Medieval survivors: Irini Bilini Moraiti on Early music in Greece

Irini Bilini Moraiti

© Sissy Morfi

Greek singer and multi-instrumentalist Irini Bilini Moraiti will be a part of the performance by ensemble Ex Silentio, one of a handful of groups dedicated to Early and Medieval music the country. Bilini, like Ex Silentio’s founder Dimitris Kountouras, is fascinated by the great confluence of cultures that have met in Greece since antiquity, and to a great extent still survive, under the surface.

“Because of Greece’s geographical location, as a passage from West to East, and the relationship between oral and written sources, I feel that this music is not so very far from us. It is not something so exotic.” Bilini frequently sings music of the Latin troubadours accompanying herself on the vielle – a kind of medieval proto-violin. “There were Latin states here during the Fourth Crusade… maybe even now we can walk around old monuments from the time and imagine that music being here!”

By the time of Dufay’s wedding motet, the enormous damage of the Fourth Crusade – where, we shouldn’t forget, Latin armies viciously sacked Constantinople – was only gradually being repaired. This marriage was hoped to solidify relations between Latin and Byzantine communities. But within 30 years, the still fragile Constantinople would fall, and Dufay would write another motet lamenting its conquest. 

Yet, under the Ottomans, medieval traditions arguably survived better in Greece than in other places in Europe. For Bilini and her Lycabettus Ensemble, medieval music of the Latin troubadours sits easily alongside Greek traditional music. “We focus on monophonic secular music, the music of the troubadours and trouveres. Some very nice songs from the Carmina Burana, old written Codex sources of medieval music. But we do play traditional Greek songs too. From the style of the language, from place-names in the lyrics, we can deduce that these songs are likely extremely old,” Bilini says.

“We like also to play Sephardic songs, which we also know are old because of their language. Traditional music from Armenia, Anatolia, all around Greece… It’s a goal of our ensemble – and me personally, as a musician – to find the connections between all these traditions.”

Bilini studied with sopranist Aris Christofellis at the Athens Conservatoire, at its Centre for Early Music, established in 2015 together with Dimitris Kountouras. “I find it very important that these people were my teachers, and I’m now very happy that they are my colleagues sometimes,” she says. “I was glad that they decided to be in Athens, to start a course and do their jobs there – it’s not obvious that they would do this!”

As well as the living tradition of secular folk music in Greece, there is also the Byzantine chant of the Eastern Orthodox church, which survives to this day. Moraiti tells me she was able to study it at secondary level music school, and can also read its enigmatic notation. “For me, as a classically trained singer, sometimes I really admire the abilities those singers have, to create different sounds.”

She explains the importance of opening up her vocal posture, and looking to influences from other traditions of singing. “When I started to sing Early music – earlier than Baroque and Renaissance – I found that I needed something more, some new colours. To open up some new sounds. It was a crucial moment for me as a singer… Sometimes we think that we’re in a museum, but performances can revive something, something very alive. I think that we should take a few more risks!”

Bilini also plays the saz, also called the bağlama, a long-necked fretted lute originating in Anatolia. “It is from our, let’s say, ‘Mediterranean’ tradition. I had the opportunity to listen to and encounter it earlier in my life, when I was a secondary level student… It has six or seven strings, and the tuning depends greatly on the instrument’s size and the repertoire you’re playing.” It’s another survivor: instruments of this type are described in writings of Al-Farabi in the 10th century.

For musicians elsewhere in Europe, it might be easy to look on this with a certain envy. In the UK, folk music traditions were mostly destroyed by the enclosures and industrialisation, only later revived in the 20th century. We are surrounded by medieval churches, yet there is no continuous tradition of sacred music-making connecting us with that period. The situation is similar for other countries in Western Europe. Yet despite the richness of its surrounding culture, the Early music community in Greece is small and faces significant challenges.

By way of example, Bilini tells me about the circuitous route she came to establish Lycabettus Ensemble with viola da gambaist Athanasia Teliou. “The ensemble is based in Athens, but the start of our journey was a scholarship from the state of Bavaria! We had the money to make a website, create professional performance videos, create proposals and applications. But it’s ironic that a newly established ensemble in Athens needed some people in Bavaria to pay for it. As I like to say: think globally, act locally! This is my motto…”

At present, there are only really two places to study Early in Greece – the Centre for Early Music at the Athens Conservatoire, and the music department at the Ionian University, in Corfu. One orchestra specialises in performance on period instruments, the Camerata Friends of Music Orchestra, and there are two important smaller ensembles, Ex Silentio and Latinitas Nostra. “I have been very lucky to play with them, and with Ex Silentio I play a lot with now,” Bilini says. “But we have to invent more places to make this music.” The Ostium Medieval Music Days celebrated its third edition last November.

“The borders between musical styles and audiences are not so distinct in Greece as they are in other countries,” says Ex Silentio’s founder Dimitris Kountouras. “It makes for an interesting and interested audience, younger than in other countries – an audience that follows contemporary and traditional music and also Early music.”

Kountouras says that popularity of traditional instruments has also increased as public music education has become more available. These instruments are frequently combined in Ex Silentio’s performances: “We often combine Early instruments with traditional instruments of the Eastern Mediterranean – oud, qanun, percussion instruments. We also combine improvisational and ornamental techniques on a common ground.” 

“Part of the philosophy behind it is that Early music can become a medium of expression combining both different languages and different sounds, in today’s aesthetics. It is not archeology. Oral traditions are still alive in the Greek culture, and that is an important connection with similar medieval Western European music.”

As we speak, Bilini is on the Greek island of Paros, in between teaching vocal music to young singers of secondary school age, part of a scheme initiated by the Greek National Opera. “I always take my vielle with me – here it is!” The boxwood instrument is sat just behind Bilini, ready to be taken up at a moment’s notice.

I draw to a close by asking about her hopes for the future? “I’m sure when we finish, I will think many more things to say. But I wish to keep doing our music – on a personal level, but also as a community. Between wars, between the climate crisis, between all these things. To find space and motivation to flourish. Music doesn’t need us – we need music! To stay motivated, through evolution, through joy, through co-existence.”

Sustainable EEEMERGING is funded by the European Union. 
^{Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.}

This article was sponsored by Centre culturel de rencontre d’Ambronay.