Andronikos' Steed - Epic Byzantine Music

Saz by Yorgos Mourkouzis, oud by Ido Romano, music & vocals by Farya Faraji. This is based on a melody from the Dodecanese island of Karpathos, which was collected by Domna Samiou https://www.domnasamiou.gr/?i=portal.en.songs&id=151

This type of song belongs to the category of Akritic songs, which are a genre dating to the Middle-Ages and dealing with the theme of Akritic guards, the watchmen of the borders and extremities of the Eastern Roman Empire. These songs feature recurring themes like heroic deeds, great fights and birds who speak prophecies and riddles in human voices.

The arrangement I used is a mixture of elements of Nisiotika, the type of music found in Karpathos, featuring a duple metre signature, a laouto providing a drone Isokratima, as well as a kanun and sazi. I used an archaic, microtronal second tetrachord derived from the now mostly extinct drómoi (mode system) of Greek music, before the musical system was standardised with the Western 12TET system.

Lyrics in Greek:
Άρκοντες τρων και πίνουσι σε μαρμαρένην τάβλαν,
σε μαρμαρένην, σ’ αργυρήν και σε μαλαματένην,
κι ούλοι τρώσι και πίνουσι κι αθιολή ’ε φέρνου
κι ο Κωσταντίνος ο μικρός ας εψιλοτραούει,
τ’ ακράνη του τ’ Ανδρόνικου, του νιου του παινεμένου.
Μαύρος είσαι, μαύρα φορείς, μαύρον καβαλικεύγεις.
Μαθαίνεις τον να περπατεί, μαθαίνεις τον να δρέμει,
μαθαίνεις τον να ’έχεται τον όχλον του πολέμου,

English translation:
The nobles sit to eat and drink around a marble table,
a marble and a silver table, around a golden table,
and all do only drink and eat, no word by them is spoken.
Oh, let young Constantine just hum a melody that pleases
to his compeer Andronikos, so youthful and so lauded.

Black you are and black you wear, you’re mounted on a black steed,
you teach it how to walk or trot, you teach it how to gallop,
you teach it how to tolerate the tumult of a battle,