PAST TIME ECHOES

Echo is a mountain nymph in Greek mythology and the phenomenon of reverberation is named after her. Zeus tasked Echo with telling stories to entertain his wife Hera so that he would have enough time for his own love adventures. When Hera discovered the plot, she robbed Echo of her speech as punishment, leaving her with only the ability to repeat the last words meant to her. Reverberation occurs when the reflections of a sound wave are delayed to the point where they can be perceived as a separate auditory event, and this acoustic phenomenon has fascinated humans since prehistoric times. As an artistic means, echoes can be found in Greek poetry from the 5th century BC onwards, and in music, it becomes popular and important between the 16th and 18th centuries, both in secular and especially in the setting of liturgical texts in church music. In the perceptions of people during the Baroque era, music in itself is an echo of the divine and a response to God's love.
Dr. Marko Motnik