“There is no benefit when music stands secret and hidden.” — Lucian

What came to be known as the Orphic Hymns is a collection of 87 hymns addressed to various deities, that constitute the greatest extant example of Orphic literature, the literature associated with the Orphic religion, or Orphism.

Orphism was a set of esoteric religious beliefs centered around the figure of Orpheus, worshipping what is believed to be an iteration of the god Dionysus, named Zagreus. Although evidence about Orphism is scarce, its members seemed to believe that the religion was indeed created by the divine bard himself. It is generally considered to have evolved from the previous Dionysian religion, another esoteric set of practices centered around the Dionysiac mysteries.

In our book, containing 14 melodies, we have decided to focus on the most well-known ancient Greek gods, those being the members of the Olympian Pantheon, known as the “Dodecatheon,” or “Twelve Gods,” plus Hades, the God of the Underworld, and, of course, Dionysus himself. These were the widely accepted greatest deities of the Pantheon, and it is these gods that were later interpreted into their Roman counterparts, taking on names still in use today, such as Jupiter, Juno, and Mars.

This is a curated selection of Orphic Hymns to the Gods to add to your lyre repertoire.

Song list: Zeus, Father of the Gods ✦ Hera, Queen of the Gods ✦ Poseidon, Lord of the Sea ✦ Demeter, The Mother ✦ Hestia, Home and Hearth ✦ Apollo, Radiant God ✦ Artemis, The Huntress ✦ Ares, Battle Born ✦ Aphrodite, Lady of Love ✦ Athena, Born of the Mind ✦ Hermes, The Unbound ✦ Hephaestus, The Smith God ✦ Dionysus, Orgiastic God of Wine ✦ Plouton, Lord of the Underworld

“This Sheet Music Book is our latest addition to our effort to enrich the available educational resources for lyre and lyre-like musical instruments,” Nikolaos Koumartzis, the series’ director, explains.

This book is part of the Lyre Sheet Music series, which features some of the greatest lyre players around the world, including Lina Palera, Thanasis Kleopas, Michael Levy, and Theodore Koumartzis.

Pages: 56 | Dimensions: 9 x 12 inches | sheet music for lyres or kitharas with 7 or more strings

_Credits
Nikolaos Koumartzis, D.Phil. (editor-in-chief)
Fotis Giantsios, M.Litt. (research director)
Lina Palera (composer)