Musique de la Grece Antique / Paniagua, Atrium Musicae

Considerably more remains of ancient Greek architecture than the music of this advanced and inspirational civilization. And although works explaining Greek music theory have survived, the actual existence of composed pieces from these times comes down to only a few scraps that survived on papyrus, marble columns, and other written sources. This Spanish ensemble under the leadership of Gregorio Paniagua pieced together these remains and performed them with reconstructions of instruments from ancient Greek sources, some of which, such as the bagpipe, remain in use today. Portions of the music included may remind listeners of very early classical music such as Gregorian chant, whereas other pieces will certainly cause an astonished reaction as they sound unlike any other music recorded. Some is sparse, floating, the melodic ideas developing very slowly. A few of the old-world Greek percussion instruments wind up sounding quite a bit like new-world electronic music. ~ Eugene Chadbourne|