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Ataraxia (Inner Harmony)

by Michael Levy

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about

This album attempts to evoke through meditative music for recreated ancient lyre, the philosophical quest to achieve the ancient Greek ideal of Ataraxia – a feeling of total inner harmony & freedom from anxiety, which is one of the core criteria required to bring a sense of meaning to our own lives.

In a frenetic, ever changing modern world of uncertainty, shallow, materialistic goals & a lack of anything of aesthetic value or spirituality, this age-old philosophical quest for each of us to strive to seek some long-forgotten inner peace & harmony, has even more relevance today than it did back in the heyday of classical Greece!

Other ancient Greek philosophical ideas I explore throughout the album, which are also part of the spiritual & intellectual voyage to achieve this inner harmony, include musical evocations of the Stoic ideal of Apatheia (freedom from negative emotions), the Aristotelian ideal of Eudiamonia (the ideal of seeking a flourishing life, by seeking a life of virtue & reason – the highest functions of human consciousness) and learning to live with the difficult truth advocated by sceptical ancient Greek philosophers such as Pyrrho, that the only thing certain, is uncertainty.

Putting these threads together, the album aims to musically express this progression to the ancient Greek ideal of "Ataraxia" (the inner harmony we strive to attain, once we achieve freedom from distress) - an inner peace which can only come, when we learn to live with the difficult truth that the only thing certain in the enigma of our conscious experience, is uncertainty. Only once we can swallow this truth, can we finally appreciate the mystery!

This perfect contentment, “inner harmony”, was first expressed in ancient Greece by the philosopher, Pyrrho, as 'Ataraxia'; a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety - tranquillity. The hallowed state of Ataraxia, according to Pyrrho, can only to be achieved by finally accepting the hard but timeless truth, that the only thing we can ever know for certain, is uncertainty!

Translating this incredible philosophical insight to our modern times, we can only find our own state of Ataraxia; our personal inner harmony, by learning to appreciate the cosmic mystery of the very existence our conscious experience, as actual sentient beings, instead of becoming too obsessed in the futile quest to try to understand everything; which will only bring us struggles, unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Indeed, we can only ever have a finite understanding of this infinite universe!

To sum up this cosmic enigma, so famously described by the late astronomer, Carl Sagan, we are literally forged of star dust - that briefly became conscious of the stars...

Back in classical antiquity, the Pythagoreans likened a just and well-ordered society to a well-tuned lyre - while each note retains its individuality, all are proportionally linked together in a larger whole to form a musical scale and all are interdependent in terms of their reliance on one another. This beautiful analogy between a well-ordered society and a well-tuned lyre is famously described by Plato in “The Republic”, 443 D–444

Bringing this idea new life in my quest for a 'New Ancestral' musical revolution, the limitless creative musical possibilities of the 10 strings I have on the lyre with which I recorded this release with, are analogous to the general maximum of 10 decades with which our brief human lives span - even although the present human species has a general maximum of 10 decades of natural lifespan, there are almost limitless possibilities in each of them, for each and every one of us to shape our precious years as conscious, sentient beings in any way we can possibly imagine!

To further mirror this analogy, in editing down to the final version of this release, there are also 10 tracks – each track marking a step nearer on the path to achieving the ideal of achieving in our brief, precious lives, the inner harmony of Ataraxia.

Even if there is no God or gods, we alone still miraculously have the power within our inner self, to create our own meaning in life; even if all our religions prove eventually to be wrong and the universe itself, of which we are briefly a part, exists for no cause or reason.

Each of us must create our own form of harmony and order out of the chaos of this world in which we briefly find ourselves in - therefore, we all need to ultimately strive to literally become the lyre players of our own lives...

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released January 1, 2023

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Michael Levy UK

Michael Levy is a composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity,

Michael has collaborated with the Rufus Wainwright - Rufus Orchestrated Michael's "Hymn to Zeus" in 2 scenes of his second opera, "Hadrian".

In 2022 - 2023, Michael collaborated with the iconic American artist, Jeff Koons – his music for ancient Greek kithara was the soundscape of Koon’s sculpture, “Apollo Kithara”.
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