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 54 and under number 54, the song "Potamos" in two versions.

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.

This musical score shows minimal differences in the melodic section compared to the version of the song recorded by Bourgault-Ducoudray in his 1876 collection "Trente mélodies populaires de Grèce et d'Orient" listed as number 23 (see here).

In Greek historical discography, an instrumental version of the tune is found in the recording “O agapitikos tis voskopoulas I”, which was made by the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Municipality of Piraeus in 1907-1908 in Athens (Odeon GX-96 – 65074). It is an instrumental potpourri, which occupies both sides of the disc (see here and here) and consists of melodies found in the Bourgault-Ducoudray collection.

Nikos Skalkottas will harmonize the song and include it as the first piece in his "Tria ellinika dimotika tragoudia gia violi kai piano" (Three Greek folk songs for violin and piano, AK 60), a work he composed between 1942-1948. The collection features arrangements of the following songs:  I Potamos (I River). Andante. II O Olympos ki o Kissavos (Olympus and Kissavos). Lento a piacere, III Ainte koimisou kori mou (III Go sleep, my daughter). Andante. About sixty years later, in 2000, violinist Giorgos Demertzis and pianist Maria Asteriadou would record the work for the first time (see here) at the Megaron Athens Concert Hall. It was included in the CD "Nikos Skalkottas - Duos with violin" (BIS- BIS-CD-1204) released in 2002. A handwritten musical score of the work is uploaded to the Great Music Library of Greece "Lilian Voudouri", where the Nikos Skalkottas archive (see here) is kept (see here).

Ιn 1940–1941, the German-Jewish composer Berthold Goldschmidt (Hamburg, January 18, 1903 – London, October 17, 1996) completed the "Greek Suite" for orchestra. The eight-movement suite consists of arrangements of Greek popular melodies which come from the publication "Trente mélodies populaires de Grèce et d'Orient". The melody of this song is included among them. The following are the movements of the work and the corresponding songs from Bourgault-Ducoudray's collection, which the composer worked on:

– Alla marcia: songs number 27 and 7.
– Andante: number 15 and 21.
– Allegretto. Scherzando: number 4.
– Allegro marziale: this song, under number 23.
– Allegretto grazioso: number 30 entitled "To filima" and the song number 20.
– Lento: number 9.
– Allegretto: number 28 and 1.
– Allegretto moderato: number 25.