Rethymno

ΡΕΘΥΜΝΟ		RETHYMNO

Music and dances

Traditional professions

MUSIC AND DANCES

In Rethymno as and in remainder Crete there is a lot of love for music and dance. Moreover the residents are famous for their dancing faculties and for that they are enough revellers. The music that is dear in Crete is the Cretan music and it is played by groups of two or three individuals where one plays the lyre and the remainders, lute. Rethemnians have shown their bent apart from the arts and the letters and in Cretan music and dance. This thing appear from the fact that the biggest and most important lyrists and musicians of Crete more generally come from Rethymno. The basic body of Cretan music, lyre, begin to make perceptible the presence around in the 17th century A.D. and from the 18th century and afterwards it is established completely. The initial form of lyre was different from current that was first made in 1940 from the Rethymnian Manolis Stagakis. The oear shaped lyre that we have in our days and that we see in the next photograph was accompanied in the old days by boulgari and later by the lute that today has prevailed. In the course Cretan musical afterwards the second world war contributed considerably many lyrists from Rethymno with mainer Kostas Moyntakis and Thanasis Skordalos. Those that opened the way and led to the establishment and the world recognition of Cretan traditional music in the next decades. The beloved songs of Rethymnians are the serenades, small distichous mainly with erotic content. Also lovingly are the songs called rizitika, which are slow with narrative character and their subject is marriage, death, historical makes, heroic people and many more.

Statue of Kostas Moyntakis in central square of Rethynmo

Crete and Rethymno people at the same time with the traditional music and songs developed also the art of dance, the roots of which should be sought in the minoan times. The traditional dances, which are danced by men and women dressed with the traditional Cretan costumes, are always sometimes fast and sometimes slow, however dynamic and imposing. With the rythm of lyre the dancers in circle present the complicated ambling. The basic types of dances are pentozalis, syrtos and pidihtos. In every case first the circle, usually man, supported in the right hand of the second develops with big virtuosity separate figures. Apart from the circular dances there are also and sousta that is danced by pairs and it is an erotic and simultaneously very effervescent dance which is danced almost in the noses of legs. In Rethymno we can find a lot of dancing groups, such as Omilos Vrakoforon and more which continue maintaining the tradition live even in our days.

Traditional Songs : Sirtos