Music of ancient Greece.
Music of the musical contests, the Gymnic dances and the triumphal songs of the ancient Greeek games.
Compositions and arrangements by Petros Tabouris

The musical contests

Nomoi
The musical contests consisted of singing to the accompaniment either of the kithara or of the aulos, and in playing the kithara or the aulos.
In music nomos was the most important type of musical composition and performance. Plutarch in De Mus. (1133C, ch.6) says that" they were called nomoi (laws) because it was not permitted to deviate from the legitimate (established) diapason [pitch, tension, tuning]".
The performance of the nomoi (in fact both composition of the nomos and performance) was very exacting and set up high professional standards at the contests, especially in the four National Games (Olympic, Pythic, Nemean, Isthmian) where the most eminent musicians composers and executans of the time used to take part.

Pythikos nomos (Pythian)was the first known kind of programme music, and its aim was to describe the combat of Apollo with the monster Python. It was composed by five parts, the following:
a) peira; test, introduction, in which the God "examines the ground if it is suitable for the combat";
katakeleusmos; provocation, in which "he challenges the dragon";
iamvikon, in which "the combat is going on"
spondeion, in which the victory of the God is declared; and
katachoreusis; victorious dancing, in which "the God celebrates his victory by dancing".
Here pythikos nomos is a work for harp and au los composed by Constantinos Psahos, in 1929 arranged by Petros Tabouris.
Orthios nomos was a nomos high in pitch and uplifting in character and feeling. Auletikos nomos was a composition for auloi.

Gymnic (naked) dances
Gymnopaedike was the main dance of the Lacedaemonians and was performed annually at the agora in Sparta. It was danced by naked boys (or youths) imitating wrestling and the pankration (a mix contest of wrestling and boxing) with rhythmical movements.
Pyrrhichios dance was the most known among martial dances, part of the basic military education in both Athens and Sparta. The pyrrhichie was a majestic, quick, brilliant and impressive dance; it was danced either by one person, or by one or more pairs of dancers, who carrying arms (shield and spear or sword) imitated the movements of warriors both in attack and in defence. Composed by Constantinos Psahos [1929]
Anapale was a very ancient dance similar to the gymnopaedike, danced by naked boys (or youths) imitating gymnastic movements and figures. In modern Macedonia, in Greece, the zournas (swamn) and the daouli (drum) accompany the wrestling contest even today.

Epinikia
Epinikion melos was song composed to praise a victory after an important poetic, musical or athletic contest. A triumphal ode, usually for victors at one of the four National Games. The lyric poets Simonides, Bacchylides and above all the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, Pindar, composed epinikioi (victorious, triumphal) hymns or odes.
- Pythionikos I of Pindar. Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) published the melody in the first volume of his "Musurgia Universalis". It is obviously not an original melody. Sung by Nikos Konstantinopoulos.
- Olympionikos II of Pin dar . Composed by Konstantinos Nikolopoulos (1786-1841) for chorus
- Olympionikos XIV of Pindar. Composed by Petros Tabouris for the celebration of 100 years of modern Olympic games, in the Panathenaikon stadium of Athens (1996). Sung by Gerasimos Andreatos and chorus.