A draft of track 10, "The Yearnings of Pothos", from my new album in progress, "The Cave of Hermes" - featuring a selection of recreated ancient Greek lyres & kithara, this album will be released across all the usual digital music platforms on 1st January, 2022.

In Greek myth, Pothos ("longing") and his brothers Eros ("love") and Himeros ("desire") were the sons of Zephyr, the westerly wind. 
Himeros represented the desire towards something that was within human reach, and Pothos was the longing towards an unattainable goal. Since the object of this longing could only be reached in a better, more perfect world, it comes as no surprise that Pothos was associated with death...

To reflect the poignant, yearning nature of Pothos, this completely spontaneous improvisation, featuring the ancient timbre of my Luthieros ‘Lyre of Thamyris’, is in the distinctively poignant ancient Greek Phrygian Mode. Misnamed the 'Dorian' mode in the Middle Ages, this mode features the conjunction of 2 tetrachords which form the equivalent intervals as D-D on the white notes of the piano; but heard here, in the much purer, focussed intervals, more authentically tuned in the just intonation of antiquity. 

A tiny smattering of subliminal dreamy effects were also subtly added in the mixing process of this track – in my efforts towards creating meditative music for the recreated ancient lyre for the 21st century; a ‘New Ancestral Music’.

The Yearnings of Pothos (Draft)

A draft mix of track 7, from my forthcoming new album for recreated ancient lyre, "The Cave of Hermes" - due for release across all the usual digital platforms on 1st January 2022...

This piece was inspired by the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture) - in its vivid depiction of the ancient Greek legend of how Demeter's daughter, Persephone (the ancient Greek goddess of spring growth), was abducted by Hades, whilst she was picking sweetly scented flowers:

"I begin to sing of Demeter, the holy goddess with the beautiful hair.
And her daughter [Persephone] too. The one with the delicate ankles, whom Hadês seized. She was given away by Zeus, the loud-thunderer, the one who sees far and wide.

Demeter did not take part in this, she of the golden double-axe, she who glories in the harvest.

She [Persephone] was having a good time, along with the daughters of Okeanos, who wear their girdles slung low.

She was picking flowers: roses, crocus, and beautiful violets.
Up and down the soft meadow. Iris blossoms too she picked, and hyacinth.

And the narcissus, which was grown as a lure for the flower-faced girl
by Gaia [Earth]. All according to the plans of Zeus.

She [Gaia] was doing a favor for the one who receives many guests [Hadês].

It [the narcissus] was a wondrous thing in its splendor. To look at it gives a sense of holy awe to the immortal gods as well as mortal humans.
It has a hundred heads growing from the root up.

Its sweet fragrance spread over the wide skies up above.
And the earth below smiled back in all its radiance. So too the churning mass of the salty sea.

She [Persephone] was filled with a sense of wonder, and she reached out with both hands to take hold of the pretty plaything. And the earth, full of roads leading every which way, opened up under her.
It happened on the Plain of Nysa.

There it was that the Lord who receives many guests made his lunge.

He was riding on a chariot drawn by immortal horses. The son of Kronos. The one known by many names.

He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot,
And drove away as she wept. She cried with a piercing voice..."

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.

The Cave of Hermes

The Scented Flowers of Persephone

The Scented Flowers Of Persephone

A draft of track 2, "Song of the Tortoise Shell Lyre", fom my forthcoming album of new meditative music for recreated ancient Greek lyres, "The Cave of Hermes".

Featuring another custom made lyre, handmode by in modern Greece by Luthieros, with a Greek land tortoise shell foraged from the forests near Thessoloniki, this track attempts to evoke the first melody Hermes played on the first tortoise shell lyre he made, as recounted in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes:

""Born with the dawning, at mid-day he [Hermes] played on the lyre, and in the evening he stole the cattle of far-shooting Apollon on the fourth day of the month; for on that day queenly Maia bare him.
So soon as he had leaped from his mother's heavenly womb, he lay not long waiting in his holy cradle, but he sprang up and sought the oxen of Apollon. But as he stepped over the threshold of the high-roofed cave [of Maia on Mount Kyllene], he found a tortoise there and gained endless delight. For it was Hermes who first made the tortoise a singer. 

The creature fell in his way at the courtyard gate, where it was feeding on the rich grass before the dwelling, waddling along. When be saw it, the luck-bringing son of Zeus laughed and said : ‘An omen of great luck for me so soon! I do not slight it. Hail, comrade of the feast, lovely in shape, sounding at the dance! With joy I meet you! Where got you that rich gaud for covering, that spangled shell--a tortoise living in the mountains? But I will take and carry you within: you shall help me and I will do you no disgrace, though first of all you must profit me. It is better to be at home: harm may come out of doors. Living, you shall be a spell against mischievous witchcraft; but if you die, then you shall make sweetest song.’

Thus speaking, he took up the tortoise in both hands and went back into the house carrying his charming toy. Then he cut off its limbs and scooped out the marrow of the mountain-tortoise with a scoop of grey iron. As a swift thought darts through the heart of a man when thronging cares haunt him, or as bright glances flash from the eye, so glorious (kydimos) Hermes planned both thought and deed at once. He cut stalks of reed to measure and fixed them, fastening their ends across the back and through the shell of the tortoise, and then stretched ox hide all over it by his skill. Also he put in the horns and fitted a cross-piece upon the two of them, and stretched seven strings of sheep-gut. 

But when he had made it he proved each string in turn with the key, as he held the lovely thing. At the touch of his hand it sounded marvellously; and, as he tried it, the god sang sweet random snatches, even as youths bandy taunts at festivals. He sang of Zeus Kronion and neat-shod Maia, the converse which they had before in the comradeship of love, telling all the glorious tale of his own begetting. He celebrated, too, the handmaids of the Nymphe, and her bright home, and the tripods all about the house, and the abundant cauldrons.

But while he was singing of all these, his heart was bent on other matters. And he took the hollow lyre and laid it in his sacred cradle, and sprang from the sweet-smelling hall to a watch-place..."

The Yearnings of Pothos (Draft)

Michael Levy

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