Ever since antiquity, music transcription has been the intrinsic way of visual representation of sound, sometimes in detail and sometimes in the form of a guide. Throughout time, the visual capture of music has been the only way to store and preserve it over time, but also the exclusive means of reproducing it. In any case, visual transfer should be considered as an auxiliary tool, since oral dissemination and storage in the memory of artists have been the most timeless techniques for the diffusion of music through time and space. During Europe's so-called "classical" musical period, with its most powerful centers of production, such as today's Austria, Germany, France and Italy, and especially in its path towards Romanticism, music transcription, that is, the musical score, was considered by some composers as the very embodiment of their work.

Understandably, in the modern capitalist world, music transcription, as the primary tool for the substantialization of music, brought under its purview repertoires that were not connected, were not disseminated, and did not function on the basis of their transcription. This offered to the music product sales centers an additional tool to expand their action network: non-scholar musics acquired a convenient way of circulating them, enhancing their popularity, even in places very far from those of their original creation. At the end of the 19th century, however, the phenomenon of sound recording and reproduction rearranged relationships and disrupted the status quo of publishing houses, claiming a share of the market, offering a product that was extremely complete and immediate. The publishing houses tried to react with legal measures, but it became impossible to stop the dynamics of the new phenomenon: the prevalence of commercial discography was now a fact, for most of the 20th century.

As far as non-scholar music is concerned, commercial printed musical scores were publications of the musical texts of songs or instrumental pieces (for the publishing activity in Greece see Lerch-Kalavrytinos, 2003: 4-5). For the needs of musical scores, the songs were arranged mainly (but not only) for piano or for piano and voice, generally without complex performance requirements. Multi-instrumental or technically demanding orchestrations were systematically avoided. The lyrics were printed below the notes of the melodic development of the singing parts and, sometimes, their translations into other languages. For the most part, the musical scores were two or four pages long, and came with a themed front and back cover.

This four-page musical score, from which the third and fourth pages are missing, includes the song "Dyodia Zampettas & Piou-Piou" from the revue "Panathinaia tou 1911" in text - lyrics by Bampis Anninos and Giorgos Tsokopoulos and music by Theofrastos Sakellaridis. More particularly, it comes from scene 11 of the first act, and it was sung by Rozalia Nika in the revue, who portrayed the maid Zampetta, and by Anthi Miliadou, who portrayed the French soldier, who was the orderly of general Edu, the leader of the French military mission in Greece (see Chatzipantazis - Maraka, 1977, 3: 297-298). The revue premiered on June 23, 1911 at the "Nea Skini" theater by the Nikas - Fürst - Lepeniotis troupe. We should note that, as it can be seen from the musical score under the same title published by the "Mousiki" music publishing house, the song was also included in the revue "Panathinaia tou 1912", with lyrics by the aforementioned authors. The revue premiered on June 22, 1912 at the "Olympia" theater by the Nikas - Fürst - Lepeniotis troupe.

The monochrome cover features a sketch by Antonis Vottis which bears his initials and depicts a woman playing the piano, as well as a photo of the actress and star of the revue Rozalia Nika. The title of the revue, the names of the writers, the musical arranger and the publishers are listed. Eight titles of the songs that come from this particular revue are also listed. The title "Dyodia Zampettas & Piou-Piou", pertaining to this musical score, is underlined. This tactic was common in similar cases. Creating a single cover for more than one song significantly reduced the cost of musical scores production.

This is a musical score with a system of three staffs (two for piano and one for singing). "A. [Angelos] Tantis" and the code "M. 73 E." are written at the bottom of the pages of the music text.

The black and white back cover includes an advertisement of the K. Mystakidis - Th. Efstathiadis music publishing house and the lyrics of the second stanza of the song.

For the full musical score, see here.

The song is an arrangement by Theofrastos Sakellaridis with Greek lyrics by B. Anninos and G. Tsokopoulos of No. 10. Duet by Daisy - Hans "Paragraph Eins", also known as "Wir tanzen Ringelreih'n". It comes from the second act of the three-act Austrian operetta "Die Dollarprinzessin" ("The Dollar Princess"), set to music by composer Leo Fall (Olmütz, Moravia, Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Olomouc, Czech Republic, February 2, 1873 - Vienna, Austria, September 16, 1925) and German libretto by Alfred Maria Willner (Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire, July 11, 1859 - Vienna, Austria, October 27, 1929) and Fritz Grünbaum [Brünn, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Czech Republic), April 7, 1880 - KZ Dachau, English: Dachau Concentration Camp, January 14, 1941]. The operetta premiered at the Theater an der Wien on November 2, 1907.

The song, in a more recent performance (see here from 13′ 52″ to 17′ 15″), was included in the episode “I anorthosi” (The recovery) of the dramatized documentary television series “Istoria grammeni me notes” (History written with notes), scripted by theater professor Theodoros Chatzipantazis, directed by Giorgos M. Dampasis and musically arranged by Takis Athinaios. The series, produced by the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (commonly shortened to ERT), was broadcast by the public television station ET-1 in 1983. The same episode includes one more song from the revue “Panathinaia” of 1911, the "Asma Zampettas" (see here from 12′ 52″ to 13′ 50″).

Commenting on the French words egalité, liberté and fraternité, which are included in the lyrics of the song, Th. Chatzipantazis (see Chatzipantazis - Maraka, 1977, 3: 298) states the following: "In Zampetta’s and Piu Piu's love song, the satirical device is based on the use of the slogan of the French revolution 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' which still symbolizes the French Republic".

The Νo. 10. Duett των Daisy - Hans is also found in Greek-speaking discography, characteristically outlining the dialectical, multi-layered relationship between the various "national" repertoires, the subject of the ongoing research "Cosmopolitanism in Greek Historical Discography".

For more about the operetta, the song and its recordings in the Greek repertoire, see here.

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis