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”.

This is an instrumental tune, quite popular even nowadays in the modern folk-popular repertoire, which, based on the data so far, seems to have been recorded in America. Many "national" repertoires share the tune; however, it seems that its main conductors were Jewish and Greek musicians. We found the following information in the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR):

On August 15 1927, Kostas Papagkika’s orchestra recorded in New York the instrumental piece "I laterna tis Polis" (The barrel piano of Poli, [i.e. Constantinople]) (Okeh W 81229 – 82507). This is a version of the song that we are examining.

About a month later, on September 29 1927, Dimitry Kornienko's (Дмитрий Николаевич Корниенко) orchestra recorded the instrumental song "Katerinke" (Victor BE 40254). Kornienko's story is an interesting one: born in 1888 in Kiev, Ukraine, he immigrated to America in late 1923. In his registration on the ship Byron, which he took from Constantinople (Istanbul), he declared his nationality as Russian, and Batumi, a city of present-day Georgia on the border of Turkey in the Black Sea, as his previous place of residence. The information coming from Martin Schwartz that in the Yiddish language the word "Katerinke" means "barrel piano" (because of the way St. Catherine died, i.e. on a wheel of torture) seems to be even more interesting.

In terms of its title, this recording was issued in various versions:

- I laterna tis polis (VΙ 80212)
- Katerinka (VΙ 80213)
- I laterna tis Polis (VI 26 8037)
- Besarabia (VI 19023)

As one can read in the DAHR, each re-issue of the recording was intended for a different market of America: the Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, Polish, Jewish and Greek one.

On October 1928, Loukianos Kavvadias Novelty Sextette recorded in New York the instrumental piece "I laterna tis Polis" (Columbia W 206038 -56130-F).

About two years later, on October-November 1930 popular orchestra with harmonica recorded in Athens the instrumental song "Servikos choros" (Parlophon 101137 - B-21555-Ι, present recording).

On May 29, 1935, Charilaos Kritikos [Piperakis] (Cretan lyre) and Epameinondas Asimakopoulos (lute) recorded the tune in Chicago under the title "Chasapiko" (Columbia USA C 992 - 56355-F).

It is worth mentioning the appearance of the tune in the dimotiko (folk) repertoire as well. More particularly, in the album under the title "Tragoudia tis Thrakis" ("Songs of Thrace", Association for the Promotion of National Music, S.D.N.M. 106), which was released in 1973 under the supervision of Simonas Karas, with funding from the Ford Foundation, a recording under the title "Kasapiko" can be found. According to the insert, the following musicians perform: Ioannis Papoglou (violin), Ioannis Kamariotidis (clarinet) and Dimitris Papoglou (oud). It is worth mentioning the performance practice used by the oud, as it is performing rhythmic chords. The note inside the insert is also particularly impressive. The original text, as published with the 33 rpm record in 1973, mentions the following:

"Orchestra instruments in Thrace: [...] oud (the medieval archaic-style guitar) which has recently been replaced by the "jibishi" (mixobarbaric matching of the western banjo, the lute and the oud)"

In the 2001 CD re-issue, the edited text reads:

"Musical instruments of Thrace: [...] Plucked instruments: oud, which has today been replaced by the jibishi (a musical instrument - hybrid of the banjo, the lute and the oud)".

This is the tune in question, which on the record is mentioned to be from "Rhaedestus and Selymbria" (Tekirdağ and Silivri in modern day Turkey). The melodic part of the clarinet was transcribed by Lambrogiannis Pefanis and Stefanos Feugalas, in their Musical Transcriptions (2016).

According to the data collected so far, the earliest recording of the tune in the Yiddish repertoire is the one under the title "Kopaczinecaer Chusid" (Gramophone 5500r - X 100837), in Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi), Ukraine, in October-November 1908, by Czernowitzer Civilkapelle.

The first part of the tune can also be found in three more recordings from the Yiddish repertoire:
- "Hulie kabtzen" (הוליע קבּצן), Aaron Lebedeff, Emerson Phonograph 41888-2 - 13186, New York, July 1921
- "Hulie kabzen" (הוליע קבצן), David Medoff, Columbia 87559 - E7266, New York, around 1921
- "Alz for gelt" (אַלץ פאַר געלט), Aaron Lebedeff and Perets Sandler's Orchestra, Vocalion 12144/5 - 13003, New York, between 1921-1923

(Many thanks to Martin Schwartz for pointing out the above Yiddish recordings)

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: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis