Greece has a long tradition in music, which goes back to ancient times. Many gods and goddesses of antiquity were connected with music and dancing and the very word music comes from the nine muses of ancient Greece who was an inspiration to all artists, even today, many artists make reference to the “muse of inspiration”.
Many words from the Greek language on the international music is like: harmony, melody, chorus, orchestra, color, scene, Lyra, hymn, psalm, rhythm. Greek music has many categories and types of songs ranging from ancient Greek music, Byzantine hymns, the thieves were distributed during the period of Turkish rule, primary, rebetika and folk, and finally during the last decades, the rebel, the new wave, artistic songs, light music and finally the rock and pop.
During the long journey through the centuries of the Greek musical elements adopted by the Romans, Byzantium and later from the Renaissance. In the 19th century Greek music develops with composers such as Nicholas Mantzaros (composer of the national anthem of Greece) and Spyros Samaras (composer of the Olympic anthem), both composers were from the Ionian Islands. By 1930 those songs with the operettas such as “Godson” of Theophrastus Sakelaridi composer and his songs Kleon Triantafyllou, who became known as Attica, was the most popular on the civilian population of Athens in particular. This was the Attic creator of the famous troupe “the mantra of the Attic” one of the first repertory theater companies in Greece.
The best fit light music in the decades 1950-1960 were from the songs of Manos Hadjidakis of Mimis Plessas and others from interpretive artists such as Tony Maroudas, Nana Mouskouri, the Jenny Vanou, Giannis Vogiatzis and others also during this era were popular and the music from duets and trios, as the brothers Katsamba The Mouzas Lignos, the trio Aten and others. Especially for brothers Katsamba, their sound was an imitation Spanish and Mexican music was transformed into Greek and had become fashionable in the late 50 to early 60.
The Greek popular song was popular mainly among the working class during the course of the 1940s and 1950, and as many say had a great conductor of Bouzouki Manolis Hiotis to feri the bouzouki in the lounges of the Greek bourgeoisie. Each Rebetiko this song was not known in great masses to the 1970s and especially after the political changeover when George Dalaras, Babis goal and many others began to replicate Rebetika old songs with the rebel had become the fashion.
From late 1950 onwards, Greek folk are becoming increasingly popular. This partly has to bore the economic development of Greece, slowly recovering from two wars, the Second World War and the Civil War. More and more Greeks could afford to buy Greek radio, turntables and vinyl records. The Greek record companies, seeing the financial investment of popular music, sign contracts with singers, musicians and composers and mass production of popular Greek music starts to grow. Is the era created the first stars of Greek music, Stelios Kazantzidis, Grigoris Bithikotsis, Panos Gavalas, Poly Panou, Marinela, Vicky Moscholiou, Ria Kourtis, Duchess, Manolis Angelopoulos, Giota Lydia, Stamatis Kokotas are many who even today the Greece sing their songs.
