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The Descent of the Lyre

The Descent of the Lyre is a novel set in early 19th Century Bulgaria, Austria and France, drawing together themes of music, mythology and violence as it follows the story of the guitarist-saint Ivan Gelski. The novel traces echoes of the myths of Orpheus associated with the Bulgarian region of the Rodopi mountains. The book was the product of a period of research in France and Bulgaria between July and September 2007, funded by a grant from Arts Council England. Research into the Parisian context of the novel involved study of early 19th century music in Paris, in particular taking advantage of the collections at the Cité de la Musique. In Bulgaria, research involved archival and library research, working with materials either unpublished or unavailable in translation, undertaking a series of informal interviews in the Rodopi mountains to collect information about popular cults of sainthood in the context of Bulgarian orthodox belief, and visiting archaeological sites associated with the Thracian Orpheus cult. This period of research in continental Europe was underpinned by more extensive period of background archival research, between 2001 and 2007, into the history of the early 19th century guitar, drawing in particular on the unpublished sources that are held by the Guitar Museum in Brighton. On one hand, the final novel draws out the continuities between later Bulgarian religious traditions, popular religion in the Balkans, and earlier Thracian cults. On the other hand, it investigates the complex cross-currents between Ottoman, Western and folk musical traditions in the early nineteenth century.