> I don't think anyone has yet answered this query, or if they did so I > missed it. And, sorry, I have no real information to offer. All I remember > is hearing a classics lecturer telling my librarianship students that our > knowledge of the ancient world is a patchwork of light and dark, and that > music, unfortunately, is "a dark area".
Simon, Thanks for your reply on this. I too remember some Latin master in my dim and distant school days telling me that no one knew what Classical Roman (or Greek) music sounded like. But scholarship has moved on and I wondered if anyone had any inkling now of what it might have been like. Did the Roman shepherds on their reeds and straws sound like a skillful Irish musician or South African kwelo player on a simple six-holed pipe? There must too, have been world-class musicians in Virgil's day who, musically speaking, were the equivalent of some of the great Roman writers. I am sure they did a bit more than compose for 'oaten pipes'. It is just that I would like to get some sort of mental picture of what sort of sound Amaryllis, for example, in Eclogue I might have been hearing. Patrick Roper ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
