Songs and dances of Epirus, Greece
Authentic 78 rpm recordings 1926 - 1956

The music of Epirus in the northwest of Greece(present to varying degree in the rest of Greece and the islands contains folk songs that are mostly pentatonic and polyphonic, sung by both male and female singers. Distinctive songs include mirolóyia (mournful tunes) vocals with skáros accompaniment and tis távlas (drinking songs).The clarinet is the most prominent folk instrument in Epirus, used to accompany dances, mostly slow and heavy, like the menousis, fisouni, podhia, sta dio, sta tria, zagorisios, kentimeni, koftos, yiatros and tsamikos. The polyphonic song of Epirus constitutes one of the most interesting musical forms, not only for the east Mediterranean and the Balkans, but also for the worldwide repertoire of thefolk polyphony like the yodeling of Switzerland. The origin of this polyphonic form, in spite of the fact that the research has not reached certain conclusions yet, is considered to be very old (possibly, even pre-Hellenic). The melodies of polyphonic songs, including some more songs of Epirus and Thessaly, are the only ones in Greece that have preserved the pentatonic scale without semitones (a scale consisted of five tones without semitones). According to some musicologists, this scale is identified with the Doric way of ancient Greeks, the par excellence Hellenic harmony. Except from its scale, what pleads for the very old origin of the kind is its vocal, collective, rhetorical and modal character.