At the Roman Villa of Orpheus in Trento, Stefan Hagel's suggestions of ancient music

While the last work for the arrangement of the exhibition route of the Roman Villa of Orpheus in Trento is nearing completion, this archaeological site has recently played host to the evocative ancient melodies by Stefan Hagel, director of the Ancient Music Research Group of the Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, and one of the world's leading experts on ancient music.

Among the remains of Tridentum, in the presence of the splendid polychrome mosaic depicting Orpheus while charming animals with the sound of the lyre, Hagel played an ancient stringed instrument that he reconstructed on the basis of careful and in-depth organological studies.

"This precious contribution by Hagel will be part of the exhibition tour of the villa and will be an interesting opportunity for visitors to listen to the recording of the performance of some of the rare sound fragments that have reached us from antiquity," says provincial councillor for culture, Mirko Bisesti.

The opening of the Roman Villa of Orpheus is scheduled for the second half of June.

String instruments, lyre and zither, were used in classical antiquity by poets and virtuosi in symposia and at musical ceremonies and performances.

A scrupulous philological study of musical notations from the Greek, Hellenistic and imperial worlds - be they inscriptions deciphered from papyri and epigraphs or transcriptions preserved in medieval codices - has made it possible to reconstruct musical pieces that still today offer moments of particular fascination.

Stefan Hagel, starting with an analysis of the melodic patterns of Greek epic verse, has specialised in ancient music with publications on the theory of ancient music and its relationship to the practice of musical instruments with a focus on the lyre and aulos (wind instrument) and on aspects of metrics and rhythmics.

His studies include the reconstruction of instruments and the recreation of musical techniques that have been performed at numerous conferences, lectures and public meetings.

A special feature of Hagel's research is the application of computer techniques and mathematical methods.

He also devised the 'Classical Text Editor', a software widely used by scholars for critical revisions of texts.

Stefan Hagel

Download the service video > https://we.tl/t-EOU7SrU5NU    

Information
Provincia autonoma di Trento
Umst soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali
Ufficio beni archeologici
Via Mantova, 67 - 38122 Trento
tel. 0461 492161
e-mail: uff.beniarcheologici@provincia.tn.it
www.cultura.trentino.it/Temi/Archeologia 

(md)