00:00
Ecclesiastical hymn
Kratema is a musical composition that employs, instead of a text, meaningless syllables such as te-ri-rem, to-ro-ro, and ne-ne-na. The absence of words allows the composer the freedom to create an exquisite score of pure music. The 17th-century scholar and Metropolitan of Philadelphia, Yerasimos Vlachos the Cretan, wrote that “according to symbolic theology, the te-re-re signifies nothing other than the incomprehensibility of the Theotokos, the Mother of God”. Michalis Adamis observes that the kratema represents the ultimate form of Byzantine music, expressed in consummate compositions complete in themselves.
Live recording from the concert The Known and the Unknown Domna, held on 29 October 1998 at the Megaron — the Athens Concert Hall.
First Chanter
