Cretan lyra

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Necked bowl lute sounded by a bow)
Developed	10th century AD (est)
Related instruments
Byzantine lyra, the ancestor of the Cretan lyra Calabrian lira (Italian: Lira Calabrese) Classical kemençe, (Turkish: Armudî kemençe, Greek: Politiki lyra) Gadulka (Bulgarian: Гъдулка) Lira da braccio Rabāb (Arabic الرباب) Lijerica Violin
Musicians
Andreas Rodinos Alekos Karavitis Antonis Papadakis (Kareklas) Kostas Mountakis Nikos Xilouris Psarantonis Ross Daly Yiorgos Kaloudis Thanassis Skordalos Georgia Dagaki

The Cretan lyra (Greek: Κρητική λύρα) is a Greek pear-shaped, three-stringed bowed musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Archipelago, in Greece. The Cretan lyra is considered to be the most popular surviving form of the medieval Byzantine lyra, an ancestor of most European bowed instruments.

Playing style

The lyra is held vertically on the player's lap, in the same way as a small

, playing the same note while tunes are played on the other two strings

Origins

The Cretan lyra is closely related to the bowed Byzantine lyra, the ancestor of many European bowed instruments. The 9th-century

) (Margaret J. Kartomi, 1990).

The Byzantine lyra spread westward through Europe with uncertain evolution; a notable example is the Italian lira da braccio, a 15th-century bowed instrument and possibly the predecessor of the modern violin. Bowed instruments similar to the Cretan lyra and direct descendants of the Byzantine lyra have continued to be played in many post-Byzantine regions until the present day with small changes, for example the Gadulka in Bulgaria, the bowed Calabrian lira in Italy and the Classical Kemenche (Turkish: Armudî kemençe, Greek: Πολίτικη λύρα) in Istanbul, Turkey.

With regard to the period of introduction of the bowed instrument in the island, there are four schools of thought:

1. The Byzantine lyra was introduced after 961 AD, when the island was reconquered from Arabs by the
   Nikephoros Phokas
   . At that time, noble families from Constantinople were sent to settle on Crete to inject new life and replenish the Greek population, who introduced many Byzantine traditions from Constantinople.
2. The lyra was introduced from the islands of the
   Kassos and Karpathos
   ; this must have happened by the 12th century.
3. The lyra was gradually introduced into the island's traditions as a popular element of the Byzantine music and tradition, in a similar manner that lyra was introduced in other regions (e.g. the Lira da braccio and Calabrian lira in Italy and the Gadulka in Bulgaria).
4. By the local tradition, the Cretan lyra has been spontaneous developed in the island of Crete some time before the year 961 AD and after the Byzantine invasion of Nikephoros Phokas it's been adopted by the Byzantine panspermia among other treasures from Crete, to Istanbul, and from there, spread east and west.

Over the centuries and especially during the island's

, musical language and performance practice.

Types

There are three major types of Cretan lyras:

1. the lyraki (Greek: λυράκι), a small model of lyra, almost identical to the Byzantine lyra, used only for the performance of dances (Anoyanakis, 1976)
2. the vrontolyra (Greek: βροντόλυρα), which has a very strong sound, ideal for accompaniment of songs
3. the common lyra (Greek: λύρα κοινή), popular in the island today; designed based on the combination of lyraki with the violin.

The influence of the violin caused the transformation of many features of the old form of Cretan Lyra (lyraki) into the contemporary lyra, including its tuning, performance practice, and

. In 1920, the viololyra was developed in an effort by local instrument manufacturers to give the sound and the technical possibilities of the violin to the old Byzantine lyraki. Twenty years later a new combination of lyraki and violin gave birth to the common lyra. Other types include the four-stringed lyra.

In 1990, Ross Daly designed a new type of Cretan lyra which incorporates elements of lyraki, the Byzantine lyra and the Indian sarangi. The result was a lyra with three playing strings of 29 cm in length (the same as the standard Cretan lyra), and 18 sympathetic strings which resonate on Indian-styled jawari bridges (the number of sympathetic strings was later increased to 22).

Construction

The Lyra has a body (kafka, or kafki) with a pear-shaped

and asfadamos, the local plane tree; today it is mostly imported.

The soundboard is also carved with a shallower arch and is usually made of straight-grained softwood: traditionally the aged wooden beams of buildings (katrani) and, ideally the 300-year-old wooden beams from Venetian ruins. In the past, the strings were made of animal gut and the bow (doxari) of horse-tail hair. In the past, the bow's arc usually had a series of spherical bells, gerakokoudouna (hawk bells), to provide rhythmic accompaniment to the melody when the bow was moving. Today, most lyras are played with violin bows.

A method for the vibration analysis and characterization of the Cretan lyre top plates was reported in 2006.^[1]

Tuning

The old model of the Cretan lyra (also called lyraki ~ small lyra), is tuned 5-1-4. That is, the middle string is the lowest in pitch and the others are a

(Anthony Baines, 1992).

The contemporary lyra modelled after Stagakis' design is tuned in fifths to (G-d-a'), and like the violin, it uses no drone string. All strings may be fingered and used as melody strings.

• 
  Common lyra
• 
  Lyraki

In use

The Cretan lyra is still widely used in Crete (see Music of Crete), in some islands of the Dodecanese and the Aegean archipelago as well as in parts of northern Greece.

Artists

Noted Cretan Lyra performers include

. Yiorgos Kaloudis has interpreted Johan Sebastian Bach's suites for violoncello on the Cretan Lyra.

Gallery

• 
  Cretan Lyra - old type (lyraki).
• 
  Cretan lyra - common type after 1940.
• 
  Bow with spherical bells (gerakokoudouna).
• 
  Cretan lyra with sympathetic strings, designed by Ross Daly.
• 
  Kareklas (1893-1980).
• 
  Psarantonis (1939-).

References

Sources

• Anoyanakis, Fivos: Elliniká laiká mousiká órgana. Athens: E.T.E., 1976
• Anthony Baines: The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments. Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 109
• Magrini, Tullia. 1997. The Cretan Lyra and the Influence of Violin. Ethnomusicology Online 3
• Margaret J. Kartomi: On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, University of Chicago Press, 1990

External links

Video

Psarantonis (born Antonis Ksylouris)

• Psarantonis - Zeus
• Psarantonis - A Video from the 70s Filmed at the Cretan Mountains

Ross Daly

• Ross Daly - Tribute to Kostas Mountakis
• Ross Daly and Socrates Sinopoulis with Various Types of Cretan Lyres

Andreas Rodinos

• Syrtos Apokoroniotikos