A favourite vinyl record

In recent weeks our family has been reorganizing our house, which has involved a massive cleaning out of the basement, throwing out or donating scores of bags of various things that have been cluttering up our living space for years. One of the byproducts of this grand effort is that my old stereo system has been moved to a place where it can actually be used. This includes a turntable dating from the 1970s and scores of vinyl recordings of mostly classical, folk, liturgical and some popular music. After many years I am now listening once again to the music I love -- locked, to be sure, in an obsolescent technical format but never to be displaced in my heart by the more contemporary compact discs.



A perennial favourite is one of the first sound recordings produced by the National Geographic Society, The Music of Greece, released in 1969 and reissued in 1972. The first in a series of recordings of the music of the world by the Society, it is now a collector's item. My father bought up several copies of this wonderful recording and gave one to each of his children. The various pieces on this record were collected "on the ground" from ordinary people in churches, theatres, cafés and fields. Nothing was recorded in studio. In the background of at least one song the listener can hear foot stomping and at the end of another there is applause. We are even taken into a church building to hear the priest and cantor intone the ancient Byzantine chant of the Orthodox liturgy. Moreover, The Music of Greece contains one of the most beautiful renditions of a folk song which I have ever heard: the haunting M'ekapses yitonissa. Finally there is a song faintly reminiscent of one of Manos Hadjidakis' tunes from his classic score for the 1960 film, Never on Sunday. Could the composer have been subconsciously quoting an ancient folk melody?

Yesterday afternoon Theresa and I danced to the music of this delightful record. Might the National Geographic Society be persuaded to reissue it once again on CD? It should definitely do so.