According to the Cretans, the genre of the rizìtiko song is the most important of the western part of Crete. In addition, the singing of the mandinàdhes is a symbolic process which bonds men and the landscape together. This particular kind of musical practice, today as well as over the past centuries, is an essential element of Cretan culture and identity.
In the following pages, I will provide an analysis of this Cretan musical repertoire based on the data I collected over my Erasmus period of research and study in Rethymno. I will further draw on the research of Roberto Leydi and Tullia Magrini, i.e. two Italian ethnomusicologists who thirty years ago led important research on the vocal and instrumental music of Crete. Moreover, I have taken into consideration the most recent and detailed contribution of the Cretan ethnomusicologist Maria Hnaràki. In addition, I discuss the results of the “Italian” study – from a comparative point of view – with the work of the Swiss ethnomusicologist Samuel Baud-Bovy (1906-1986), author of several fundamental monographs on the Greek folk song.
Lastly, thanks to an ethnomusicological survey carried out in the field by myself with a scholarship granted by the University of Palermo, it was possible to observe what the rizìtiko and mandinàdhes mean for Cretans. Fieldwork was held in two locations around the Nomòs Chanìon, namely in the prefecture of Chanià: Rapanianà and Paleà Roùmata. Therefore, in the following pages specific information, descriptions and transcriptions of musical examples are provided.