Channel: Michael Levy
Duration: 0:3
Description: A live performance of “The Temple of Jupiter” – an original composition for solo lyre by Michael Levy (Track 5, “Echoes of Ancient Rome”). Unlike ancient Greece, where at least 60 fragments of ancient Greek music have been preserved, only one pitiful shard of written music has survived from ancient Rome – a tiny measure by a Roman composer named Flaccus, wrote for the play “Hecyra” by Terence (& even this tiny fragment is no longer deemed to be authentic, according the musicologist Thomas J. Mathiesen). However, since Rome borrowed so much from the culture of ancient Greece, in attempting to recreate an evocation of the lost music of ancient Rome, it is most likely that the Roman composers of antiquity also used the ancient Greek musical modes. In these releases for solo lyre, therefore, Michael has attempted to recreate the lost music of ancient Rome, with original compositions for solo kithara-style lyre, in a selection of some of the original ancient Greek Modes, using lyre playing techniques authentically based on both archaeological pictorial sources & lyre playing techniques still surviving today in Africa. A free, fully illustrated PDF booklet of the album notes of “Echoes of Ancient Rome” can be download here:
http://www.ancientlyre.com/publicfiles/Echoes_of_Ancient_Rome.pdf
Michael will be performing his evocation of the lost musc of ancient Rome, live at the British Museum on 17th June, as part of the “Life & Death in Pompeii & Herculaneum” exhibition.
Tracks from Michael’s Roman-themed albums, “Echoes of Ancient Rome” & “Ode To Ancient Rome” wil alos be used in support of a new display on Roman Dining, in Room 3 of the British Museum – physical CDs of Michael’s Roman-themed albums, “Echoes of Ancient Rome” & “Ode To Ancient Rome” will soon be available to purchase from the British Museum Shop.
For full details, please visit: http://www.ancientlyre.com
Published: May 15, 2013 1:17 pm