Ever since antiquity, music transcription has been the intrinsic way of visual representation of sound, sometimes in detail and sometimes in the form of a guide. Throughout time, the visual capture of music has been the only way to store and preserve it over time, but also the exclusive means of reproducing it. In any case, visual transfer should be considered as an auxiliary tool, since oral dissemination and storage in the memory of artists have been the most timeless techniques for the diffusion of music through time and space. During Europe's so-called "classical" musical period, with its most powerful centers of production, such as today's Austria, Germany, France and Italy, and especially in its path towards Romanticism, music transcription, that is, the musical score, was considered by some composers as the very embodiment of their work.

Understandably, in the modern capitalist world, music transcription, as the primary tool for the substantialization of music, brought under its purview repertoires that were not connected, were not disseminated, and did not function on the basis of their transcription. This offered to the music product sales centers an additional tool to expand their action network: non-scholar musics acquired a convenient way of circulating them, enhancing their popularity, even in places very far from those of their original creation. At the end of the 19th century, however, the phenomenon of sound recording and reproduction rearranged relationships and disrupted the status quo of publishing houses, claiming a share of the market, offering a product that was extremely complete and immediate. The publishing houses tried to react with legal measures, but it became impossible to stop the dynamics of the new phenomenon: the prevalence of commercial discography was now a fact, for most of the 20th century.

As far as non-scholar music is concerned, commercial printed musical scores were publications of the musical texts of songs or instrumental pieces (for the publishing activity in Greece see Lerch-Kalavrytinos, 2003: 4-5). For the needs of musical scores, the songs were arranged mainly (but not only) for piano or for piano and voice, generally without complex performance requirements. Multi-instrumental or technically demanding orchestrations were systematically avoided. The lyrics were printed below the notes of the melodic development of the singing parts and, sometimes, their translations into other languages. For the most part, the musical scores were two or four pages long, and came with a themed front and back cover.

The musical score in question is included in the collection "Arion. I mousiki ton Ellinon os diesothi apo ton archaiotaton chronon mechri tis simeron" (Arion. The music of the Greeks as preserved from ancient times to the present day) by Adamantios Remantas and Prokopios D. Zacharias and contains, on page 48 and under number 49, the song "Ta mavra matia".

The edition, which has 104 pages, includes, in addition to the musical scores of 62 songs, a foreword, an introduction and a musicological study of 32 pages.

On the color cover, which features a decorative design and a lithography, the following is written: "Lith. G. Chatzi-Savva, Athens", "P. Mathiopoulos", "Typois Epam. Zagkouroglou". There is also the inscription "Timatai Dr. 12" (Cost 12 drachmas), stamps with the authors' signatures, and the back cover is blank.

This is a musical score with a system of two staffs for piano and song. The song's melody is written on the staff for the right hand of the piano, possibly for reasons of economy.

In 1942, the Hungarian composer Mátyás György Seiber (Budapest, May 4, 1905 – Kruger National Park, Johannesburg, South Africa), who had lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1935, would use the melody in his work "Four Greek folk songs". It is a composition for high voice and string orchestra or string quartet with English lyrics by Peter Carroll. The musical material on which the composer based three of the four songs of the work is found in the collection "Trente mélodies populaires de Grèce et d'Orient", which was probably its source, while two of them are also found in the "Arion" collection. The first song entitled "O, my love, how long" has not yet been identified in a musical score or a recording. The song "Have pity on me" that follows is based on this song, which is Bourgault-Ducoudray's collection collection is untitled and bears the number 8 (see here). "Each time, my love, you say farewell", third in order, is based on this song number 19 [Otan mou eipen eche 'geian] from Bourgault-Ducoudray's collection (see here). Finally, "O your eyes are dark and beautiful" was based on song number 20 (see here), which is found as "Ta matakia sou ta mavra" in the "Arion" collection (see here).