Q&A
Who are the fiddlers?
The term ‘fiddler’ here refers to traditional musicians, who performed music professionally – that is, in exchange for money – at weddings, religious festivals and fairs in Cyprus in the first half of the twentieth century (perhaps beforehand too, but information on earlier periods is sketchy).
The fiddlers featured on The Cypriot Fiddler were men of limited financial means, who normally worked in the fields or had other occupations, and who took up their instruments whenever there was need for musicians. Being a fiddler in mid-twentieth-century Cyprus was therefore a part-time, seasonal profession, held alongside the musicians’ main job. The only exception were a few urban musicians, who played and taught music for a living.
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Why did you want to make this documentary?
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Why are there no women fiddlers in this documentary?
The mores of traditional Cypriot society dictated that no women could be fiddlers. As in many other small, close-knit societies in the Mediterranean and beyond, in Cyprus too there was a strict separation between the public and private spheres. While men could perform freely both in private and in public, women could only perform at home, in front of close family and friends. Playing music or singing outside the private, domestic sphere was enough to label a woman as ‘immoral’. However, some women did manage to play music in public without fearing this label. These were either disabled women (e.g., blind), who had to work to make a living, or women whose physique or behaviour somehow differed from the perceived female stereotype of the time (e.g., those frequently labelled by others as ‘antrogenaitzes’; i.e., ‘manly women’).
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Why are laouto, zurna and davul players also included in ‘the fiddlers’?
In Cyprus, the word ‘fiddlers’ more often than not denotes both the violin and the laouto playing together, as an ensemble. This is the case for The Cypriot Fiddler too: the ‘fiddlers’ presented here can be violin players, laouto players, or even tamboutsia (frame drum), zurna or davul players.
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Why are there fewer Turkish Cypriot fiddlers in the documentary?
The much smaller number of Turkish Cypriot musicians in the documentary (three, as opposed to eleven Greek Cypriots) has less to do with demographics and more to do with the political situation on the island from the late 1950s onwards. With the rise of nationalist sentiments in both communities around the mid-twentieth century, music, like many other facets of culture, was redefined, so that it could match the narrative put forward by each side. In the Greek Cypriot community, some types of music and dance were characterised as ‘Turkish’, and were either wholly avoided or baptised anew, so that they could continue to be used (for example, the dance suite known as ‘kartzilamades’ – a word of Turkish origin – became known as ‘antikrystoi’).
In the Turkish Cypriot community, the rhetoric advanced by the nationalist groups of the mid-twentieth century suggested that the music and dances of the Turkish Cypriots were not ‘Turkish enough’, and that they had to be abandoned, in favour of a ‘more Turkish’ kind of music. In the late 1950s, and through the 1960s and early 1970s, Turkish Cypriots were fined or persecuted if they were seen performing ‘Greek’ music and dances (in the same way that they were fined or persecuted if they spoke Greek). They therefore began to avoid what they had, until then, considered to be ‘their’ music too. During the 1980s, with the help of Turkish Cypriot folk arts associations such as HAS-DER (Halk Sanatlar Derneği), Turkish Cypriots were once again encouraged to start playing their ancestors’ music. By then, however, many discovered that they had forgotten it: several older musicians had either died or stopped playing altogether, and the younger ones had never heard it.
In short, there are fewer Turkish Cypriot musicians in the documentary because, of those who survive, not many remember either the old repertoire, or how it was used at weddings and other celebrations before the 1960s.
Why are there no Maronite, Armenian or Latin fiddlers in this documentary?
The music played by Maronite Cypriots (Maronites being an Eastern Catholic religious group), at least the one played in Maronite weddings and fairs before 1974, was, on the whole, indistinguishable from that performed in Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot villages (with the songs being chiefly in Cypriot Greek). There were, of course, exceptions, such as local melodies originating in Maronite villages; for example, the tune known as ‘Foni Mariniotou’. Having said that, local melodies could be found in other, non-Maronite villages too. We did not come across any elderly Maronite fiddlers who could talk to us about their life, and that is why none appears in the documentary.
On the other hand, Armenian and Latin (i.e., indigenous Roman Catholic) Cypriots had, by and large, kept their own, separate identity. They mainly lived in urban settings (as opposed to most of the fiddlers presented here, who lived in villages), worked mostly in commerce (contrary to the overwhelming majority of Greek, Turkish, and Maronite Cypriots who, prior to 1960, were peasant farmers or shepherds), had their own schools and churches (Armenian Cypriots in their own language), and, as a rule, did not participate in the village weddings and fairs of Greek and Turkish Cypriots. There were a number of violin teachers in the Armenian and Latin communities, such as the famed Vahan Bedelian, who is mentioned by several of the project’s fiddlers. These, however, were educated in the Western classical tradition, and mostly taught classical music – either at home, or in one of the music schools of the time.
In summary, the Armenian and Latin Cypriot communities did not have fiddlers in the sense described in the documentary and the book. Additionally, these communities’ musicians belonged to a different music, dance and linguistic tradition from the one with which the project is concerned. On the other hand, Maronite Cypriots participated fully in the music and poetic tradition of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, without significant differences that would require the deliberate inclusion of a Maronite musician in the book.
Why do the fiddlers on the documentary say ‘to make a wedding’?
The expression ‘to make a wedding’ (rather than, for instance, ‘to play at a wedding’) is testament to the importance of the fiddlers to the making of a wedding – both the ritual parts that preceded a traditional Cypriot wedding, and the entertainment that followed the actual service. It was through music that a number of rituals were enabled (for instance, the sewing of the bridal mattress, the dressing of the bride and groom, the cleaning of the wheat that was used – in some regions of the island – for the making of the resi, a traditional wedding dish, and so on), and it was through music that people could enjoy themselves (through dancing and singing), for several days at a time.
In short, in the expression ‘to make a wedding’ lies a tacit understanding that, unless the fiddlers were present, there would be no wedding.
Who funded this project?
Initial research for this project was made possible through a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant (2013). This grant allowed Nicoletta Demetriou, the ethnomusicologist behind this project, to travel to Cyprus from London to conduct the first set of (new) interviews and see what was possible to do with the material at hand.
The filming and original edits for the documentary were made possible through an online crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter (2015).
Additional edits were made possible through a grant from the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Youth of the Republic of Cyprus (2020).
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Who produced this documentary?
The documentary was produced by Nicoletta Demetriou, an ethnomusicologist and life writing scholar.
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Where can I find out more about the fiddlers?
More details about the fiddlers – including 19 original interviews – can be found in The Cypriot Fiddler book. For the time being, the book is only available in Greek.
If you require more information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.