The lyre is one of the most ancient and most symbolic string instruments, the heart of the musical culture of ancient Greece. It is a plucked instrument in which the strings (usually 7) are stretched between a resonator body (often a tortoise shell) and a crossbar on two curved arms.
In ancient Greek culture the lyre held enormous significance: it was an attribute of the god Apollo — patron of the arts — and symbolised harmony, poetry, and education (playing the lyre was considered the foundation of upbringing). Epic poems and lyric poetry were recited to its accompaniment — from which the very word “lyric” comes. Kindred to it is the kithara — a larger, concert version of the lyre for professionals. The lyre is the symbolic wellspring of the entire European musical tradition, an image that to this day embodies the very art of music.
