “Νational” repertoires live a new, parallel life, largely molded by discography, which attends to and “tunes” the overlapping relationships that have already developed in the “Old World”. Repertoires communicate with each other once again; a familiar and already dynamic condition in Europe. The circulation of musics is already a reality before the 20th century with theatrical and musical performances tours, but also with the networks of music publishing houses. Discography is not only embedded in this context, but also plays a key role in its transformation. This time, the network is adjusted in a programmatic manner, under new terms and via new paths.

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis