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 musical score is included in the collection "Trente mélodies populaires de Grèce et d'Orient" (Thirty Popular Melodies of Greece and the Orient). The collection contains transcriptions of thirty Greek songs collected by the French composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray in Smyrna and Athens during his research trip to Greece and Asia Minor in 1875. The harmonization and piano accompaniment of the melodies were done by the composer (see in detail the extremely interesting text by Giorgos Kokkonis, 2017d: 13-47). The black and white cover also mentions "traduction italienne en vers adaptée à la musique et traduction française en prose de M. A. de Lauzières" (Italian verse translation adapted to music and French prose translation by M. A. de Lauzières), the edition number and the publisher. The edition contains a preface, introduction, translator's note and reference by Bourgault-Ducoudray to the lyrics of the songs (pp. 7-24).

The song is included on pages 42-43, bears the number 13 and is untitled. "Mme Laffon - Smyrne" is written below the numbering. Madame Laffon was the second wife of the French diplomat Gustave Laffon, an interpreter at the French Consulate in Izmir. Madame Laffon was Ada Bargigli, an Italian born in Larnaca, Cyprus, and Bourgault-Ducoudray's main source of information and musical material, since she sang to him 21 of the 30 songs in the collection recorded in Izmir.

The musical text of the song is included in a musical score with a system of three staffs (two for piano and one for voice). At the end of the musical text there is the French translation of the lyrics and an explanatory note by Bourgault-Ducoudray (page 43).

In Greek historical discography, an instrumental version of the tune is found in the recording “O agapitikos tis voskopoulas I”, which was made by the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Municipality of Piraeus in 1907-1908 in Athens (Odeon GX-96 – 65074). It is an instrumental potpourri, which occupies both sides of the disc (see here and here) and consists of melodies found in the Bourgault-Ducoudray collection.

A contemporary recording of the song is included in the CD "Melodies tis anatolis, Tragoudia tis Smyrnis (19os aionas)” [Melodies of the East, Songs of Smyrna (19th century)] ("Astrapsen i Anatoli", The Hellenic Music Archive – FM Records – FM 800, Athens, 1997), which contains 20 of the melodies collected by Bourgault-Ducoudray, with different harmonic - rhythmic accompaniment and orchestration. Katerina Papdopoulou sings it.