Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Whereas the basic lyra was widely used as a teaching instrument in boys’ schools, the cithara was a virtuoso's instrument and generally known as requiring a great deal of skill. [5] The cithara was played primarily to accompany dance, epic recitations, rhapsodies, odes, and lyric songs. [ 4 ]
Walking on the island, she sat down against a palm tree and asked Apollo to be born. During the childbirth, swans circled the island seven times, a sign that later on Apollo would play the seven-stringed lyre. When Apollo finally "leapt forth" from his mother's womb, the nymphs of the island sang a hymn to Eileithyia that was heard to the heavens.
Cylix of Apollo with the chelys lyre, on a 5th-century BC drinking cup (). The chelys or chelus (Greek: χέλυς, Latin: testudo, both meaning "turtle" or "tortoise"), was a stringed musical instrument, the common lyre of the ancient Greeks, which had a convex back of tortoiseshell or of wood shaped like the shell.
The earliest reference to the word "lyre" is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists" and written in the Linear B script. [5] In classical Greek, the word "lyre" could either refer specifically to an amateur instrument, which is a smaller version of the professional cithara and eastern-Aegean barbiton, or "lyre" can refer generally to all three instruments as a family. [6]
Erato is the Muse of lyric poetry, particularly erotic poetry, and mimic imitation. In the Orphic hymn to the Muses, it is Erato who charms the sight. Since the Renaissance she has mostly been shown with a wreath of myrtle and roses, holding a lyre, or a small kithara, a musical instrument often associated with Apollo. [2]
Fiddles with drone strings are seen beginning in the 9th century (Byzantine lyra), and the instrument continued to develop through the 16th century. [3] In many depictions of the instrument, it is being played by mythological characters, frequently members of angel consorts, and most often by Orpheus and Apollo.
Marsyas receiving Apollo's punishment, İstanbul Archaeology Museum. In Greek mythology, the satyr Marsyas (/ ˈ m ɑːr s i ə s /; Ancient Greek: Μαρσύας) is a central figure in two stories involving music: in one, he picked up the double oboe that had been abandoned by Athena and played it; [1] [2] in the other, he challenged Apollo to a contest of music and lost his hide and life.
Musical scene with three women painted by the Niobid painter.Side A of a red-figure amphora, Walters Art Museum. Music played an integral role in ancient Greek society. Pericles' teacher Damon said, according to Plato in the Republic, "when fundamental modes of music change, the fundamental modes of the state change with t