The Scented Flowers of Persephone (Track 8, “The Cave of Hermes”)

©2022 MICHAEL LEVY
—
IONIATE POWER RUBRIC
Provide your feedback to earn campaign promo points

A presentation of track 3, “The Scented Flowers of Persephone” from my forthcoming new album for recreated ancient Greek lyres, “The Cave of Hermes” – out on all the usual major digital music platforms on 1st January 2022, the album can be pre-ordered now, from Bandcamp:

https://michaellevy.bandcamp.com/album/the-cave-of-hermes

The album is also available to pre-order on Amazon & iTunes from 1st December, 2021.

This album, like so many other recent of my recent releases, uses snapshots from the vast palette of ancient Greek mythology to inspire the ancient-themed compositions, which once again, feature a range of recreated ancient Greek lyres, tuned in a selection of some of the original ancient Greek modes, whose distinctive qualities are further enhanced using just intonation.

The lyres in this album were all lovingly recreated in modern Greece, by Luthieros:

www.luthieros.com

The lyres include two custom made tortoise shell lyres, featuring naturally occurring tortoise shells from long deceased modern Greek land tortoises; foraged from the forests near Thessaloniki (no live animals were harmed!) & a selection of ‘chelys’ form (tortoise shell form) lyres, which although fashioned in the form of a tortoise shell, feature resonators made from wood over which the skin soundboard is stretched – these lyres possess a richer, deeper timbre, more suitable to accompany some of the simple vocal lines which feature in some of the tracks.

My Luthieros kithara (the large wooden concert lyre favoured by only the professional musicians of ancient Greece) also features on track 5, “The Healing of Asclepius”.

In my continuing efforts to create the evolution of a truly distinctive ‘New Ancestral’ music genre, throughout this project, I also attempt to further enhance the dreamy quality of the timbre of the recreated ancient lyre, with a subtle palette of contemporary studio effects, ranging from reverbs sampled from actual cathedrals & caves, to specific melodic phrasesenhanced with dream-like echoes & delays.

To evoke the dreamy scene of scented flowers, I use the distinctively dreamy, sensual ancient Greek Hypolydian mode – the equivalent intervals as F-F on the white notes of the piano, but heard here in the focussed purity of just intonation.

Whenever I play anything in this gorgeously sensual mode, it conjures up imagery in my mind, of sweetly scented flowers – amazingly, I recently discovered that exactly the same mode was also used in ancient Persia where it was known as “Golestan” – which amazingly, translates as “Flower Garden”!

The lyre featured in this piece, is the Luthieros “Lyre of Apollo III” – its rich, subtle buzzy timbre to me goes further & evokes the sound of summer bees, buzzing around the scented flowers which Persephone was busy picking.

Subscribe:

http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=Klezfiddle1

Official Artist Links:

Official Website:
http://www.ancientlyre.com/

Digital Music Artist Profiles:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v
iTunes & Apple Music:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-levy/id4324920
Amazon:
http://amzn.to/2zmJph3
Bandcamp:
https://michaellevy.bandcamp.com/

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/beautifullyre

Twitter:
Tweets by AncientLyre

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/mlevy1400bce/

Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/Michael_Levy_Ancient_Lyre_Music