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The network in which the Greek-speaking urban folk-popular song participates, constantly conversing with its co-tenants, is magnificent. Discography has already provided important tools in understanding the relationships developed with the Canzone Napoletana, the French chansons, the music of the Jewish ecumene, the Spanish world, the territories of the Russian Empire and countless other sub-networks. These cultural grids interacted with Greek music from the period of the Ottoman Empire forming a borderless and syncretic cultural context. These networks, through various paths, met the network of Greek-speaking musicians. Naturally, in the large urban centers of the Ottoman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea, the "conversations" of Greek-speaking Muslims with their fellow Turkish-speaking ones were more than intense. 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 to 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 recreating and dynamic process where fluidity prevails. A case that comes from such repertoires is the song "Kanaria".
The tune is found several times in historical discography, both in the Turkish-speaking and in the Greek-speaking one, either in the form of a song or as an instrumental version. A detailed presentation of the series of recordings can be found in Aristomenis Kalyviotis' book Thessaloniki – I mousiki zoi prin to 1912 (Thessaloniki – The musical life before 1912, 2015: 122 – 125). The first recording seems to have been made in Constantinople (Istanbul), in November 1907, with Ebrahim Efendi: "Kanarya kantosu – Hicaz Kanto" (Odeon Cx 1777 – X 54449). Subsequently, two recordings were made in Thessaloniki, in 1910, again in Turkish.
The present recording by Columbia was made in America, with singer Kyriakoula Antonopoulou (whose name, due to the "tradition" of typographical errors on the labels, was changed to "Kyria Koula", meaning "Mrs. Koula"). Antonopoulou sang it in Turkish, around January 1917, in New York, and the record was addressed to the Turkish market in America, as we can see on the label.
On the label of the 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 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 all historical recordings, for which the audio material is available, the tune was performed within the aesthetic context of the Hitzaz dromos (mode) and should not be confused, both with its newer recordings and performances which seem to have begun with Domna Samiou, as well as with the various recordings bearing the same title.
Samiou's album was released by Manos Chatzidakis’ record production and music publishing company "Seirios" in 1986. The song was presented as a "Slow song from Asia Minor". The note states: "A love song that I recorded in 1965 in Agiasos, Mytilene, by the mixed group of amateur actors of the village. The song comes from the village of Dermetzili in Erythrae (Karaburun) Peninsula, in Asia Minor". The lyrics of the song are as follows:
My heart, start laughing
Canaries
Laugh like before
And let our sorrows go
Canaries
Like the fog invading the mountains
The birds wish they’d had
Canaries
The chirping that you have
The ships that glide with sails
Canaries
Wish they’d had the chirping that you have
I wish I’d see you
Canaries
Once a day
So my mind to get a breath of air
Canaries
And to receive comfort for my heart
Since then, this melody was taught mainly in Byzantine music schools, which established informal departments for the teaching of traditional music. Moreover, it was included in the repertoire of chanting choirs that also performed traditional songs.
Around 1997–1998, the song was included in the album "I kath’ imas Anatoli – Tragoudia apo tis patrides ton Ellinon" (According to us, East – Songs from the homelands of the Greeks), released by the Cultural Center of the Ministry of Culture, with Notis Mavroudis as President. The song was performed by Chronis Aidonidis. The relevant text, which is written by Giorgos Konstantzos, states: "A song from Erythrae, in Asia Minor. A similar song, but in a different echos (byzantine mode), is in the Forminga supplement (chanting historical periodical) from Ainos (Enez), in Eastern Thrace". The above first four couplets and then the following two can be heard in Aidonidis’ performance.
As for the publications, the older one seems to be the one published in the Forminga supplement (n.d.: 78). Its lyrics are as follows:
My heart has a small key
Canaries
Take it and open
Canaries
It has an orchard inside
Canaries
Come in and have a stroll
Canaries
This section of the publication is presented as follows: "From the collection of dimotiko (folk) melodies and songs by Symeon A. Manasseidis, Priest from Ainos […] Kanaria (Canaries), Echos Protos (First byzantine mode), 2/4". The transcription, like all the transcriptions in the Forminga supplement, was made using Byzantine new system notation. This specific version was recorded by Irma Kolassi, a Greek Armenian who was born in Athens and made a career in Europe, after relocating to Paris. It is the album entitled "Chants Campagnards Du Monde" harmonized and orchestrated by Arne Dørumsgaard, released in 1961.
This new life of the song "Kanaria" belongs to the corpus of tunes/songs that were reconstructed or invented in the context of the ideological movement of "Tradition" and of "Traditional" music, repertoires and instruments (for a more detailed approach see the publications of Eleni Kallimopoulou [Kallimopoulou, 2009] and Merih Erol [2015]).
It is worth mentioning that this tune is also found in the Dodecanese, in the dimotiko repertoire. More specifically, in the album entitled Kasos: Skopoi tis lyras" (Kasos: Tunes of the lyre), with the Perselidis musical family, edited by Lampros Liavas and released in 1993, one can find a recording entitled "Kanaria". It is a tune that presents affinities with the song "Kanaria" from Erythrae (Karaburun) or Ainos (Enez).
Research and text: Nikos Ordoulidis
The network in which the Greek-speaking urban folk-popular song participates, constantly conversing with its co-tenants, is magnificent. Discography has already provided important tools in understanding the relationships developed with the Canzone Napoletana, the French chansons, the music of the Jewish ecumene, the Spanish world, the territories of the Russian Empire and countless other sub-networks. These cultural grids interacted with Greek music from the period of the Ottoman Empire forming a borderless and syncretic cultural context. These networks, through various paths, met the network of Greek-speaking musicians. Naturally, in the large urban centers of the Ottoman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea, the "conversations" of Greek-speaking Muslims with their fellow Turkish-speaking ones were more than intense. 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 to 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 recreating and dynamic process where fluidity prevails. A case that comes from such repertoires is the song "Kanaria".
The tune is found several times in historical discography, both in the Turkish-speaking and in the Greek-speaking one, either in the form of a song or as an instrumental version. A detailed presentation of the series of recordings can be found in Aristomenis Kalyviotis' book Thessaloniki – I mousiki zoi prin to 1912 (Thessaloniki – The musical life before 1912, 2015: 122 – 125). The first recording seems to have been made in Constantinople (Istanbul), in November 1907, with Ebrahim Efendi: "Kanarya kantosu – Hicaz Kanto" (Odeon Cx 1777 – X 54449). Subsequently, two recordings were made in Thessaloniki, in 1910, again in Turkish.
The present recording by Columbia was made in America, with singer Kyriakoula Antonopoulou (whose name, due to the "tradition" of typographical errors on the labels, was changed to "Kyria Koula", meaning "Mrs. Koula"). Antonopoulou sang it in Turkish, around January 1917, in New York, and the record was addressed to the Turkish market in America, as we can see on the label.
On the label of the 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 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 all historical recordings, for which the audio material is available, the tune was performed within the aesthetic context of the Hitzaz dromos (mode) and should not be confused, both with its newer recordings and performances which seem to have begun with Domna Samiou, as well as with the various recordings bearing the same title.
Samiou's album was released by Manos Chatzidakis’ record production and music publishing company "Seirios" in 1986. The song was presented as a "Slow song from Asia Minor". The note states: "A love song that I recorded in 1965 in Agiasos, Mytilene, by the mixed group of amateur actors of the village. The song comes from the village of Dermetzili in Erythrae (Karaburun) Peninsula, in Asia Minor". The lyrics of the song are as follows:
My heart, start laughing
Canaries
Laugh like before
And let our sorrows go
Canaries
Like the fog invading the mountains
The birds wish they’d had
Canaries
The chirping that you have
The ships that glide with sails
Canaries
Wish they’d had the chirping that you have
I wish I’d see you
Canaries
Once a day
So my mind to get a breath of air
Canaries
And to receive comfort for my heart
Since then, this melody was taught mainly in Byzantine music schools, which established informal departments for the teaching of traditional music. Moreover, it was included in the repertoire of chanting choirs that also performed traditional songs.
Around 1997–1998, the song was included in the album "I kath’ imas Anatoli – Tragoudia apo tis patrides ton Ellinon" (According to us, East – Songs from the homelands of the Greeks), released by the Cultural Center of the Ministry of Culture, with Notis Mavroudis as President. The song was performed by Chronis Aidonidis. The relevant text, which is written by Giorgos Konstantzos, states: "A song from Erythrae, in Asia Minor. A similar song, but in a different echos (byzantine mode), is in the Forminga supplement (chanting historical periodical) from Ainos (Enez), in Eastern Thrace". The above first four couplets and then the following two can be heard in Aidonidis’ performance.
As for the publications, the older one seems to be the one published in the Forminga supplement (n.d.: 78). Its lyrics are as follows:
My heart has a small key
Canaries
Take it and open
Canaries
It has an orchard inside
Canaries
Come in and have a stroll
Canaries
This section of the publication is presented as follows: "From the collection of dimotiko (folk) melodies and songs by Symeon A. Manasseidis, Priest from Ainos […] Kanaria (Canaries), Echos Protos (First byzantine mode), 2/4". The transcription, like all the transcriptions in the Forminga supplement, was made using Byzantine new system notation. This specific version was recorded by Irma Kolassi, a Greek Armenian who was born in Athens and made a career in Europe, after relocating to Paris. It is the album entitled "Chants Campagnards Du Monde" harmonized and orchestrated by Arne Dørumsgaard, released in 1961.
This new life of the song "Kanaria" belongs to the corpus of tunes/songs that were reconstructed or invented in the context of the ideological movement of "Tradition" and of "Traditional" music, repertoires and instruments (for a more detailed approach see the publications of Eleni Kallimopoulou [Kallimopoulou, 2009] and Merih Erol [2015]).
It is worth mentioning that this tune is also found in the Dodecanese, in the dimotiko repertoire. More specifically, in the album entitled Kasos: Skopoi tis lyras" (Kasos: Tunes of the lyre), with the Perselidis musical family, edited by Lampros Liavas and released in 1993, one can find a recording entitled "Kanaria". It is a tune that presents affinities with the song "Kanaria" from Erythrae (Karaburun) or Ainos (Enez).
Research and text: Nikos Ordoulidis
© 2019 KOUNADIS ARCHIVE
