LA RÊVEUSE: Early Music on the Classical Cretan Lyra

For many years Greek cellist, composer, improviser, researcher Yiorgos Kaloudis has been exploring the possibilities of playing the Cretan lyra, one of the most ancient musical instruments.
In the programme comprising masterpieces of the Middle Ages and Baroque music, this ancient instrument, the ancestor of most European bowed string instruments, will sound in all its timbre beauty and variety of technical capabilities.

In the LA RÊVEUSE programme, the Classical Cretan Lyra appears as an ideal solo and accompanying the vocal (performed by Yiorgos Kaloudis himself) instrument for the music of the Middle Ages. At the same time, due to the author's improvements and author's transcriptions, the Classical Cretan Lyra brilliantly copes with Baroque masterpieces written for viola da gamba.

The programme opens with a hymn dedicated to John the Baptist.
The music is attributed to the founder of the entire European musical system Guido D'Arezzo: the initial syllables of the lines of the Latin hymn Ut queant laxis – ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la – still signify the steps of the musical scale.
The English song of the 13th century about saying goodbye to summer is placed side by side with a selection of famous vocal compositions by the greatest poet and composer of the Middle Ages, Guillaume de Machaut.
These are followed by outstanding examples of French music of the 17th and 18th centuries – a one-part concerto for two violas da gamba (transcribed for one Cretan lyra) by Jean de Sainte-Colombe and pieces by his famous pupil Marin Marais.