Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A presentation of "The Hex of Hecate" - track 8 from my forthcoming 2025 album, "Enchantment of the Tortoise Lyre" on now on all major digital music platforms - including Spotify:
open.spotify.com/album/4huoP5wauo0USBuOUm06Ou?si=Ok9nfjvqQJSdRbEjtFQ9Xg
My complementary recording project to the release of my album, "Magic of the Kithara" in 2025, was extending, re-mastering & re-releasing my 2022 album, "Ancient Greek Magic" under this new, more appropriate descriptive title, "Enchantment of the Tortoise Shell Lyre", featuring my recreated ancient Greek tortoise shell lyre, this time evoking the space of some ancient Greek Temple with eerie reverb sampled from York Minster Cathedral & new cinematic-style mastering!
The lyre featured in this performance has a resonator fashioned from a foraged Greek land tortoise, with goat skin soundboard - custom made in modern Greece, by Luthieros:
luthieros.com
About the closest thing to taking the 2,400 year old Elgin Lyre out of its display cabinet at the British Museum & actually performing on it!
The actual 'live' recording of this track can also be seen in the following unlisted video:
youtube.com/watch?v=w72NhdyoXLY
This piece hopefully demonstrates the wilder sounds the recreated tortoise shell lyre is capable of, which when using a combination of strummed drones by blocking specific strings with the left hand, whilst opening specific blocked strings with the required left hand fingers to create a strummed melodic line. No surprise that back in the day, the tortoise-shell lyre was mainly performed 'symposiums' - wild, debauched ancient Greek drinking parties!
In ancient Greek mythology, Satyrs were associated with Dionysus, the god of wine. Their hedonistic nature symbolized pleasure, reflecting human desires. Satyrs were rustic fertility spirits of the countryside and wilds. They consorted with the Nymphai (Nymphs) and were companions of the gods Dionysos, Hermes, Hephaistos, Pan, Rhea-Kybele and Gaia.
For full details of my many 'musical adventures in time travel', please check out all my official artist links below - many thanks for watching!
Subscribe:
youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=Klezfiddle1
Official Artist Links:
Official Website:
ancientlyre.com
Digital Music Artist Profiles:
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v
iTunes & Apple Music:
itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-levy/id4324920
Amazon:
amzn.to/2zmJph3
Bandcamp:
michaellevy.bandcamp.com
Facebook Page:
facebook.com/beautifullyre
Twitter:
twitter.com/AncientLyre
Instagram:
instagram.com/mlevy1400bce
Patreon:
patreon.com/Michael_Levy_Ancient_Lyre_Music
A presentation of "The Hex of Hecate" - track 8 from my forthcoming 2025 album, "Enchantment of the Tortoise Lyre" on now on all major digital music platforms - including Spotify:
open.spotify.com/album/4huoP5wauo0USBuOUm06Ou?si=Ok9nfjvqQJSdRbEjtFQ9Xg
My complementary recording project to the release of my album, "Magic of the Kithara" in 2025, was extending, re-mastering & re-releasing my 2022 album, "Ancient Greek Magic" under this new, more appropriate descriptive title, "Enchantment of the Tortoise Shell Lyre", featuring my recreated ancient Greek tortoise shell lyre, this time evoking the space of some ancient Greek Temple with eerie reverb sampled from York Minster Cathedral & new cinematic-style mastering!
The lyre featured in this performance has a resonator fashioned from a foraged Greek land tortoise, with goat skin soundboard - custom made in modern Greece, by Luthieros:
luthieros.com
About the closest thing to taking the 2,400 year old Elgin Lyre out of its display cabinet at the British Museum & actually performing on it!
The actual 'live' recording of this track can also be seen in the following unlisted video:
youtube.com/watch?v=w72NhdyoXLY
This piece hopefully demonstrates the wilder sounds the recreated tortoise shell lyre is capable of, which when using a combination of strummed drones by blocking specific strings with the left hand, whilst opening specific blocked strings with the required left hand fingers to create a strummed melodic line. No surprise that back in the day, the tortoise-shell lyre was mainly performed 'symposiums' - wild, debauched ancient Greek drinking parties!
In ancient Greek mythology, Satyrs were associated with Dionysus, the god of wine. Their hedonistic nature symbolized pleasure, reflecting human desires. Satyrs were rustic fertility spirits of the countryside and wilds. They consorted with the Nymphai (Nymphs) and were companions of the gods Dionysos, Hermes, Hephaistos, Pan, Rhea-Kybele and Gaia.
For full details of my many 'musical adventures in time travel', please check out all my official artist links below - many thanks for watching!
Subscribe:
youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=Klezfiddle1
Official Artist Links:
Official Website:
ancientlyre.com
Digital Music Artist Profiles:
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v
iTunes & Apple Music:
itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-levy/id4324920
Amazon:
amzn.to/2zmJph3
Bandcamp:
michaellevy.bandcamp.com
Facebook Page:
facebook.com/beautifullyre
Twitter:
twitter.com/AncientLyre
Instagram:
instagram.com/mlevy1400bce
Patreon:
patreon.com/Michael_Levy_Ancient_Lyre_Music


![Neros Lyre (Magic of the Kithara)
This video features a completely new arrangement for recreated Greco-Roman kithara of my 2012 single, Neros Lyre - a possible track in progress for my future 2025 album in progress, Magic of the Kithara. Due for release across all the usual digital music platforms on 1st January 2025, CD quality audio plus a PDF booklet of the detailed album notes, is available of all the tracks so far recorded, only on Bandcamp:
https://michaellevy.bandcamp.com/album/magic-of-the-kithara
According to the timeless folklore, Nero famously played his lyre to accompany the Lament he sang as Rome burnt in the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE: whether this event was fact or fiction is irrelevant - the concept of my 2012 single, Neros Lyre, is to evoke upon my own lyre, what Neros famous lament may have actually sounded like...
Neros notorious reputation often masks the known facts about his passion for music, and above all, his desire to master the Kithara - the large wooden lyre favoured by the professional musicians of both ancient Greece & Rome:
The emperor Nero was noted for his love of music, and it is recorded that he played and sang. In 60 A.D. he instituted, apparently for the first time in Rome, musical competitions after the Hellenic pattern. In 65 A.D. he inaugurated a more elaborate festival, the Neronia, which he planned to hold every five years.25 In both he appeared as chief contestant. To all appearances, Tacitus and other conservative Romans were more shocked by these actions than by his brutal murders. Of course, the desire for recognition in the musical world on the part of a Roman emperor was not original with Nero. His predecessor, Caligula, had performed as a dancer and singer, and planned to take part in tragedies. Whether he was trying to emulate Caligula or not, Neros desire for artistic recognition was evidently quite sincere. He is said to have been exceedingly anxious over the outcome of the contests in which he appeared and to have observed strictly the full rules of the cithara (Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned, Mary Francis Gyles - The Classical Journal, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Jan. 1947), 211‑217)
There are several souces from antiquity which tell of the story of how Nero played the Kithara as Rome burnt down - Dio Cassius, describing the fire wrote that Nero ascended to the roof of the palace from which there was the best general view . . . and assuming the kithara-players garb, sang the Capture of Troy. . . . (Dio Cassius, 62.18.1)
Earlier, according to Tacitus, the report had spread that, at the very moment when Rome was aflame, he [Nero] had mounted his private stage, and, typifying the ills of the present by the calamities of the past, had sung the Destruction of Troy. (Tacitus, Ann. 15.39.)
Writing at almost the same time as Tacitus, Suetonius wrote Viewing the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas . . . he sang the whole of the Sack of Ilion in his regular stage costume. (Suetonius, Nero 38).
It was my was my aim in composing Neros Lyre to transport the listener back in time, to relive once more, this timelss , classic moment from antiquity - enjoy your journey!
For many more musical adventures in time travel, please check out all my official artist links below:
Subscribe:
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=Klezfiddle1
Official Artist Links:
Official Website:
http://www.ancientlyre.com/
Digital Music Artist Profiles:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v
iTunes & Apple Music:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-levy/id4324920
Amazon:
http://amzn.to/2zmJph3
Bandcamp:
https://michaellevy.bandcamp.com/
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/beautifullyre
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AncientLyre
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/mlevy1400bce/
Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/Michael_Levy_Ancient_Lyre_Music Neros Lyre (Magic of the Kithara)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XlOrDB9OviE/mqdefault.jpg)







![Hymn to Persephone (Ancient Greek Goddess of the Spring)
A live performance for solo lyre, of Hymn to Persephone (Ancient Greek Goddess of the Spring) - track 1 from my 2022 album, Orpheus Tamed the Animals: Mythological Music for Ancient Greek Lyre:
https://open.spotify.com/album/4aAvpWSabYWqF7rQEJBsqY?si=M48Kk9l0SaO0I44WKQER9A
Persephone is the Goddess of the underworld, spring, and rebirth. She is one of the fertility goddesses. After Hades abducts her, she became Queen of the underworld, helping to escort the souls of the dead. She only performed this role for four months of the year (due to the four pomegranate seeds she ate) the rest of the time she lived with her mother Demeter, goddess of agriculture and the harvest.
Her exit from the underworld heralds the beginning of Spring as she helps her mother to bring life and bounty back to the land. This dual role makes her a Goddess of death and rebirth.
She is the only daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Her marriage to Hades bore no children.
Usually shown as a beautiful maiden with a wreath of flowers in her hair, carrying sheaves of wheat and a torch.
The Maiden Archetype represents purity and the innocence of childhood. where the soul’s dreams, magic and make believe still prevail.
Persephones life embodies this Archetype, she remains eternally on the cusp between childhood and motherhood. Trapped by a mothers love and her inability to fully assert her independence. [Source: www.goddess-guide.com/persephone.html]
In attempting to evoke these attributes of Persephone, I use the distinctively dreamy, sensual and feminine-sounding ancient Greek Lydian Mode - the conjunction of 2 tetrachords which form the equivalent intervals as F-F on the white notes of the piano, but heard here, in the pure focus of just intonation.
For me, this mode always evokes an almost tangible, floral aroma, which relates back to the legend of how Hades abducted Persephone whilst she was picking spring Narcissus flowers.
Originally recorded for the album featuring the exotic, ancient timbre of my 11-string chelys (tortoise shell form) lyre with a skin soundboard, in this live version, I feature the lovely, pure harp-like timbre of my 10-string lyre - as can be seen in the performance, the limited range of the lyres open strings can be effortlessly extended by the use of harmonics.
For countless hours more musical adventures in time travel, please see all my official artist links below - many thanks for watching!
Subscribe:
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=Klezfiddle1
Official Artist Links:
Official Website:
http://www.ancientlyre.com/
Digital Music Artist Profiles:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v
iTunes & Apple Music:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-levy/id4324920
Amazon:
http://amzn.to/2zmJph3
Bandcamp:
https://michaellevy.bandcamp.com/
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/beautifullyre
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AncientLyre
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/mlevy1400bce/
Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/Michael_Levy_Ancient_Lyre_Music Hymn to Persephone (Ancient Greek Goddess of the Spring)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_-GOhSvhzWk/mqdefault.jpg)