Peaceful music from the age of Rome
The Romans loved music and used it in both peace and at war. This unique programme recreates the sounds that might have been heard in a Roman villa in fifth- or sixth-century Europe, using a wide variety of instruments which were known at the time. A peaceful album, purely instrumental, with lots of variety and colour.
1 Lugete, o cupidines Hammered dulcimer
2 Insomnia curus Lyre
3 Ecce ascendimus Harp
4 Otium tibi molestum est Gittern
5 Spring Song Psalterium
6 Alma Venus Hammered dulcimer
7 Somnus Scipionis Lyre
8 Aurora lucis Harp
9 Pipe Dance Pipe & drum
10 Tristis animi levare cures Gittern
11 Walls of Stone Hammered dulcimer
12 Pax Romana Harp
13 Flower Song Harp
14 Waves Harp
15 Temple Hymn Psalterium
Jon Banks
CCL CDG1149
Cover image: Doves drinking from a dish from the tomb of the Volurifii on the Via Appia (mosaic), Roman (1st century AD), Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library
P & C 2006 Classical Communications Ltd
Made in Great Britain
Inside book:
Pax Romana
Peaceful music from the age of Rome
Descende caelo et dic age tibia
regina longum Calliope melos,
seu voce nunc mavis acuta
seu fidibus citharaque Phoebi.
Auditis, An me ludit amabilis
insania? Audire et videor pios
errare per lucos, amoenae
quos et aquae subeunt et aurae.
Me fabulosae Volture in avio
nutricis extra limina Apuliae
ludo fatigatumque somno
fronde nova puerum palumbes
texere, mirum quod foret omnibus,
quicumque celsae nidum Acherontiae
saltusque Bantinos et arvum
pingue tenent humilis Forenti,
ut tuto ab atris corpore viperis
dormirem et ursis, ut premerer sacra
lauroque conlataque myrto,
non sine dis animosus infans.
Horace Odes - Book III, no.4 (extract)
Descend from heaven, O Queen Calliope,
and play upon the flute a long-held
melody, or sing, if you prefer, with your clear voice,
alone or with the strings of Phoebus' lyre!
Listen! Or does some strange dream deceive me?
I think I hear her as I strat
through hallowed groves, where
pleasant waters steal, and breezes stir.
In the days of my youth, on trackless Vultur,
beyond the borders of my old nurse Apulia,
when I was tired with play and overcome
with sleep,
the doves of legends covered me o'er with
freshly fallen leaves, and I was a marvel to all who
dwell in lofty Acherontia's nest and Bantia's
glades, and the fertile fields of Forentum in the dale:
they saw how safe I slept, hidden from bears and black
snakes! And how I was covered with a blanket of sacred
bay and gathered myrtle! And how fearless a child was I,
watched over by the gods!