S. has devoted many years to studying the remains of ancient instruments, iconographic and textual sources and some modern literature on the topic. Collaboration above all with Paul Reichlin, a superb instrument maker, has resulted in reconstructions of the highest craftsmanship, many of which have been used in S.'s ensemble Melpomen. A by-product of this process were valuable in-depth documentations of instrument finds, which S.'s collaborators published separately. The book tells the story of this endeavour and presents S.'s conclusions regarding Greek music from the classical period. Its most personal part is a brief chapter in the form of a diary detailing the obstacles met in acquiring original materials – mostly suitable deer bone and rare species of wood –, but the personality of the author remains noticeable throughout the text.
The blurb claims a treatment of the matter in more depth than any previous music-archaeological study. This impression is achieved through long (if necessarily superficial) chapters on the history of ancient-music studies, dwelling on real and alleged shortcomings of previous works while not acknowledging their merits wherever these would cast doubt on S.'s role. Indeed, S. misrepresents and broadly dismisses relevant scholarship (pp. 16; 175) as well as sources he is not willing to engage with (p. 17), including even the most relevant ancient author, Aristoxenus, and rarely mentions dissenting voices (as an odd compensation, sources may be discussed that seem never to have existed, cf. pp. 53–4: Ptolemy on Plato and Aristotle, apparently a distortion of Harm. 3.5). Overall, readers are expected to trust S.'s intuition, insights gained from his experience and sometimes ‘experiments’, the methods or results of which are not detailed. Ultimately, readers are asked to accept a truth that has revealed itself to S. as an artist dealing with the material remains of a past culture. This approach becomes especially worrying when S. equates the limits of his ability with what is ‘possible’ on an ancient instrument, even where others have proven what is ‘impossible’ for him as perfectly viable.
In this way the book opens up a kind of parallel world. Tenets that appear overcome not only in scholarly discussion but also in the performance practice of an increasing number of musicians who play instruments informed by recent scholarship form the basis of sweeping claims about the nature of ancient Greek music. Ubiquitous misunderstandings distort the picture, caused by superficial methodology, insufficient familiarity with the sources and the lack of even a basic command of Greek and Latin. The latter frequently leads to misprinted terms (e.g. p. 30: ‘phtóngos’ and ‘métros’; throughout: ‘génoi’ instead of génē; pp. 62–3: ‘tonum’ and ‘semitonum’ instead of tonus and semitonium; p. 190: ‘Eukleidos’), wrong terminology (e.g. p. 40: ‘tónoi’ instead of phthóngoi), much confusion in detail (e.g. p. 199: embubu is called Sumerian for ‘reed’ while it is in fact Akkadian for ‘pipe’; p. 215: an equidistant scale of four or five notes is claimed to be identical with the Near-Eastern embubu tuning, a nine-note ‘Pythagorean’ scale) and misunderstanding of entire passages, even where excellent translations exist (e.g. p. 42: mistaking scales for melodies in Aristoxenus’ argument). As a result, a substantial part of the book is marred by doubtful claims and wrong statements, often several per page. Nonetheless, S. does not stop short of boasting more rigid philology than even A. Barker's (p. 229 n. 32).
In addition, the book suffers from having long been in the making (cf. p. 176 n. 343, apparently not revised since fourteen years before publication): on the one hand, there is an element of repetitiveness, on the other, statements only a few pages apart sometimes appear to contradict each other (e.g. pp. 373/376; 358/387/391). In what appears to be a recently added paragraph, the dissenting practice of other modern performers is acknowledged (p. 188), without showing awareness of the fact that its existence undermines the book's major conclusions. The delay in publication may also explain why the sensational harp find from late fifth-century bce Daphne, published in 2013, is absent from what describes itself as a comprehensive treatment of the instruments of the classical period (cf. p. 373).
While it is impossible even to list the issues at hand in the allotted space, a couple of more detailed examples are in order. One issue of great consequence concerns the mouthpieces and playing technique of the archaic/classical aulos, typically consisting of two pipes each with five fingerholes and an additional bass tonehole. In spite of minor differences between scholars, the design of such instruments is commonly interpreted as heptatonic with some element of equidistance. Reconstructions are suitably equipped with long double reeds, which are controlled by the lips and therefore allow a wide range of dynamic variation as well as micro-adjustments of the tuning; in addition to consonances that are built into the instruments, the famous microtones of the ancient sources are available by partially covering the large fingerholes (for a summary, cf. S. Hagel, ‘Understanding Early Auloi’, in: G. Zuchtriegel and A. Meriani [edd.], La tomba del Tuffatore [2021], pp. 421–59). S.'s auloi are very different. The single ‘beating’ reeds on which he insists (e.g. pp. 38–9; 223) do not support shaping the sound by controlling the volume (e.g. pp. 236; 427) and deprive the small ‘sýrinx’ holes, intended for overblowing, of any purpose. The small diameter of S.'s reeds also frustrates the wide spacing of the fingerholes, contracting the otherwise available range of an octave to a sixth (pp. 392–3; 422–7). The lower required air pressure precludes understanding the purpose of the well-attested mouth-band (phorbeiá: pp. 220–1). In addition, it transpires that S., in contrast to other performers, ancient and modern, has not mastered the required finger span (pp. 235; 393; 423), but plays only on a subset of the fingerholes, further reducing the capabilities of the instrument. As a result, he paints a picture of classical-period music without dynamic expression, very limited in its melodic range and defined by a ‘Pythagorean’ tuning (p. 423). It is difficult to see why S. would style his interpretation as a necessary result of the materiality of the instrument when recordings circulating on the internet show colleagues playing the same instruments with genuine dynamic phrasing over a wider melodic range, producing microtones such as the ancient sources describe.
An especially troublesome example of S.'s unease with literary sources concerns Theophrastus’ famous passage on reeds suitable for the aulos (p. 36 n. 44). S. mistakes the extant Greek text from the Historia plantarum for Alfred of Sarashel's Latin translation of an Arabic version of the pseudo-Aristotelian De plantis, misnaming the translator ‘Adolf von Saraschel’. The note, along with the errors, borrows heavily without attribution from M. Giesecke, ‘War die Weitergabe von morphologischem Wissen in Schrift und Bild ein Kommunikationsziel für Plinius Secundus?’, LiLi 108 (1997), 9–23, a work that does not appear in S.'s bibliography.
It will have transpired that no novice should be entrusted with this book. For the specialist, it occasionally contributes important data (e.g. p. 414: the use of different alloys in a pair of cymbals or the kinds of bones usable for typical early auloi), contains interesting photographs (though with insufficient captions) and presents mostly beautiful replicas and reconstructions (a bone aulos forming a highlight, while a monstrous kithara does not really resemble any ancient depiction). It is a pity that S. has not taken the opportunity to connect with the flourishing music-archaeological community, which would have enriched his promising team with the range of expertise it lacked.
