Thrace Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This album is the first recording of Thracian composers of the modern Hellenic history, who put their personal stamp on the musical firmament of the urban centers of their time.A tour of the Western European, Byzantine and Oriental art music of the united Thrace of the Hellenes, which, together with traditional music, forms a mosaic of artistic expression, one of the richest in Europe. We visit all those excellent successors of Orpheus, who, with meagre resources, in adverse socio-political circumstances, created local wonders, establishing orchestras and choirs among the numerically limited but highly cultivated Hellenic communities, elevating their culture. Their teaching initiated thousands of young people into the musical art, who in their turn excelled as composers, ecclesiastical musicians, cantors, instrumentalists, singers, musicologists and others. With its epicentre in the city with the greatest Hellenic population up to the end of the 19th century, Constantinople (now Istanbul), we see a musical flowering which, when historical circumstances dictated, was disseminated to the rest of the Hellenic world, establishing new homes for it, while enriching the old ones. Other cities, however, such as Adrianople (now Edirne), Philippopolis (now Plovdiv), Sozopolis (now Sozopol), Saranta Ekklisies (now Kırklareli), Varna, Anchialos (now Pomorie), Xanthi, Dedeağaç (now Alexandroupolis), Komotini, Soufli, Raedestos (now Tekirdağ), Mesimvria, Silivria (now Silivri), Pyrgos (now Burgas) and others, had nothing to envy as regards musical wealth and artistic activity, which were cultivated by the parishes and the hundreds of cultural societies active within them.