by Bülent Aksoy [
Summary:
Among the singers and
instrumentalists or composers who may collectively be referred to as rebetiko
musicians, there are some who sang for records both in Greek and Turkish.
However, the music sung in Turkish is
the least known, or recognised, or appreciated aspect of the “rebetiko
repertoire”, or music made by Greek musicians who may also be regarded as the
popular exponents of the Ottoman tradition. These songs have not been
reproduced (in CDs) as part of the revival of the genre in Greece. On the other
hand, the same songs and their singers are not known in Turkey either. At least
some of such songs and their performers should not escape the notice of musical
historiography. We find really remarkable pieces on these recordings. This
unrecognised music may be termed as "Music in Exile", borrowing a
term from literary studies. This music was really made in exile, since the
records in question were made not in Greece or Turkey but in the USA in the
1920s and 1930s. If these 78 rpm records are not reproduced they will
eventually fall into oblivion.
I was a participant in the
conference on rebetika organised in 1998 by the Conser-vatory of
Now I would like to focus on
another aspect, complementing what I wrote in that paper: namely the specific
category of songs which were performed by Greek musicians but using Turkish
lyrics. However to sketch the general picture I shall first refer to some of
the points raised in my 1998 paper.
In the existing literature
on rebetiko it is not easy to discern precise differences between related genres such as smyrneika
(
Incidentally, I also have an
objection to the term "Smyrneika". Greek writers and music editors
make a distinction between the Smyrneika style and the
It is not possible to give
an exact birthdate for this music. However what we can say is that that it
existed for between five to eight decades. Rebetika ceased to produce new songs
in the mid 1950s, and began to decline. In the late 1960s and during the 1970s
and 1980s there was a revival which brought new Greek singers and musical
groups onto the popular music stages of Greece, sometimes reintroducing the old
rebetiko melodies. This created an interest in old or authentic performances,
which resulted in an archiving activity, transferring old 78 rpm records to LPs
and CDs. The period post-1970 also saw a growing activity of research on
rebetiko. Several books and articles have been published in
The most authentic sources
of rebetiko are, of course, the 78 rpm records. These records were made first
in
As we know, rebetiko
borrowed many elements from Ottoman music: the makams, rhythmic patterns,
compositional forms, musical terms, and musical instruments. The bouzouki,
which seems to have been inspired by the bozuk (an Anatolian folk
musical instrument, member of the baglama family) is the chief musical element
in rebetiko. The bouzouki was devised to be used in the urban Greek popular
music that developed at the start of the twentieth century.
The presence of all these
musical elements is evident in the rebetiko recordings. However, what is more
(or most) interesting is the fact that rebetiko also borrowed melodies from
Ottoman music, i.e. from the central Ottoman music. As a matter of fact,
borrowing – of melodies – is an aspect of the Ottoman musical environment, and
it is not peculiar solely to rebetiko. As we know, Ottoman society was a
multi-national society in which the cultures of various ethnic and religious
communities existed side by side. Each community preserved its religious music
in its place of worship, and its folk music within its customs and mores. The
music of various ethnic or religious communities formed the peripheral musical
culture of the Empire, while the music of the Ottoman
élite constituted the central culture (urban light music was a branch of the
classical tradition). The Ottoman central music was cherished not only by
Muslim musicians but also by non-Muslims: Greek, Armenian, Jewish and other
communities. The interesting point was that a great number of non-Muslim
musicians were active both in their own religious milieux – in church, in the
synagogue, etc. – contributing to their local or folk music, and also in the
sphere of the central music. This peculiarity led to musical exchanges and
borrowings. A very typical example of this process is observed in Jewish
liturgical music: Jewish cantors singing in
A similar process of
borrowing is observed in the case of rebetiko. Since the rebetiko
"community" was interested in urban light Ottoman music,
Ottoman-Greek musicians borrowed only popular and folk songs and adapted them
to the music of the rebetiko world. This required a re-arranging of the
borrowed material, the most prominent aspect of which was the creation of
different song-texts that would appeal to the rebetiko men and women. The Greek
musicians sometimes borrowed more serious songs but popularised and converted
them to lighter forms. The difference between the Jewish musicians and rebetiko
musicians is that the former re-arranged the secular pieces in a manner to be
used in liturgical music, whereas the latter re-arranged the already popular
pieces for even lighter performance. This re-shaping is a characteristic aspect
of Ottoman music. Of course, the Turco-Greek war of 1918-22 and the ensuing
population exchange, and the inevitable nostalgia it caused for the "lost
homelands", accelerated the ongoing borrowing process. Yet even if that
tragedy had not happened, borrowing would have continued to exist in the
On the other hand, the same
process of borrowing-lending is also observed in Anatolian rural folk songs. We
find rural folk melodies that are still popular both in Turkish and Armenian
folk music with different (Turkish or Armenian) lyrics, some of which cannot
easily be attributed to either of the two communities.
What kind of songs were
borrowed and how they were used within the rebetiko / Greek tradition can be
defined by developing a series of categories. Some of these melodies basically
remain unchanged on the 78 rpm records, and the Greek singers performed these
songs in a style much the same as that of Turkish music. Yet, others, curiously
enough, have been used in quite a varied manner, both with regard to the
melodies per se and their lyrics, and this process we can call
"musical adaptation". This re-shaping seems to have served the
immediate expectations of the rebetiko public, alongside the formal or musical
needs of the rebetiko genre. Having listened to about 50 rebetiko CDs and a
great number of 78 rpm records, I have established 12 categories indicating the
sources of the borrowed melodies. Each category includes melodies belonging to
the same genre. However, a second category which distinguishes the melodies in
terms of their lyrics is necessary. The latter category proposes to study the
melody, isolated from the lyrics, to be able to see the nature of the music in
question.
The following are my 12
categories:
1.
2.
3.
4. “Kantos”, in other words Ottoman pop (night
club entertainment) songs. This was a new genre born in the late Ottoman period,
in the nineteenth century.
5. Folk songs from various regions of
6. War songs.
7. Instrumental pieces, especially
"tsiftetelli tunes", performed with Greek words.
8. Instrumental zeybeks.
9. “Aranagmeleri”,
or instrumental interludes between songs.
10. Gazels / amanes / vocal improvisations
sung with Greek words.
11. Gazels or /and / amanes sung with Turkish
words.
12. Popular classical or
semi-classic songs, or other songs incorporated into the classical
repertoire of Ottoman music.
However detailed this
classification may be, it is still not sufficient to
indicate the nature of the borrowings. For the Ottoman impact on rebetiko one
can find more complex examples. In some songs one observes a process of
amalgamation, or simply a mixture, which begins with the "aranagmesi"
(instrumental section) of a particular song, borrows the first line of a
different vocal melody but creates an original or original-looking refrain. In
others the rebetiko musician borrows the basic theme of a certain song but
develops it with his own variations. One can also distinguish a further
category in which the main theme seems very familiar to Turkish ears and is
reminiscient of a well-known Ottoman melody yet a closer examination may show
that the two songs are not identical.
For a typical example,
compare the following melodies: (a) Roza Eskenazi, "Tserkesian Woman",
in "Armenians, Jews, Turks and Gypsies in Old Recordings", ed. Petros
Tabouris, The Greek Phonograph, The Greek Archives 634, FM Records,
Athens, 5201364706347, vol. 8, song no. 16; and (b) an Istanbul folk song
("Suya iner tavsanlar / Yine oldu aksamlar") in makam saba.
The two melodies are not identical note for note but show great similarities.
It is important for music lovers who are
interested in the history of rebetiko to identify such songs and compare their
Turkish and Greek versions. (I prepared three cassettes juxtaposing various
rebetiko songs or "loan-songs" and their Turkish versions, and
presented them to the organising committee of the conference in 1998.) A more
extensive study would be likely to bring out many other loan-songs. Original
rebetiko melodies – in other words melodies created by Greek musicians designed
for the rebetiko world – must be separated from the borrowed songs.
In the above categories,
Ottoman-Turkish songs performed using Greek lyrics, and instrumental pieces
performed as vocal compositions with Greek lyrics, are the most common. We
should not be misled by tunes sung to Greek words. Whatever the language is,
the melody itself should be considered. Most particularly the rural folk songs
with Greek words should be dealt with particularly carefully by folk music
researchers. At least some of such pieces may have been the Greek versions of
older melodies belonging to a particular region in
It should be noted that many
of the leading Greek musicians included in the rebetiko genre were brought up
and received their musical training in
My interest in the present
paper is the songs performed by Greek musicans with Turkish words.
Although categories 1, 3, and 11 in the above list include pieces performed by
Greek musicians with Turkish lyrics, the pieces that fall into this category
were not the main point of my 1998 paper, and hence remained unexamined.
Now,
let me introduce this music, the conditions in which it was produced and the
identity of its musicians.
Most of these records were
made in the
On the other hand, these
records and their musicians are not known in
The question is: should we
not include this music – i.e. the songs with Turkish words performed by Greek
musicians – in the rebetiko repertoire? One can immediately hear the objection:
rebetiko is by nature Greek and its songs are always sung to Greek words, hence
music in Turkish words belongs to Turkish music and these musicians should be
regarded as part of the Ottoman tradition.
The truth is that the music
in question is an exceptional case; it stands on the borderline between the
peripheral rebetika and Ottoman-Turkish central music. It is neither
exclusively Greek nor exclusively Turkish. So whose music is it? And who were
its audiences in the
Apart from Parsekian (also
the name of the record company), the records released in the
The most interesting of
these Greek musicians is Achilleas Poulos. Although I have many of his
records in my personal collection I know nothing about his life. Most probably
he received musical training in the
Marika Papagika, a well-known female
singer, is another Greek musician who recorded Turkish songs in addition to
Greek ones. Unlike Achilleas Poulos, Marika stays closer only to the folk or
popular genres of Turkish music. One of her Turkish records is particularly
interesting: "Çanakkale içhinde vurdular beni" (I was shot
dead in Chanakkale /
The following are the names
of some of the other Greek musicians who also sang songs with Turkish words: Konstantinos
Marcelos (active in the US), Lefteris Melemenlis (sang Anatolian
folk songs for the Favorite record company in Turkey, then moved to Greece and
continued to make Turkish-language
records), Demetrius Evstathiadis (active in Greece), Theodores
Demirtzoglu (Anatolian folk songs, active in Greece), Kostas Gandinis
(probably active in the US) , Virginia Maridou (probably active in the
US), Demetrius Evstathiadis (active in Greece) and Olga Douly
(active in the US). None of these names is known in
Roza Eskenazi,
probably the most famous female singer of the genre, sang just a few pieces in
Turkish, but in many songs she included Turkish words here and there. Roza was
born in Istanbul, and appealed to the Greek section of the city. In 1953 she
visited Istanbul and made a record of a "huzzam turku” (a Turkish
urban folk song in makam huzzam) , "Eminem'e babasi chikolata
almis" / "My Emine's father bought her chocolate"), probably
with Turkish musicians. This record was included in a CD released in 1998 in
the United States entitled "Women of Istanbul" (Traditional
Crosswords, produced by Harold G. Hagopian, 1998, USA). In the enclosed booklet
we find this information: "This recording is not known in Turkey as it was
recorded for a NewYork based label (Balkan) whose producer happened to be in
Istanbul during her stay there." The same album was also released in
Istanbul by Kalan Musical Productions the same year.
These are the records I have
seen and listened to so far. There may be many more that I have not been able
to access. Apart from vocal pieces we also find instrumental pieces (taksims,
instrumental improvisation) on the records released in the
The reproductions of old
rebetiko records on CDs, and also ensuing research on this music, have revealed
many aspects of the genre. Yet this present aspect of rebetiko music still
remains unexplored. Songs sung in Turkish are the least known, or recognised,
or appreciated aspect of the "rebetiko repertoire", or music made by
Greek musicians who may also be regarded as the marginal popular exponents of
the Ottoman tradition. These songs have not been reproduced (on CDs) in any
country since the revival of the genre in
The Ottoman-Greeks who had
to emigrate to
As long as these 78 rpm
records are not reproduced they will be doomed to gather dust in obscure
archives, eventually being excluded from history. The purpose of my paper is to
draw attention to this remarkable repertoire.
1. Cemal Ünlü, a researcher
of Turkish 78 rpm records, presented a paper in 1998 at the conference in
Four songs by Greek singers
who sang in Turkish
1.
ACHILEAS POULOS: Vocal improvisation in makam acemaşiran:
“Kimseyi dil-teng-i-âzâr
etme, sultanlık budur”
Lyrics: Nazîm (XVIII century
poet)
Victor V-76000 A.
2. ACHILEAS POULOS: Vocal
improvisation in makam nihavend, with Greek words:
“Tin
teleftaia mou stigmi”.
3.
MARIA PAPAGIKA:
“Çanakkale içinde
vurdular beni” [“I was shot dead in Çanakkale”]
Columbia
59818, USA, 1923.
4.
MARIA PAPAGIKA: Aegean folk song in Turkish:
“Sendeki kaşlar
bende olsa” [“If I had such beautiful eyebrows as yours”]
Columbia
E-5272, USA.
E-mail: sbulentaksoy@ttnet.net.tr
Organiser: Ed Emery