During the years of the Ottoman occupation in mainland Greece, Heptanisa (Ionian islands) have been the only part of the Greek world of that time that remained under the influence of the West, because they were under an English or French command. This resulted to a closer connection with the western spirit and the ability to absorb western influence. In the field of music, one can observe that there has been a close connection with the Italian popular element that was mainly expressed in the genre of melodrama. Melodramatic companies toured in the Ionian Islands and audiences had the opportunity to listen to popular arias from Italian operas.

The Italian melodrama began to invade and slowly monopolize public interest. Fancy costumes, combined with beautiful theatre settings and new venues,  which were built to host such performances, fascinated the  Athenians. The only disadvantage was the language that did not allow the Greek public to fully identify with the sound. The adaptation of Greek verses to well-known arias by important poets of the time came as a rescue to fill the gap.

The union of the Ionian Islands with Greece in 1864 was the occasion for the beginning of a new era for the music of the country. The communication channel opened between Athens and the embedded islands brought the Greeks of the capital in contact with a different culture..

The musical cultivation of the Heptanese composers combined with the creation of the Athens Conservatory, which first laid the foundations for the domestic production of professional musicians, formed the backbone on which the Athenian song was later based.

During the final decade of the 19th century, one can observe the influence that the Italian Bel Canto had on Greek songs that were composed at the time. Composers, of Ionian descent mainly, such as Napoleon Lambelet, Georges Lambelet, Dionysios Lavragas, and Paolo Carrer, wrote songs that were meant to become popular.

Composers such as Dimitrios Rodios, Timotheos Xanthopoulos and Nikolaos Kokkinos, wrote melodies that were loved by the world, while poets such as Ioannis Polemis, Georgios Drosinis and Alexandros Rangavis wrote original Greek lyrics, praising joy, love and nature.

For the first time the Greek song, combining Italian influences with folk elements, began to shape its own identity and became popular. The two main types were an Italian canzonetta-style and the ‘kantada’, which actually was a polyphonic song.

In those years, a new type of entertainment, The Athenian Variété, became extremely popular. Composers like Theofrastos Sakellarides, Grigoris Konstantinides, Lola Votti, Attic (Kleon Triantafyllou) were the main representatives of this new genre that mixes music, songs and theatrical sketches.

The songs included in this type of variété were deeply influenced by western equivalents. This meant that audiences had the opportunity to be introduced in European popular music (a mixture of cabaret, operetta and variété music). In this case, publications of foreign songs in sheet music helped audiences receive them more easily.

This ‘light music’ was comprised of songs in styles that were only found in foreign countries and in genres such as tango, foxtrot, rumba, etc. Greek composers started writing their own melodies on patterns that did not have much resemblance to folk or other popular music types. Light music moved from theatre to nightclubs, bars and tavernas with music.