# Greek classical music from early ars antiqua to ending medieval lore what do we know?



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Impress me guys, i wont to venture in ancient greek classical music but dont know where to start , i dont know f*** all(excuse my language) , but i'M ashamed of my ignorance over greek classical music before modern time like Iannis Xenakis 

Please tell what to purchased i want to be blown away, make my day pls :tiphat:


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

This is an interesting topic, but I know very little about it. I look forward to reading the responses from people who are knowledgeable about ancient Greek music.

To the best of my (limited) knowledge, there are almost no surviving manuscripts of ancient Greek classical music. However, I think some musicologists have tried to reconstruct what the music might have sounded like. Through studying Greek treatises on music, as well as paintings of instruments, people have been able to make some educated guesses. Some of these attempts have probably been recorded.


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## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

Classical Period

Eleusis inv. 907 (trumpet signal)
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Comp. 63 f.
Euripides, Orestes, Papyrus Vienna G 2315
Papyrus Leiden inv. P. 510 (Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis)

Hellenistic Period

Papyrus Ashm. inv. 89B/31, 33
Papyrus Ashm. inv. 89B/29-32 (citharodic nomes)
Papyrus Hibeh 231
Papyrus Zeno 59533
Papyrus Vienna G 29825 a/b recto
Papyrus Vienna G 29825 a/b verso
Papyrus Vienna G 29825 c
Papyrus Vienna G 29825 d-f
Papyrus Vienna G 13763/1494
Papyrus Berlin 6870
Epidaurus, SEG 30. 390 (Hymn to Asclepius)

Roman imperial period

Delphic Hymns
Seikilos epitaph
Hymns of Mesomedes


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

BabyGiraffe said:


> Classical Period
> 
> Eleusis inv. 907 (trumpet signal)
> Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Comp. 63 f.
> ...


This is a good list. I didn't know that so many manuscripts were available. Do you know of any recordings of these works?


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

I'm dying to know too *Bettina, *thanks BabyGiraffe!

:tiphat:


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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

(referring to Ancient Greek music only, of course) Put briefly: we don't know that much, not a lot of things have survived, and unless a Rosetta stone kind of discovery happens at some point, we're not likely to know that much. You can only get reconstructions, such as the De Organographia CDs, which are quite good for what they are.


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

Although he was by no means ancient, Skalkotas was probably the best greek composer in the pre-Xenakis era:


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

Here is some ancient greek music:


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I have the CD attributed as Petros Tabouris, which includes quite a nice booklet, and 27 selections, mostly quite short. It is interesting, although few of them as so catchy that you find yourself humming to them. I was looking at some equivalent CDs of music from ancient Egypt, but apparently we know even less about that music, making the CDs so speculative as to be of dubious value even as curiosities. (And most of them seem to be of the "visions of" or "inspired by" variety, modern creations for meditative purposes rather than historical documents.) But I see that De Organographia has a CD for Egyptian as well, so perhaps it is time to take the plunge.


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## lentando (Jun 14, 2020)

With apologies for resurrecting an old thread, I have found these two videos about ancient Greek music absolutely fascinating:


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Many years ago, when I was briefly a book reviewer, one crossed my desk titled "Musical Design in Aeschylean Theatre, by I believe a classics professor at Dartmouth. I don't remember much about it, other than I found it interesting despite no one having any idea what the music sounded like.


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