ABSTRACT
Byzantine chant built on the tradition of ancient Greece. Enriched with new melodic elements of Eastern origin, it has always remained monophonic without the accompaniment of musical instruments. The history of modern Greece might be summarised as a dramatic, and at the same time fascinating, effort to bridge an inherent cultural gap. It was clear that the brunt of educating the Greeks according to the new, European musical models would be borne by important Ionian musicians who had been educated in Italy. Modern ‘art’ musical creation is desperately seeking new ways of survival, sometimes even at the expense of the intellectual strength and originality of musical ideas. The interwar period in Greece was turbulent both politically and socially, and was indelibly marked by the dramatic arrival of around one and a half million Greeks from Asia Minor and their integration into the social fabric of the country.
