An educational programme featuring early music.
Episode: Music as it might have sounded in ancient Greece. In this episode we will be listening to constructions and reconstructions by the Ensemble Melpomen conducted by Conrad Steinmann.
Ancient Greeks have played an important part in the development of music. The word “music” is derived from the Greek “μouσíkƞ” (“musike”), which contains the word muse: the art of the muses.
Sadly there are no written records of ancient Greek music left to us today. A large amount of literature regarding music theory has been preserved, however. This music theory has influenced music into the middle ages.
The Melpomen ensemble conducted by Conrad Steinmann use handmade reconstructed Ancient Greek instruments and create a world of sound form texts such as Sophocles’ tragedy: “Oidipous Tyrannus”.
This ensemble also made a CD focussing on poetry by poet and singer Sappho (6th century BC) as well as her contemporaries.
Reconstruction (texts: 7th-5th century BC)
1. Akoúsate
2. Laios
3. Ainigma
4. form Sophocles’ tragedy ‘Oidipous Tyrannus’: Párodos
5. Sparta
6. Ekleipsis
7. Elena
Melpomen conducted by Conrad Steinmann
(CD Choros. Solo Musica SM 317)
Reconstruction
8. Sappho: Psaphródita
9. Sappho: Kleis
10. Simonides: O tékos the Danaë’s complaint
11. Mímnermos: Bíos
12. Mímnermos: Phylla
Melpomen conducted by Conrad Steinmann
(CD Sappho and her Time. Deutsche harmonia mundi 88697 67174 2)
