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. The network in which the Greek-speaking urban popular song participates, constantly conversing with its co-tenants, is 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 this type of repertoire is the song "Tourna".

On the label of the Turkish record, the song is characterized as "kanto". In other words, it is considered part of the repertoire of the kantolar, a term that seems to have been first used by Turkish-speaking Muslims mainly in large urban centers and especially in Constantinople (Istanbul) since the time when Italian troupes performed there. Although initially the kantolar were associated only with theatrical music, they soon became autonomous, when the term "kanto" (singular form of kantolar) came to describe any popular and light secular singing forms (see Pennanen, 2004: 9, O'Connel, 2006: 276, Beşiroğlu & Girgin, 2018: 49).

In the Turkish repertoire, the song was also recorded under the title "Güzel Turna Havası" by Hafız Âşir Efendi (Orfeon 13364) probably in the early 1920s, in Constantinople (Istanbul).

Another Turkish recording was found in America under the title "Turnam Nerdan Galior", by Amillia Hanum, that is, Amalia Vaka. The recording was made for M.G. Parsekian, in New Jersey, in the early 1920s (122 A – NO 517).

Moreover, the song can be found in the Armenian repertoire recorded in USA. More specifically Kanuni Garbis Effendi [Կարպիս Սարկաւագ Բակիրճեան, Garbis Sargavak Bakirgian ή Bakirjian] recorded in New York, around 1927, "Güzel Tourna - Ouchak kanto" (Stamboul 102-B - 400).

This specific tune has penetrated the Greek-speaking repertoire under the title "Tourna", which is found several times in historical discography.

Panagiotis Kounadis states the following about the song (2010, 2: 75): "This well-known melody of the Aegean islands and the Asia Minor coast was recorded for the first time with Greek lyrics in America by Marika Papagkika. But it first appeared in Asia Minor’s discography with the famous Turkish singer of the early 20th century Yaschar Bey under the title 'Tourna'.

'Turna' in Turkish is the bird common crane (and metaphorically, as in Greek, the cargo lifting machine, that is, the crane in construction sites and ports)".

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis