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 four-page musical score contains the waltz "Poso lypamai" set to music by Kostas Giannidis (pseudonym of Giannis Konstantinidis) and lyrics by Panagiotis Papadoukas - Vasilis Spyropoulos. It comes from the revue "Violetta" (see here), by the above authors, which premiered on May 19, 1939 at the Samartzis Theater by the Miliadis-Kyriakos troupe.

On the monochrome cover, on which there is a photograph of Sofia Vempo, the title of the song, the authors, the publisher, "Valse" and "Apo tin megalin epitychian tou Thiasou Miliadi-Kyriakou 'Violetta'" (From the great success of the Miliadis-Kyriakos Troupe "Violetta") are inscribed. On the second page there’s an advertisement for the "nea succés" (new hits) and the third page (bottom left) reads "Rich. Fr." [Richardos Fretsas]. Finally, there is an advertisement of Gaitanos music publishing house on the monochrome back cover.

This is a musical score with a system of three staffs (two for piano and one for voice).

The song, entitled "Poso lypamai", was recorded by Sofia Vempo in Athens in June 1939 (His Master's Voice OGA 925-1 - AO 2566 and RCA_Victor 26-8030, Orthophonic S-518-A, His Master's Voice UK JOG 12).

The song is still alive today in the repertoire performed in nightclubs, concert halls and in the recording industry. We note indicatively the cover by the band Imam Baildi released in 2007 by Minos-EMI ("Poso lypamai", CD "Imam Baildi", EMI 5099950984824).

The tune, however, can also be found in the Egyptian repertoire. In particular, in the song "Ya msafer wahdak" (يا مسافر واهديك), which comes from the Egyptian film "Mamnu'a el hub"( مممنوع الحب), which began its screenings in Egyptian cinemas on February 1, 1942. The music was composed by the composer, singer and actor Mohamed Abd El-Wahhab (محمد عبد الوهاب), who stars in the film and performs the song, and the lyrics by Hussein Al-Sayyid (حسين السيد).

The song "Ya msafer wahdak" gained great popularity in the Arab world and was recorded many times. It continues to be a choice for the repertoire of both live performances and the discography of contemporary singers from Egypt, such as Nağat El-Sagheera (see here), Lebanon, such as Fabienne Daher (see here), Syria, such as Safwan Abed (see here), Tunisia, such as Ghalia Benali (see here), Israel, such as Nasreen Qadri (see here), Jordan, such as Hana Malhas (see here), Palestine, such as Ameer Dandan (see here), etc.

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. Discography as well as musical scores have 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”.

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis