Kérylos needs to ...  

extract from a text by Annie BELIS

« To revive the musical heritage of antiquity, it was essential to rebuild the Greek and Roman instruments identically to what they were - instruments which today have no known parallel in the modern orchestra.

After the painstaking collation of all the sources that were available (Greek and Latin texts , iconography, but also the remains of instruments), in 1987 Annie Bélis solicited the Vosgien luthier Jean-Claude CONDI to make initially Greek lyres, a heptacord and octacord, and then, in 1991/1992, two concert harps and two percussion instruments - a large dulcimer and a kroupeza, a curious instrument consisting of two cymbals operated by the foot. He also made an aulos flute in ebony with silver rings, copying an instrument found in a tomb in the necropolis of Halicarnassus, dating from the 3rdcentury BC, and other flute heads excavated at Corinth and Delos, and dating from the 1st century.

Each of these instruments was made for the first time ever in exact accordance with the ancient sources, exhaustively identified and analyzed: materials, shapes, proportions, accessories such as the harness and plectrum, everything is identical to the instrument of antiquity. When information was lacking, technical solutions were found in the spirit and within the means available to the Greek and Roman luthiers. This is a tribute to Jean-Claude Condi, who was able to retrieve and understand when the ancient sources were silent.

Starting in 1987, this resurrection of Greek and Roman instruments has never ceased to evolve and continues to this day.

This is how instrument makers, thanks to their ingenuity and talent and nourished by rigorous and precise archaeological work , could restore the tone and sounds of forgotten instruments that have remained silent for 20 to 25 centuries. »