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 networks in which the Greek-speaking musics participate, constantly conversing with their co-tenants, are 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 such repertoires the song “Trava vre alani”.

In addition to this recording (a reissue in Turkey from His Master's Voice's record ΟΤ 1357-1 – AO 2147, Athens, 1936), the song, one of the most popular by Kostas Skarvelis, was recorded in Athens in 1934 in two more covers in Greek historical discography:

– Οne by Stellakis Perpiniadis under the title "Trava re alani" (Columbia C.G. 839 – D.G. 2035).
– And one by Kostas Roukounas under the title "Trava vre magka kai alani" (Odeon Go 2139 – GA 1793 and reissue in the USA by Decca [31004-A]).

Finally, in 1968, in Athens, Markos Vamvakaris recorded the song under the title "Min peraseis apo tin geitonia mou" on a 45 rpm record (RCA Victor 076004-B).

The song, however, can also be found in the Turkish-speaking repertoire. Around 1936, Fahire Hanim recorded in Istanbul the song "Çek Paşalimanı’na" (Columbia 17302).

Almost eighty years later, in 2015, the Turkish band Ahmet Beyler released the CD "Hayad Nerde" (Pasaj). The album includes an adaptation of the song entitled "Git Haylazim", in which the tune in question is combined with the musical theme of the instrumental piece "Zorba's Dance", composed by Mikis Theodorakis for the 1964 film "Zorba the Greek".

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis