The music lives on… just about

 

A discussion on Dalaras on this thread prompted me to check out on youtube clips from the film Ta Tragoudia tis Fotias, which is footage from a concert held just after the fall of the junta in 1974 and contains the best examples and exponents of so-called έντεχνο λαϊκό music, Theodorakis, Loizos, Markopoulos, Xylouris, Dalaras and so on. The music is a reminder of how brilliant and unique Greek culture can be, and makes you wonder where it all went wrong, how it was possible for it all to have gone so στραβά given that even in 1974 Greek culture was still capable of such highs. Maybe, the way to look at the concert and the art it captures is as representing an end point for a certain period of Greek history, politics and culture, and that despite the youth and optimism of the musicians, audience, film and concert, in fact they weren’t heralding a new chapter in Greek culture – as they must have thought – but closing an old one.

The clip above is of a couple of Yiannis Markopoulos’ songs, the first – Πόσα χρόνια δίσεκτα – sung by Nikos Xylouris and the second is Μαλαματένια λόγια, sung by Lakis Halkias, Haralambos Garganourakis and Lizetta Nikolaou. It really is difficult to understand how the generation which was stirred by this music could then have gone on to wreck Greece in the way it has. I hope this generation, which has a lot to apologise for, doesn’t feel a need to reject and apologise for this music.