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.

The 16-page musical score is titled "Leblébidji Hor-hor agha" and contains excerpts from three-act musical-theatrical play "Leblebici Horhor Ağa" (Khorkor agha, the vendor of chickpeas), set to music by the Armenian Dikran Tchouhadjian [Տիգրան Չուխաճեան, Beyoğlu, Constantinople (Istanbul), 1837 – Smyrna (Izmir), March 11, 1898] and libretto in Ottoman Turkish also by the Armenian Takvor Nalyan [Hasköy, Constantinople (Istanbul), 1843-1876]. This is a collection of parts of the play in transcription for piano by J. Assadour. The play appears to have been first performed at the French Theater (Le Palais de Cristal) in Constantinople (Istanbul) in November 1875 by the Ottoman Opera Troupe.

The title, the composer, the transcriber, the publisher and “Potpouri oriental" are written on the monochrome cover. The back cover is blank.

It is a musical score for piano with a system of two staffs.

Songs from "Leblebici Horhor Ağa" are also found in Greek-speaking discography, characteristically outlining the dialectical, multi-layered relationship between the various "national" repertoires, the subject of the ongoing research "Cosmopolitanism in Greek Historical Discography".

For more about "Leblebici Horhor Ağa" and the recordings of its songs in the Greek repertoire, see here.

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis