New Sounds Abound
Greetings.
I have returned to the composition desk. Why you may ask? Well first, that’s a silly question… because I can and have to. Secondly, because my friend and fiddler extraordinaire Stella Roshi-Moles has asked me to write her a new tune for her senior recital. How could I say no?
We’re both a fan of cyclic things. This has partially fueled my love for writing musical palindromes, or pieces that simply end as the begin as they end as they begin as they end as they begin (ad nausium). With this in mind, I started to think about ways of taking something ancient and making it new – a kind of cyclic recurrence of things. I eventually decided that this piece should be an adaption of the oldest completely notated piece of music: the Seikilos Epitaph.
I love this melody. I have a hunch, deep down in my brain’s heart, that the very eternal and simple timelessness of its beauty has something to do with how it has survived for so many centuries. It’s an ode by a man to his deceased wife, Seikilos. The text is as follows:
- Ὅσον ζῇς, φαίνου,
- Hoson zês, phainou,
- While you live, shine,
- μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ·
- mêden holôs su lupou;
- don’t suffer anything at all;
- πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν,
- pros oligon esti to zên,
- life exists only a short while,
- τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.
- to telos ho chronos apaitei.
- and time demands its toll.
Something about it tears my heart apart. The fact that this piece, a simple ode, can survive so long seems to me a testament to the power of love. This is not meant to exclude other expressions that have occurred in history: no doubt other people loved other people, especially when you see things like this. But for me, as a musician, the fact that earliest complete example of my art is a love song seems to reinforce my belief that music as a mode of expression is able to transcend its own medium. Music, like any other art form, moves outside of itself when it becomes something that is beyond any individual. It is an essence, both with and without form.
It’s my personal hope that the essence of this sentiment is not lost in my setting. Can a man living 23 centuries later truly capture and express the feelings of someone so distant in time and space? Does time change the inherent meanings of simple gestures expressed in the written word, in sound, or paint? Or is it like water… it can take many different properties yet retain its identity.
While I admire your romanticism of the Seikilos… I have to argue that perhaps its survived the ages and the test of time because it is, in fact, the oldest piece of music to ever be found, not because of the subject matter or any other reason.
Lucky for that composer that he had the penchant to actually put down on stone (or whatever) this music that he invented, and in such a way that the cosmos chose his piece to not destroy beyond comprehension.
Reed, you’re totally right, though age doesn’t exactly necessitate durability. If I were 84 years old, one wouldn’t think “damn, they’re going to live at least 20 more centuries!” It survived because the stone it was written on was just one solid piece of rock. A rock of love. Or maybe granite.