Giorgos Dalaras - 50 Years of Rebetiko Song (2CD, 2011)

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Giorgos Dalaras - 50 Years of Rebetiko Song (2CD, 2011)

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Rebetiko, plural rebetika, (Greek: ρεμπέτικο and ρεμπέτικα respectively), occasionally transliterated as Rembetiko, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek folk music which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early 1970s onwards. The word rebetiko/rebetika is generally assumed to be an adjectival form derived from the Greek word rebetis (ρεμπέτης). The word rebetis is nowadays construed to mean a person who embodies aspects of character, dress, behavior, morals and ethics associated with a particular subculture. The word is closely related, but not identical in meaning, to the word mangas (μάγκας). The etymology of the word rebetis remains the subject of dispute and uncertainty; an early scholar of rebetiko, Elias Petropoulos, and the modern Greek lexicographer Giorgos Babiniotis, both offer various suggested derivations, but leave the question open.

Although nowadays treated as a single genre, rebetiko is, musically speaking, a synthesis of elements of European music, the music of the various areas of the Greek mainland and the Greek islands, Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical chant, often referred to as Byzantine music, and the modal traditions of Ottoman art music and café music. The melodies of most rebetiko songs are thus often considered to follow one or more dromos (δρόμος) or dromoi (δρόμοι), (in Greek, roads or routes). The names of the dromoi are derived in all but a few cases from the names of various Turkish modes, known in Turkish as makam. However, the majority of rebetiko songs have been accompanied by instruments capable of playing chords according to the Western harmonic system, and have thereby been harmonized in a manner which corresponds neither with conventional European harmony, nor with Ottoman art music, which is a monophonic form normally not harmonized. Furthermore, rebetika has come to be played on instruments tuned in equal temperament, in direct conflict with the more complex pitch divisions of the makam system.

During the later period of the rebetiko revival there has been a cultural entente between Greek and Turkish musicians, mostly of the younger generations. One consequence of this has been a tendency to overemphasize the makam aspect of rebetiko at the expense of the European components and, most significantly, at the expense of perceiving and problematizing this music's truly syncretic nature. However, it is important to note in this context that a considerable proportion of the rebetiko repertoire on Greek records until 1936 was not dramatically different from Ottoman café music, except in terms of language and musical "dialect". This portion of the recorded repertoire was played almost exclusively on the instruments of Ottoman café music, such as oud (tr. Ud), kanonaki (tr. kanun), violin, santouri (tr. santur), tsimbalo (gr. τσίμπαλο), actually identical with the Hungarian cimbalom, politikí lyra (gr. πολιτικί λύρα), violoncello, and clarinet. There is one component within the rebetiko tradition which is common to many musical styles within Arabo-Turkish musical spheres. This is the freely improvised unmeasured prelude, within a given dromos/makam, which can occur at the beginning or in the middle of a song. This is known in Greek as taxim or taximi (gr.ταξίμ or ταξίμι) after the Arabic word usually transliterated as taqsim, and written taksim in Turkish.

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