Nikos Maliaras has already shown with his first book, ("The Greek Folk Song in the Music of Manolis Kalomiris") his good but nonetheless subversive intentions regarding established ideas, which are more resilient against their scientifically established revision the more they are connected with "national" ideologies. By providing well-founded musicological opinions, he proved that Kalomiris did not "utilize" folk songs in his music but utilized the possibilities of the folk song.

Since then, the approach to Kalomiris's work, and indeed the entire effort to create a Greek National School of Music with its various versions and extensions to this day, cannot ignore the perspective of the new Greek scientist, a fact that opened different horizons in Greek music historiography.

With the same courage and the same tools, thorough study, rigorous evaluation of sources, and consistent adherence to the methodology he chose, Nikos Maliaras entered a space no less charged with ideologies, obsessions, and prejudices, in the area of Byzantine music and, moreover, in that of secular Byzantine music, which is generally overlooked.

These are not the only barriers that the author of the book, which is included in the series titled "Byzantine Musical Instruments," dismantles. As he states himself in his Introduction: Philology, History, and Art History combine with Musicology, a statement that practically means the abolition of scientific barriers, resulting in his research being attempted from different directions.

The breadth of the sources, literary, historical, iconographic, both individually and in comparative study, the avoidance of the pitfalls of anachronism, the careful monitoring throughout the centuries of the conceptual adventure of terms are just a few of the merits of the study. For the first time, thanks to Nikos Maliaras's study, Byzantine musicology as an epistemological concept is being broadened based on objective data.

... the clear and functional structure of the book's morphology as well as the clarity of rigorous scientific discourse are positive aspects that highlight all its other merits, so the scientific supervisor of the "Greek Musicological Publications" series wishes to express his particular satisfaction in welcoming this work of his fellow university teacher.