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”.

According to the DAHR, this recording was reissued in 1944 in the US by  RCA Victor (D4CB-0088 − 26-8190-Β) as a composition by Sosos Ioannidis, and by Orthophonic (S -512 and S -712-A). The song was released in four more covers:

− "Tha fygo kori sta xena", Estudiantina Tsounaras [Zounarakis], Constantinople (Istanbul), 1908 or 1912 or later, but before 1914 (Favorite 7-59003).
− "Tha fygo kori sta xena", Elliniki Studiantina (Greek Estudiantina), Constantinople (Istanbul), 1919? (Orfeon S 2832 − 12630).
− "Tha fygo kori eis ta xena", Giorgos Savaris, Tzon and Lousien Miliaris, Athens, 1927 (Columbia UK 20215 − 8099).
− "Tha fygo kori eis ta xena", Paul Gad and Choir, probably Paris, 1927 (Pathé 7G.258 - 11.622).

According to the commercial musical score entitled "Tha fygo kori mou" [I will leave my daughter, and with title "Tha fygo kori mou sta xena" (My daughter, I will leave for foreign countries) above the musical text], published in New York in 1935 by the Apollon music publishing house, the song is composed by Spyros Bekatoros with lyrics by Ioannis Polemis.

The 8-bar concluding musical phrase of the present recording ("Paei to pouli mou, paei...") constitutes, with slightly different lyrics, the chorus of the song entitled "Paei to pouli mou, paei".

The tune of this song "Paei to pouli mou, paei", is also found in the Jewish discography recorded in the USA. On March 27, 1916, Joseph Moskowitz (cimbalom) and Max Yussim (piano) made a recording in New York under the title "Medley of Greek songs" (Victor B-17393-1 - 67826-A). In addition to the melody we are interested in here, which is listed on the label of the record as "Pai pai, pai, pai", "Iarumbi", this collection also includes the songs "Elvero haralambi" (Ela vre Charalampi) and "Iarumbi" (Giaroumpi, see here).

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