Click here to listen to the Youtube recording:
Civilization – Epitaph of Seikilos (Fourth Movement)
From Cycle of the Earth
A Ballet for Symphony Orchestra by Steven Lebetkin
“While you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and time demands its toll.”
Wikipedia Quote:
The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The epitaph has been dated variously from around 200 BC to around AD 100, but the first century AD is the most probable guess. The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone, a stele, near Aydın, Turkey (not far from Ephesus). It is a Hellenistic Ionic song in either the Phrygian octave species or Iastian tonos. While older music with notation exists (for example the Hurrian songs), all of it is in fragments; the Seikilos epitaph is unique in that it is a complete, though short, composition.