Ennius' Trumpets - Epic Roman Music feat. Stefanos Krasopoulis

Описание: Aulos by ​⁠‪@stefanoskrasopoulis‬, drums by Dimitri Papadimitriou, vocals and music by Farya Faraji. Please note that this isn't reconstructed historical music nor an attempted approximation, but merely modern music that uses Ancient Roman instrumentation and lyrics.

I wanted to set to music short, evocative Roman-era lyrics with visceral descriptions of the sound of war. I turned to Lucretius' writings, as well as Ennius', whose influence was immense, but whose poetry unfortunately survives only in fragments. The lyrics heard here are from the fragments of his Annales, an epic poem set in the nascent Roman state. The rest is from Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.

Ennius' passages are interesting for their use of mimetic onomatopeia, writing down the sound of the trumpet as "tarantara," and the ululating war cries of the Roman soldiers as "opitopitpoi, ululululon"

The pronunciation uses Restored Classical pronunciation and ancient roman instrument including the pandoura and aulos, played by me collaborator Stefanos Krasopoulis, who performs the Louvre aulos model, with a sharper sound than its Vergina model counterpart heard in some of my other Greco-Roman pieces of music.

Lyrics in Latin:
(Lucretius)
Armōrum rēsonant ferrī per moenia clangor,
Fit fremitusque simul manūs inter saepta coortus,
Discutiuntque cavīs sonitum fornācibus aera,
Undique per mūrōs clāmor volat aequore magnō.

(Ennius)
Et tŭba terribilī sonitū taratantara dīxit,
Et tremefēcit tellus, et aēribus aether.

Et mīlitēs clāmāvērunt:
Opitopitopoi, ulululululon!

English translation:
(Lucretius)
The clash of iron arms resounds along the walls,
and at once a roar arises, as the bands spring to battle within the barriers;
they beat the bronze, ringing sound from hollow forges,
and on every side the clamor flies across the wide plain.

(Ennius)
But the trumpet, with terrible sound, cried “taratantara,”
and the earth trembled, and the heavens rang with bronze.

And the soldiers screamed:
Opitopitopoi, ulululon!