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”.

There was no previous management model in the early period of discography. Each company creates their own networks, something that will allow them to take a dynamic lead in the market. New specialties and professions are created and new conditions emerge, or the need to update older facts, with the most serious being intellectual property. The latter, until then, concerned mostly printed commercial musical scores and the publishers’ rights. New small companies are constantly springing up, trying to claim a share of the market, which, sooner or later, takes on global dimensions. They are often bought by larger companies, along with their already recorded repertoires and their existing agreements with agents, producers and musicians. Sooner or later, most of the smaller labels are under the control of a few growing companies. Over the years, and as the recording market becomes more complex, factories-branches are built on all continents. These offices are taken over by local actors who gradually draw up their own policies: they know their markets better. The ever-evolving recording industry proves to be centripetal: the decisions that are taken follow the policies centrally dictated by the managements of the companies and their subsidiaries. This entire environment, this entire layered landscape, becomes even more complex in America. There, “national” repertoires live a new, parallel life. This situation is not static and, to a large extent, is 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 different terms and via new paths.

This recording concerns the well-known children song "Otan tha pao kyra mou sto pazari". This particular record is a re-issue of the record DG 6517 by Columbia.

As a theme, the song borrows the story that penetrates Thessaloniki’s discography, a product of the dynamic Sephardic tradition that has been developed in the city for centuries. It should be noted that, during the late Ottoman era, the census that began in 1880, the records of which were published in 1893, indicated that in the city of Thessaloniki there were 36,985 Greeks, 34,523 Jews, 29,489 Muslims, 1,117 Bulgarians, 471 Catholics and 149 Armenians (see Karpat, 1978).

The song was recorded twice by Jacob Algava before 1912, that is, before the annexation of Thessaloniki to the Greek state.

- "Madame Gaspare", Gramophone 12758 b – 6-12654, Jacob Algava, Thessaloniki, March 1909
- "Madam Gaspard si choi al Tcharschi", Odeon xSC 8 – 46279, Jacob Algava, Thessaloniki, May–September 1909

Based on research conducted by Hugo Strötbaum, the song was recorded for the third time in the Sephardic repertoire by Abraham Karakaş Efendi for Premier Record (Madame Gaspar, 10979). The recording most likely took place before January 1912.

Mrs. Gaspare or Gaspard, however, to whom the Sephardic song refers, seems to be an older composition by Henri Bachmann. The song is a French chanson. In fact, the indication under the title, in a musical score which seems to have been published around 1898, reads "old song", implying that it is a song from the folk repertoire. In this musical score (here and here) Madame Gaspard is depicted holding musical instruments and accompanied by animals. On the cover, it is noted that the performer of the song is Blanche Gaspard. In addition, the complete title, as it appears in the musical score, is "Madame Gaspard va-t-au marché" (Mrs. Gaspard goes to the market).

A Columbia cylinder (37002), recorded in Paris by the singer Ragani and the technician Henri Lioret (for his exciting life see Julien Anton’s publication Henri Lioret – Clockmaker and Phonograph Pioneer), was found with this title. This recording may have been made before the turn of the century, that is, before 1900.

The same title is mentioned by Michael Thomas in a list of recordings of the company Edison Bell (763, Monsieur Coquillon).

This title refers to another one from the French repertoire, which may be prior than Bachmann's composition (or adaptation): "Les animaux du marché" (The animals of the market). The song appears to have been released under this title since 1876 (see Conrad Laforte, Le catalogue de la chanson folklorique française, volume 4).

Songs with similar theme are also found in the English-speaking repertoire. For example, the recording entitled "Farmyard medley" (Victor A-124), which was made in Camden, New Jersey, in 1900, by the Haydn Quartet, and the song "Old MacDonald had a farm" by the American Quartet (Victor B-28816 – 19265, Camden, New Jersey, October 30, 1923).

In any case, the Greek version borrows only the lyrical themes. The music of the song "Sto pazari" was composed by Zozef Korinthiou.

In 1957, an adaptation of the song entitled "Kokoraki (A Greek song)" was recorded live by Flanders and Swann at the Furtune Theatre in London during the performances of the musical revue "At the drop of a hat" (CD "At the drop of a hat", Parlophone PMC 1033). The revue, co-written and presented by the British comedy duo of the Englishman Michael Flanders and the Welshman Donald Swann, premiered on December 31, 1956 at the New Lindsay Theatre. About three weeks later, on January 24, 1957, it the revue was transferred to the Furtune Theatre, where it ran until May 2, 1959, while on October 2 of the same year it premiered at the John Golden Theatre in New York, completing 215 performances (see here). Donald Swann's relationship with Greece spans a period of fifty years, from the time he lived in the country as a member of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), between 1944-46, until his last visit at the end of August 1992. The fruits of this long-standing relationship with Greece are his arrangements of Greek songs (see, for example here, here and here), his original compositions to the verses of Greek poets, such as Kostis Palamas (see here) and Ioannis Gryparis (see here), and the cycle of eight songs entitled "The Casos sonetts" to his own verses (see here and here).

Syncretism, which is observed in the musical actualizations of the areas where Greeks lived and recorded, mainly in the area of folk-popular traditions, is monumental. It only takes one to listen to historical discography, which begins in New York, Smyrna (Izmir), Constantinople (Istanbul), Athens and Thessaloniki since 1900. An essential part of this syncretism concerns the Jews, who constitute one of the main conduits in the uniquely diverse cultural heritage of the Greek-speaking world. They borrow and lend, but they also carry more distant traditions from the places where they have previously lived and the places they have traveled to. They are the central interlocutors in the Greek and Ottoman ecumene, together with Turkish-speaking Muslims, Orthodox but also Catholic Greek-speaking and Armenians, Levantine Protestants, Europeans and Americans, and compose a rich musical mosaic which consists of heterogeneous but co-existent palimpsests: a reservoir to which everyone contributes but from which also everyone receives.

The sources show the timeless existence of a Jewish element, at least since the Hellenistic period, in areas that millennia later formed the modern Greek state. After the “Edict of Milan” in 313 AD and the gradual Christianization of the Eastern Empire, the Jewish element found itself in a difficult position. The Jewish populations that have since been established in these lands became known as Romaniote Jews (or “Romaniotes”’ Rome – Romios). Their historical geographical center of reference was the city of Ioannina, and they speak Greek with various linguistic mixtures. After 1492 and the “Alhambra Decree” by the joint Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, those Jews who did not accept to embrace Christianity were expelled from the Iberian peninsula. They became known as the Sepharadi Jews (or “Sepharadim”), one of the largest Jewish ethno-cultural categorizations (Sepharad in Jewish texts is referred to as the region of present-day Spain). Thessaloniki was one of the main destination points of this displacement, as the ties with the city were older and already close. Apart from the role played by the Greek Jews in the musical developments on the Greek peninsula, there were also important mutual influences between the Greek-speaking Orthodox and the Jews in various other areas where the two communities lived together. As, for example, in Odessa, with the Eastern Ashkenazi Jews, who mainly speak Yiddish, a sui generis Semitic-Slavic language (in Jewish texts, the Kingdom of Ashkenaz, a descendant of Noah, is connected with north-eastern European territories). Their orchestral repertoire is often called klezmer. In other words, apart from the geographical limits of the modern Greek state, the cultural conversations between the Greek Orthodox and the Jews also concern other parts of the world, both in Europe and America, where they met as immigrants.

Research and text by: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis