Thursday, January 20, 2011

Hurrian Hymn No. 6

I'm working on a few larger posts, which hopefully I should have done in the next few days. In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful, beautiful music, reputedly the oldest known written melody, which was found on cuneiform in modern Syria, dating back to around 1400 BCE.



I love it. When we first listened to it, The Baronette pointed out that one of the best things about it is how much it shows that music, while always changing and always different, has in many ways always been the same. Or at least it has been for thirty-four centuries.

5 comments:

Jack Crow said...

the first 20 or so seconds play like a variation on "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen"

Richard said...

wow, that was very cool; thanks for posting it.

Randal Graves said...

That's fantastic.

Ethan said...

Glad y'all liked it!

Jack, I never would have thought about that, but you're right.

The Ranter said...

Jack is right!

I really love the minor tones that dominate much pre-modern music (I love Arabic music, too, which has retained that tonality)