Cretan music, in all its varieties, springs out from the feelings of the artist, whether it is love, pain or tears. It springs out through simple activities and events of everyday life and the relations that are formed between people. Often every musical creation is the fruit of a unique story.

Cretan Mantinada

The Cretan mantinada is a fifteen- syllable verse arranged in  rhyming distichs, sung in the Cretan dialect. They contain a whole and complete meaning and possess excellent poetic attributes. Each mantinada is complete in itself in spite of its short length, like a limerick. There are however some mantinades (plural of mantinada) used to answer others, in which case their meaning is complementary.

The mantinada is the unique way in which young and old in Crete can express their many and varied emotions: sorrow, joy, hope, desire, love, anger, revenge, nostalgia. Thousands of mantinades have been composed and are still being improvised on every facet of human life. Most are to do with love and romance, but there are also satiric, didactic, teasing couplets or verses on exile, engagement, marriage, everyday life and, of course, death and losing loved ones.

Mantinades are sung at festivals accompanied by the lyre, or on their own in company, at the cafe, or spoken in everyday conversation. Most are not written down even in a notebook, and even fewer are published. Many are told and forgotten, but the best are learnt off by heart and passed on by word of mouth.

Rizitika

Rizitika are vocal songs of the mountainous regions of western Crete, specifically the provinces of Chania and Rethymnon. They originated in the mountainous areas of Chania, and during the 19^th century they were imported and continued to be developed in the province of Rethymnon.

The term rizitika, meaning songs of the root, devised by researchers of Cretan folk songs, describes the area of their origin; the sides of the mountains, mainly the White Mountains, or the Lefka Ori, of Chania,.

Rizitika can be distinguished in two main categories, the so called authentic songs that have originated in Rizochoria (villages on the root of the mountains) and those that have been adapted to Rizitika rhythms, melodies, and style, from paraloges (narrative Greek folk tales) acritic (heroic deeds of frontiersmen), and epic themes  that were widespread in  the wider Byzantine or former Byzantine epoques.

Crucially, such songs have mainly been written and recorded during the Venetian and Turkish occupations, as well as in the 20^th century. The last fertile period of these songs was during the German occupation, while from that time onwards the old rizitika songs are recycled, and the new ones that have been written do not have the chance to be performed on stage and become genuine folk songs.
 
Depending on the type of performance or occasion, rizitika songs can be divided into two repertoires: the tavla repertoire (songs for the table), without musical accompaniment, and the strata repertoire (songs for the road), with music.

The tavla repertoire is reserved for convivial occasions, mainly wedding banquets. The strata repertoire is reserved for parts of the wedding rites other than the banquet, that is, for the transfer of the dowry to the bridegroom's house, the ceremonial welcome by the bridegroom's mother of the bride, the gathering of the gifts, etc.  Usually, long narrative songs are called, in Chania, Strata songs.

The themes of rizitika vary. In addition to the songs of the strata and tavla, we also have songs with reference to historical events, death, heroic themes, themes of romance, friendship, and themes that emanate from everyday life. Many of the rizitika are allegoric, containing hidden revolutionary messages during the times of oppression.  There are also the paratsafara songs in a lighter style which were sung at the end of a glendi, or celebration.

Today rizitika are still sung in the traditional manner principally by groups of devotees who often form associations for its protection. There may come a time, perhaps, when the secret language of the rizitika will again serve to maintain the genuine voice of the wild and untamed Crete.

Theodore I. Riginiotis