A. Minasyants

Music of Pontic Greeks in the fates of «Baku Orpheus» and his son

The article is devoted to the well-known representative of the Pontic Greeks musical culture, the XXth century lyrarist and singer Thomas Tiftikidi. The author deals for the first time a number of the very important facts conformably to the life of a musician nicknamed «Baku Orpheus». His influence over the music culture of the Pontic Greeks lived in Baku (for a period of the 1920–1930s) is characterized. The successive connection of creative activities between Thomas Tiftikidi and his son Nikolai (1921–2014) – the prominent musicologist, scholar and pedagogue, Honorary Professor of Alma-Ata and Rostov conservatoires – is marked. The researcher turns his attention to history of the unique collection «110 melodies of Pontic songs» from the T. Tiftikidi’s repertoire: the named songs were taken down and commented by N. Tiftikidi. The genre system of the mentioned collection (proposed by N. Tiftikidi), subjects and imaginative order of some Pontic songs are examined in the article. The author gives comparative descriptions of appropriated melodic material in confrontation with different collections of Pontic songs and dances – «Method of playing the Pontic lyre» by A. Sakhpazidis and «Pontic dances» by N. Zurnadzidis.

Key words

Thomas Tiftikidi, music culture of the Pontic Greeks, Pontic lyre, lirarist, Nikolai Tiftikidi, the collection «110 melodies of Pontic songs».

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