Music of Ancient Greece

Michael Levy, a musician who plays ancient Greek melodies on his lyre, has recently released a CD of "mystical, ancient lyre music." This is an example.

He describes the work, played in this video clip, as follows:

This is a short rendition of one of the precious few fragments of surviving ancient Greek music! This haunting, almost dream-like fragment of melody was preserved in ancient Byzantine manuscripts (Conspectus codicum:
V. Venetus Marcianus appl. cl. VI, saec. XIII-XIV
N. Neapolitanus graecus III. C4, saec. XV
F. Florentius Ricc. 41, saec. XVI), in the unambiguous alphabetical musical notation used in ancient Greece, & the melodic fragment is catalogued as "Anonymous, Bellermann 97-104".

It is played here, on a lyre closely resembling the ancient Greek Kithara; the larger wooden lyre favoured by the professional musicians of ancient Greece(the lyre is in fact, a replica of a Jewish Temple lyre, depicted on a Jewish coin from 135CE - it is almost identical to the Kithara).

I heard this lovely melody for the first time, on the CD "Musique de la Grece Antique"(track 13).

It is in the ancient Greek "Hypolydian" mode; the equivalent intervals as heard on the scale from F-F on the white notes of the piano. The augmented 4th in this mode to me, creates the dreamy quality of the sound of this piece.