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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Modes of Ancient Greek Music," D. B. Monro delves into the intricate tapestry of musical modes that framed the sonic landscape of ancient Greece. Through a careful examination of historical texts and musical theory, Monro articulates the complex relationship between tonal structure and social, philosophical, and cultural contexts of the time. His analytical approach combines rigorous scholarship with engaging prose, allowing readers a glimpse into the aesthetic principles that governed Greek music, which served not only as entertainment but also as a medium for philosophical discourse and emotional expression. D. B. Monro, a noted scholar in the field of musicology, draws upon his extensive background in both classical studies and music theory to present a work that is both authoritative and accessible. His keen interest in the intersection of music and culture has led him to explore how ancient Greek music not only reflected societal values but also influenced subsequent musical traditions. Monro's research in ancient manuscripts and his insights into the performance practices of the time enrich this scholarly exploration. This book is a must-read for students, musicians, and anyone captivated by the origins of Western music. Monro's deft weaving of historical detail with theoretical insights invites readers to appreciate the profound legacy of ancient Greek music, making it an invaluable addition to both academic libraries and personal collections. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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The Modes of Ancient Greek Music
Table of Contents
PREFACE
The present essay is the sequel of an article on Greek music which the author contributed to the new edition of Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London, 1890-91, art. Musica). In that article the long-standing controversy regarding the nature of the ancient musical Modes was briefly noticed, and some reasons were given for dissenting from the views maintained by Westphal, and now very generally accepted. A full discussion of the subject would have taken up more space than was then at the author's disposal, and he accordingly proposed to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press to treat the question in a separate form. He has now to thank them for undertaking the publication of a work which is necessarily addressed to a very limited circle.
The progress of the work has been more than once delayed by the accession of materials. Much of it was written before the author had the opportunity of studying two very interesting documents first made known in the course of last year in the Bulletin de correspondance hellénique and the Philologus, viz. the so-called Seikelos inscription from Tralles, and a fragment of the Orestes of Euripides. But a much greater surprise was in store. The book was nearly ready for publication last November, when the newspapers reported that the French scholars engaged in excavating on the site of Delphi had found several pieces of musical notation, in particular a hymn to Apollo dating from the third century B.C. As the known remains of Greek music were either miserably brief, or so late as hardly to belong to classical antiquity, it was thought best to wait for the publication of the new material. The French School of Athens must be congratulated upon the good fortune which has attended their enterprise, and also upon the excellent form in which its results have been placed, within a comparatively short time, at the service of students. The writer of these pages, it will be readily understood, had especial reason to be interested in the announcement of a discovery which might give an entirely new complexion to the whole argument. It will be for the reader to determine whether the main thesis of the book has gained or lost by the new evidence.
Mr. Hubert Parry prefaces his suggestive treatment of Greek music by some remarks on the difficulty of the subject. 'It still seems possible,' he observes, 'that a large portion of what has passed into the domain of "well-authenticated fact" is complete misapprehension, as Greek scholars have not time for a thorough study of music up to the standard required to judge securely of the matters in question, and musicians as a rule are not extremely intimate with Greek' (The Art of Music, p. 24). To the present writer, who has no claim to the title of musician, the scepticism expressed in these words appears to be well founded. If his interpretation of the ancient texts furnishes musicians like Mr. Parry with a somewhat more trustworthy basis for their criticism of Greek music as an art, his object will be fully attained.
THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.
§ 1. Introductory.
The modes of ancient Greek music are of interest to us, not only as the forms under which the Fine Art of Music was developed by a people of extraordinary artistic capability, but also on account of the peculiar ethical influence ascribed to them by the greatest ancient philosophers. It appears from a well-known passage in the Republic of Plato, as well as from many other references, that in ancient Greece there were certain kinds or forms of music, which were known by national or tribal names—Dorian, Ionian, Phrygian, Lydian and the like: that each of these was believed to be capable, not only of expressing particular emotions, but of reacting on the sensibility in such a way as to exercise a powerful and specific influence in the formation of character: and consequently that the choice, among these varieties, of the musical forms to be admitted into the education of the state, was a matter of the most serious practical concern. If on a question of this kind we are inclined to distrust the imaginative temper of Plato we have only to turn to the discussion of the same subject in the Politics of Aristotle, and we shall find the Platonic view criticised in some important details, but treated in the main as being beyond controversy.
The word harmonia, 'harmony,' applied to these forms of music by Plato and Aristotle, means literally 'fitting' or 'adjustment,' hence the 'tuning' of a series of notes on any principle, the formation of a 'scale' or 'gamut.' Other ancient writers use the word tropos, whence the Latin modus and our mood or 'mode,' generally employed in this sense by English scholars. The word 'mode' is open to the objection that in modern music it has a meaning which assumes just what it is our present business to prove or disprove about the 'modes' of Greek music. The word 'harmony,' however, is still more misleading, and on the whole it seems best to abide by the established use of 'mode' as a translation of harmonia, trusting that the context will show when the word has its distinctively modern sense, and when it simply denotes a musical scale of some particular kind.
The rhythm of music is also recognized by both Plato and Aristotle as an important element in its moral value. On this part of the subject, however, we have much less material for a judgement. Plato goes on to the rhythms after he has done with the modes, and lays down the principle that they must not be complex or varied, but must be the rhythms of a sober and brave life. But he confesses that he cannot tell which these are (poia de poiou biou mimêmata ouk echô legein), and leaves the matter for future inquiry [1].
§ 2. Statement of the question.
What then are the musical forms to which Plato and Aristotle ascribe this remarkable efficacy? And what is the source of their influence on human emotion and character?
There are two obvious relations in which the scales employed in any system of music may stand to each other. They may be related as two keys of the same mode in modern music: that is to say, we may have to do with a scale consisting of a fixed succession of intervals, which may vary in pitch—may be 'transposed,' as we say, from one pitch or key to another. Or the scales may differ as the Major mode differs from the Minor, namely in the order in which the intervals follow each other. In modern music we have these two modes, and each of them may be in any one of twelve keys. It is evidently possible, also, that a name such as Dorian or Lydian might denote a particular mode taken in a particular key—that the scale so called should possess a definite pitch as well as a definite series of intervals.
According to the theory which appears now to prevail among students of Greek music, these famous names had a double application. There was a Dorian mode as well as a Dorian key, a Phrygian mode and a Phrygian key, and so on. This is the view set forth by Boeckh in the treatise which may be said to have laid the foundations of our knowledge of Greek music (De Metris Pindari, lib. III. cc. vii-xii). It is expounded, along with much subsidiary speculation, in the successive volumes which we owe to the fertile pen of Westphal; and it has been adopted in the learned and excellent Histoire et Théorie de la Musique de l'Antiquité of M. Gevaert. According to these high authorities the Greeks had a system of key (tonoi), and also a system of modes (harmoniai), the former being based solely upon difference of pitch, the latter upon the 'form' or species (eidos) of the octave scale, that is to say, upon the order of the intervals which compose it.
§ 3. The Authorities.
The sources of our knowledge are the various systematic treatises upon music which have come down to us from Greek antiquity, together with incidental references in other authors, chiefly poets and philosophers. Of the systematic or 'technical' writers the earliest and most important is Aristoxenus, a pupil of Aristotle. His treatise on Harmonics (harmonikê) has reached us in a fragmentary condition, but may be supplemented to some extent from later works of the same school. Among the incidental notices of music the most considerable are the passages in the Republic and the Politics already referred to. To these we have to add a few other references in Plato and Aristotle; a long fragment from the Platonic philosopher Heraclides Ponticus, containing some interesting quotations from earlier poets; a number of detached observations collected in the nineteenth section of the Aristotelian Problems; and one or two notices preserved in lexicographical works, such as the Onomasticon of Pollux.
In these groups of authorities the scholars above mentioned find the double use which they believe to have been made of the names Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and the rest. In Aristoxenus they recognise that these names are applied to a series of keys (tonoi), which differed in pitch only. In Plato and Aristotle they find the same names applied to scales called harmoniai, and these scales, they maintain, differed primarily in the order of their intervals. I shall endeavour to show that there was no such double use: that in the earlier periods of Greek music the scales in use, whether called tonoi or harmoniai, differed primarily in pitch: that the statements of ancient authors about them, down to and including Aristoxenus, agree as closely as there is reason to expect: and that the passages on which the opposite view is based—all of them drawn from comparatively late writers—either do not relate to these ancient scales at all, or point to the emergence in post-classical times of some new forms or tendencies of musical art. I propose in any case to adhere as closely as possible to a chronological treatment of the evidence which is at our command, and I hope to make it probable that the difficulties of the question may be best dealt with on this method.
§ 4. The Early Poets.
The earliest of the passages now in question comes from the poet Pratinas, a contemporary of Aeschylus. It is quoted by Heraclides Ponticus, in the course of a long fragment preserved by Athenaeus (xiv. cc. 19-21, p. 624 c-626 a). The words are:
'Follow neither a highly-strung music nor the low-pitched Ionian, but turning over the middle plough-land be an Aeolian in your melody.' Westphal takes the word 'Iasti with syntonon as well as with aneimenan, and infers that there were two kinds of Ionian, a 'highly-strung' and a 'relaxed' or low-pitched. But this is not required by the words, and seems less natural than the interpretation which I have given. All that the passage proves is that in the time of Pratinas a composer had the choice of at least three scales: one (or more) of which the pitch was high (syntonos); another of low pitch (aneimenê), which was called Ionian; and a third, intermediate between the others, and known as Aeolian. Later in the same passage we are told that Pratinas spoke of the 'Aeolian harmony' (prepei toi pasin aoidolabraktais Aiolis harmonia). And the term is also found, with the epithet 'deep-sounding,' in a passage quoted from the hymn to Demeter of a contemporary poet, Lasus of Hermione (Athen. xiv. 624 e):
With regard to the Phrygian and Lydian scales Heraclides (l. c.) quotes an interesting passage from Telestes of Selinus, in which their introduction is ascribed to the colony that was said to have followed Pelops from Asia Minor to the Peloponnesus:
'The comrades of Pelops were the first who beside the Grecian cups sang with the flute (aulos) the Phrygian measure of the Great Mother; and these again by shrill-voiced notes of the pectis sounded a Lydian hymn.' The epithet oxyphônos is worth notice in connexion with other evidence of the high pitch of the music known as Lydian. The Lydian mode is mentioned by Pindar, Nem. 4. 45:
The Dorian is the subject of an elaborate jest made at the expense of Cleon in the Knights of Aristophanes, ll. 985-996:
§ 5. Plato.
Following the order of time, we come next to the passage in the Republic (p. 398), where Socrates is endeavouring to determine the kinds of music to be admitted for the use of his future 'guardians,' in accordance with the general principles which are to govern their education. First among these principles is the condemnation of all undue expression of grief. 'What modes of music (harmoniai),' he asks, are plaintive (thrênôdeis)?' 'The Mixo-lydian,' Glaucon replies, 'and the Syntono-lydian, and such-like.' These accordingly Socrates excludes. 'But again, drunkenness and slothfulness are no less forbidden to the guardians; which of the modes are soft and convivial (malakai te kai sympotikai)?' 'Ionian,' says Glaucon, 'and Lydian, those which are called slack (chalarai).' 'Which then remain?' 'Seemingly Dorian and Phrygian.' 'I do not know the modes,' says Socrates, 'but leave me one that will imitate the tones and accents of a brave man enduring danger or distress, fighting with constancy against fortune: and also one fitted for the work of peace, for prayer heard by the gods, for the successful persuasion or exhortation of men, and generally for the sober enjoyment of ease and prosperity.' Two such modes, one for Courage and one for Temperance, are declared by Glaucon to be found in the Dorian and the Phrygian. In the Laches (p. 188) there is a passing reference in which a similar view is expressed. Plato is speaking of the character of a brave man as being metaphorically a 'harmony,' by which his life is made consonant to reason—'a Dorian harmony,' he adds—playing upon the musical sense of the word—'not an Ionian, certainly not a Phrygian or a Lydian, but that one which only is truly Hellenic' (atechnôs Dôristi, all' ouk Iasti, oiomai de oude Phrygisti oude Lydisti, all' hê per monê Hellênikê estin harmonia). The exclusion of Phrygian may be due to the fact that the virtue discussed in the Laches is courage; but it is in agreement with Aristotle's opinion. The absence of Aeolian from both the Platonic passages seems to show that it had gone out of use in his time (but cp. p. 11).
The point of view from which Plato professes to determine the right modes to be used in his ideal education appears clearly in the passage of the Republic. The modes first rejected are those which are high in pitch. The Syntono-lydian or 'high-strung Lydian' is shown by its name to be of this class. The Mixo-lydian is similar, as we shall see from Aristotle and other writers. The second group which he condemns is that of the 'slack' or low-pitched. Thus it is on the profoundly Hellenic principle of choosing the mean between opposite extremes that he approves of the Dorian and Phrygian pitch. The application of this principle was not a new one, for it had been already laid down by Pratinas: mête syntonon diôke mête tan aneimenan.
The three chapters which Aristotle devotes to a discussion of the use of music in the state (Politics viii. cc. 5-7), and in which he reviews and criticises the Platonic treatment of the same subject, will be found entirely to bear out the view now taken. It is also supported by the commentary of Plutarch, in his dialogue on Music (cc. 15-17), of which we shall have something to say hereafter. Meanwhile, following the chronological order of our authorities, we come next to the fragment of Heraclides Ponticus already mentioned (Athen. xiv. p. 624 c-626 a).
§ 6. Heraclides Ponticus.
The chief doctrine maintained by Heraclides Ponticus is that there are three modes (harmoniai), belonging to the three Greek races—Dorian, Aeolian, Ionian. The Phrygian and Lydian, in his view, had no right to the name of mode or 'harmony' (oud' harmonian phêsi dein kaleisthai tên Phrygion, kathaper oude tên Lydion). The three which he recognized had each a marked ethos. The Dorian reflected the military traditions and temper of Sparta. The Aeolian, which Heraclides identified with the Hypo-dorian of his own time, answered to the national character of the Thessalians, which was bold and gay, somewhat overweening and self-indulgent, but hospitable and chivalrous. Some said that it was called Hypo-dorian because it was below the Dorian on the aulos or flute; but Heraclides thinks that the name merely expressed likeness to the Dorian character (Dôrion men autên ou nomizein, prosempherê de pôs ekeinê). The Ionian, again, was harsh and severe, expressive of the unkindly disposition fostered amid the pride and material welfare of Miletus. Heraclides is inclined to say that it was not properly a distinct musical scale or 'harmony,' but a strange aberration in the form of the musical scale (tropon de tina thaumaston schêmatos harmonias). He goes on to protest against those who do not appreciate differences of kind (tas kat' eidos diaphoras), and are guided only by the high or low pitch of the notes (tê tôn phthongôn exytêti kai barytêti); so that they make a Hyper-mixolydian, and another again above that. 'I do not see,' he adds, 'that the Hyper-phrygian has a distinct ethos; and yet some say that they have discovered a new mode (harmonia), the Hypo-phrygian. But a mode ought to have a distinct moral or emotional character (eidos echein ethous hê pathous), as the Locrian, which was in use in the time of Simonides and Pindar, but went out of fashion again.' The Phrygian and Lydian, as we have seen, were said to have been brought to the Peloponnesus by the followers of Pelops.
The tone as well as the substance of this extract makes it evident that the opinions of Heraclides on questions of theoretical music must be accepted with considerable reserve. The notion that the Phrygian and Lydian scales were 'barbarous' and opposed to Hellenic ethos was apparently common enough, though largely due (as we may gather from several indications) to national prejudice. But no one, except Heraclides, goes so far as to deny them the name of harmonia. The threefold division into Dorian, Aeolian and Ionian must also be arbitrary. It is to be observed that Heraclides obtains his Aeolian by identifying the Aeolian of Pratinas and other early poets with the mode called Hypo-dorian in his own time. The circumstance that Plato mentions neither Aeolian nor Hypo-dorian suggests rather that Aeolian had gone out of use before Hypo-dorian came in. The conjecture of Boeckh that Ionian was the same as the later Hypo-phrygian (De Metr. Pind. iii. 8) is open to a similar objection. The Ionian mode was at least as old as Pratinas, whereas the Hypo-phrygian was a novelty in the time of Heraclides. The protest which Heraclides makes against classifying modes merely according to their pitch is chiefly valuable as proving that the modes were as a matter of fact usually classified from that point of view. It is far from proving that there was any other principle which Heraclides wished to adopt—such, for example, as difference in the intervals employed, or in their succession. His 'differences of kind' (tas kat' eidos diaphoras) are not necessarily to be explained from the technical use of eidos for the 'species' of the octave. What he complains of seems to be the multiplication of modes—Hyper-mixolydian, Hyper-phrygian, Hypo-phrygian—beyond the legitimate requirements of the art. The Mixo-lydian (e.g.) is high-pitched and plaintive: what more can the Hyper-mixolydian be? The Hypo-phrygian is a new mode: Heraclides denies it a distinctive ethos. His view seems to be that the number of modes should not be greater than the number of varieties in temper or emotion of which music is capable. But there is nothing to show that he did not regard pitch as the chief element, or one of the chief elements, of musical expression.
The absence of the name Hypo-lydian, taken with the description of Hypo-dorian as 'below the Dorian,' would indicate that the Hypo-dorian of Heraclides was not the later mode of that name, but was a semitone below the Dorian, in the place afterwards occupied by the Hypo-lydian. This is confirmed, as we shall see, by Aristoxenus (p. 18).
