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abstracts
Evangelia Chaldæaki: Transcribing Ottoman Turkish and Greek folk
music in Byzantine notation: The method of K. A. Psachos
Byzantine notation appears to have been the primary method of
musical transcription for Greek folk music used by Greek musicians,
as well as the dominant system for documenting Ottoman Turkish
music. Compared to staff notation, the musical symbols of this
method offer a more precise representation of these musical genres,
especially in capturing the melodic particularities of these
compositions. Moreover, Byzantine notation more accurately conveys
the intervals of Greek folk and Ottoman Turkish music. However,
Byzantine notation cannot sufficiently imprint the rhythmical
structure of Greek folk and Ottoman Turkish music, since rhythm is
conceived differently in the compositions that this notation was
designed to transcribe, namely Greek Orthodox Christian
ecclesiastical music. This paper presents Konstantinos A. Psachos’s
method to transcribing Ottoman Turkish and Greek folk music. In
particular, Psachos utilized the Byzantine notation system for this
purpose, while implementing various innovations adopted from staff
notation. By this way, he attempted to provide clearer
transcriptions of this musical repertoire.
Athanasios Nastos: Eros and death in Manolis Kalomiris’ Master
Builder: Wagner’s imprint and the role of the
“Till
Eulenspiegel’s
chord”
This paper focuses on the “love duet” of Manolis Kalomiris’ music
drama O Protomastoras (The Master Builder), which is
based on the dramatic literary text of the homonymous tragedy by
Nikos Kazantzakis, initially detecting the Wagnerian imprint in the
dipole “Love and Death”.
Starting from the
“polyphonic
pattern-theme
of love”,
which is included in the leitmotifs of the opera, and the “death
motif”,
the writer attempts a comparison with the corresponding patterns in
Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. The well-known
“Till Eulenspiegel’s chord” from Richard Strauss’ tone poem Till
Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche,
op.
28, is identified by the writer in Protomastoras’ “theme of
love”, which constitutes its harmonic foundation. Additionally, the
identification of the chord with the “Tristan chord” (through
enharmonic reinterpretation) serves as a stimulus for further
research into the purpose of Kalomiris’ gesture. The influence of
Nietzschean philosophy on Richard Strauss’ tone poem, within the
context of Modernism, along with the Nietzschean origins and
literary modernism of Nikos Kazantzakis’ O Protomastoras lead
to the conclusion that the composer made a conscious choice in
adopting the “Till Eulenspiegel’s chord”. This choice, in our
opinion, highlights Kalomiris’ intention to express and reinforce,
through musical means, his adherence to the ideological contexts of
Kazantzakis.
Theodore
Karathodoros: Michalis Adamis: Deliberate creative pursuit and
composition with electronic sounds
This article investigates the creative trajectory of Michalis Adamis,
with particular emphasis on his use of electronic music as a medium
of artistic expression. The study seeks to document the composer’s
deliberate creative pursuit, highlighting the absence of
experimentalism in his fruitful artistic path and the cohesive
aesthetic vision that permeates his work. It explores how electronic
music expands his compositional thinking and contributes decisively
to the development of a personal musical language. New findings from
the composer’s personal archive – including letters, texts, and
interviews – play a significant role in this documentation. The
argumentation extends beyond his electronic works to encompass other
facets of his compositional output, aiming to illuminate the
comprehensive nature of Adamis’s musical approach.
Aikaterini Syrrakou: The appraisal of the aesthetic value of art
works through the aesthetic theory of M. Beardsley
This article provides a brief overview of Monroe Beardsley’s
aesthetic theory. Beardsley’s attempt to oppose relativism, along
with his intellectual energy and scholarly zeal, led him to develop
a unique evaluative approach. Beardsley deeply believed that
aesthetic value is defined in terms of aesthetic experience and
within this context he proposed three criteria that he thought were
applicable to music, painting, and literature. It should be noted
that this article has no intention of critically evaluating or
comparing Monroe Beardsley’s aesthetic theory with other theories;
rather, its aim is to expand the readers’ critical perspective,
regardless of whether they agree or disagree with it.
Anastasios Hapsoulas:
World history of music: Concerns and perspectives
Based on research findings in the fields of Ethnomusicology and
Historical Musicology, this article examines the challenges and
possibilities of composing a history of world music. The main
pillars of the paper are the concepts of oral and written musical
tradition, music notation, tonal system, the relationship between
musical script and sound image, as well as the history of musical
sound.
Anastasios Hapsoulas: The translational activity of the Arabs and
the reception of ancient Greek music-theoretical thinking during the
Middle Ages
This article aims to present the historical and cultural conditions
for the incubation and cultivation of the translation activity of
the Arabs (initially the Christianized Syrian Arabs), concerning the
intellectual achievements of ancient Greek music-theoretical
thought. The processes of translation, dissemination, and reception
of distinct dimensions of ancient Greek music theory by the Arabs of
medieval Islam are examined.
Panos Vlagopoulos: Deleuze at IRCAM
This is a translation of the text
(“Rendre
audibles des forces non audibles par elles-mêmes”)
Gilles Deleuze presented at the
historic Temps musical workshop organized by Pierre Boulez in
February 1978 at IRCAM. The performance of five works selected by
Boulez himself was followed by a Round Table with the participation
of philosophers Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault,
as well as composers and Boulez’s collaborators Gerald Bennett,
Luciano Berio (IRCAM co-director since 1977), Jean-Claude Risset,
and composer and Messiaen and Boulez’s disciple Michel Decoust.
Deleuze’s presentation explored music “as that which makes audible
forces which are not audible by themselves”. In the introductory
text to this translation, I attempt to contextualize the paper in
the context of Deleuze’s work and his creative relationship with
Pierre Boulez. Key moments in the history of the philosophy of music
are also suggested as a genealogy of Deleuze’s ideas on music.
Nikos Tzioumaris: Record industry: Greek dimensions of a global
phenomenon
The appearance and development of the record industry
were
tied to the industrial and economic processes that took place
worldwide during the “Second Industrial Revolution”, when
technological advancements
enabled
sound to acquire a material form and music to survive through time.
At the same time, an intricate international network of record
companies developed, making the recording and distribution of music
a global and constantly evolving phenomenon. Certain aspects of the
record industry within a “Greek” context have been mainly explored
by researchers and record collectors. Their work on both oral folk
music traditions (Kounadis and Kalyviotis) and Western art music (Arfanis
and Zakythinos) highlights significant dimensions of the subject,
using records as historical documents. This paper provides a brief
outline of the topic, emphasizing the need for further academic
research into specific issues related to “domestic” music production.
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