Historical photographs

These photographs show pianists and pianos from the music stands of the rembetiko and the newer laiko [urban popular] musical periods of Greece. There are illustrative comments, where the finding of information was possible. The references to names of venues as well as to dates are copies from the comments of Ilias Petropoulos found in his book Rembetika Tragoudia. These photographs can be found in Ilias Petropoulos’s archive at the Gennadius Library. The analysis of the photographs offers some very critical findings, as, for example, the fact that many pianists used to remove one of the two big panels, obviously for volume reasons. Something very interesting, too, is the existence of women pianists, except from the famous Evangelia Margaroni. Finally, another interesting element is the existence of sheet music on the piano stand of some pianists, making them the only musicians that used to use a music score.