The german origin of the "Gastouriotikos" traditional dance

   Few corfiots know that the famous Gastouriotikos dance is not a corfiot one but its music had been composed by a berliner named Franz Meissner in 1892. This song became popular in Corfu by Kaiser Wilhelm II since 1908, when he was visiting Achilion palace in Gastouri village for his summer holidays. As he loved the song and he supported the local Philharmonic Band, he asked them to play it for him by giving them its music score. Because of the fact that its rhythm matches the corfiot dance steps, the locals adopted it originally renaming it "Gastouri Kaiser dance".
   Below you can hear the original as well as the greek version of this tune.

The original theme named "Im Grunewald ist Holzauktion"




The "Gastouriotikos" dance