The Battle of Actium - Epic Roman Music
Farya Faraji & World Musicians
Lyrics by Virgil, aulos and flute by Stefanos Krasopoulis, lyre and vocals by Farya Faraji.
The Epic Roman Music series presents the epic repertoire of Ancient Roman poetry, narrative epics and stories through the usage of their instruments and modes. The series' goal is to reshape public perceptions of how Ancient Rome is imagined sonically, moving toward a more accurate representation which uses their instrumentation and repertoire of modes. While I also maintain a separate series dedicated to historically informed approximations of Roman music, the Epic Roman Series approaches the question through an ethnomusicological methodology. The living traditions of the modern Balkans, as well as Medieval Western European music, preserve sound worlds closer to what we know existed in ancient Roman music compared to the cinematic conventions of film soundtracks. Thus, we can explore the unavoidable gaps in our limited knowledge of Roman music through living musical practices preserved in the Balkans and later Medieval European music. This allows the attested sounds of their instruments and modal languages to be heard in a culturally realistic way, while remaining distinct from modern cinematic soundscapes.
This song consists of the passage in the Aeneid epic poem that dramatises the historical battle of Actium between Octavian and Mark Anthony. The melody is built according to the natural rhythms of dactylic hexametre, which was the epic metre in Greco-Roman Antiquity, going back to the foundational texts of Homer using this rhythm.
The lyrics are available in the pinned comment below.
The Epic Roman Music series presents the epic repertoire of Ancient Roman poetry, narrative epics and stories through the usage of their instruments and modes. The series' goal is to reshape public perceptions of how Ancient Rome is imagined sonically, moving toward a more accurate representation which uses their instrumentation and repertoire of modes. While I also maintain a separate series dedicated to historically informed approximations of Roman music, the Epic Roman Series approaches the question through an ethnomusicological methodology. The living traditions of the modern Balkans, as well as Medieval Western European music, preserve sound worlds closer to what we know existed in ancient Roman music compared to the cinematic conventions of film soundtracks. Thus, we can explore the unavoidable gaps in our limited knowledge of Roman music through living musical practices preserved in the Balkans and later Medieval European music. This allows the attested sounds of their instruments and modal languages to be heard in a culturally realistic way, while remaining distinct from modern cinematic soundscapes.
This song consists of the passage in the Aeneid epic poem that dramatises the historical battle of Actium between Octavian and Mark Anthony. The melody is built according to the natural rhythms of dactylic hexametre, which was the epic metre in Greco-Roman Antiquity, going back to the foundational texts of Homer using this rhythm.
The lyrics are available in the pinned comment below.
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