Greece.

Country in the eastern Mediterranean with a population of around 10·5 million and an area of 131,957 km². The modern nation state gained independence from the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. As a region, Greece has a long and varied history.

The modern (Demotic) language is remarkably similar to that of ancient Greece. However, there are important differences, and ancient and modern Greek are transliterated differently below. The transliteration of ancient Greek, also used here for bibliographic citations, follows the system commonly adopted by classical scholars, and marks the difference between the long and short ‘e’ and ‘o’ with a macron. Transliteration of modern Greek is more problematic as there is no one widely accepted system. That adopted here attempts to provide a guide to pronunciation while enabling the reader to discern the original Greek characters.

I. Ancient

II. Post-Byzantine to 1830

III. Art music since 1770

IV. Traditional music

THOMAS J. MATHIESEN (I), DIMITRI CONOMOS (II), GEORGE LEOTSAKOS (III), SOTIRIOS CHIANIS/RUDOLPH M. BRANDL (IV)

Greece

I. Ancient

1. Introduction.

2. Source material.

3. Scope.

4. Musical life in ancient Greece.

5. Musical instruments.

6. Music theory.

7. Notation.

8. Extant ‘melos’.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Greece, §I: Ancient

1. Introduction.

The modern Western concept of ‘music’ differs from the ancient Greek concept of mousikē. For the Greeks, music was both an art and a subject of scientific and philosophical inquiry. It could provide relaxation and entertainment as well as playing a central role in civic and religious life. In the second book of his treatise On Music (Peri mousikēs), Aristides Quintilianus (fl late 3rd century – 4th century ce) remarks on the pervasiveness of music:

There is certainly no action among men that is carried out without music. Sacred hymns and offerings are adorned with music, specific feasts and the festal assemblies of cities exult in it, wars and marches are both aroused and composed through music. It makes sailing and rowing and the most difficult of the handicrafts not burdensome by providing an encouragement for the work.

Recognizing its broad role, he identified (i.5) theoretical and practical subclasses of mousikē, each consisting of various subjects and disciplines (for a diagram see Aristides Quintilianus), ranging from the narrowly technical to the broadly philosophical.

Centuries earlier, such conceptual breadth had enabled Plato, in the Timaeus, to employ music as a cosmological paradigm, but he was also concerned in the Republic and the Laws with practical issues such as the influence of music on behaviour and the types of music that should be allowed in an enlightened civilization. Likewise, in the eighth book of the Politics, Aristotle elaborated on the educational function of music and pointed out its effect in the development of character. The pure phenomena of music attracted the interest of various early philosophical schools, especially the Pythagoreans and another group that came to be known as ‘Harmonicists’ (harmonikoi); within this scientific tradition Aristotle's famous disciple Aristoxenus, in a treatise transmitted under the title Harmonic Elements (Harmonika stoicheia), developed a highly sophisticated system for analysing musical phenomena.

By the 2nd century bce the earlier practical, scientific and philosophical traditions of music were beginning to fade. Even so, for the next several centuries, authors of late antiquity would continue to write treatments of the subject in Greek and Latin. Byzantine and Arabic scholars remained interested in ancient Greek music theory well into the second millennium of the present era, but in the West the music and its theory began to be forgotten after the time of Boethius and Cassiodorus, leaving only faint and imperfect echoes in later treatises.

When Renaissance humanists began to rediscover the cultural treasures of antiquity, they were intrigued by the legendary powers and quality of the music of ancient Greece but were frustrated by the difficulties in recapturing the music of an earlier time. The humanists were also hampered by the absence of notated pieces of music, by incomplete or imperfect manuscripts of texts they wished to read, and by a limited knowledge and understanding of other valuable pieces of evidence, iconographic and archaeological.

In the 17th and 18th centuries more of the theoretical and literary sources that speak of ancient Greek music began to circulate in published form. The most important of these publications was Marcus Meibom's Antiquae musicae auctores septem (Amsterdam, 1652), an edition of seven Greek treatises with parallel translations in Latin, a book of some 800 pages. This edition complemented Athanasius Kircher's famous Musurgia universalis (Rome, 1650), and both influenced John Wallis's 1682 and 1699 editions of two treatises Meibom had not included in his collection: the Harmonics (Harmonika) of Ptolemy and Porphyry's commentary on it. These substantial technical publications provided 18th-century scholars with a wealth of material that appealed to their antiquarian and historical interests, while also supplying evidence for arguments about the purpose and meaning of music. L.C. Mizler von Kolof and Johann Mattheson, for example, drew on ostensibly divergent trends in the Greek sources to bolster their own aesthetic differences, while historians such as F.W. Marpurg, G.B. Martini and Sir John Hawkins tried to develop coherent historical surveys.

Greater control of the literary sources was accomplished during the 19th century, and the discovery of a fair amount of music notated on stone and papyrus and in manuscripts excited renewed debate about the value of ancient Greek music and the prospect of understanding its legendary powers. With the publication during the 20th century of new critical texts, catalogues of manuscripts, and an enormous quantity of critical studies, scholars continued to build on these earlier foundations.

It is impossible to reconstruct every detail of the music of the ancient Greeks, but a broad range of source material provides a good deal of information. Four principal types of sources are available for the study of ancient Greek music and music theory: literature, works of graphic or plastic art, archaeological remains, and notated pieces of music. No single class of source material is sufficient to present a complete picture; each gains in relation to the others, and only when viewed as a complex do they begin to reveal the richness and vitality of mousikē.

Greece, §I: Ancient

2. Source material.

Musical allusions and general descriptions appear in the Iliad and the Odyssey, in lyric poetry and in dramatic works of ancient Greece. As nearly all this literature was sung, danced, and accompanied by musical instruments, the literature itself is a part of the musical heritage of Greece. In addition, general descriptions of music and music theory abound in philosophy, collections of anecdotes, and similar types of literature. Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus and other representatives of various philosophical schools wrote in detail about the use, character and value of music. Historical, anecdotal and lexicographical works such as Pausanias's Description of Greece (Graeciae descriptio), Athenaeus's Sophists at Dinner (Deipnosophistai), Plutarch's Table-Talk (Sumposiaka problēmata), Photius's Bibliotheca, the Etymologicon magnum, the Suda and Pollux's Onomasticon contain valuable detail on such matters as construction and use of musical instruments, types of music and occasions when it might be used, and the effect of music on behaviour.

Technical or systematic works that treat the theory of ancient Greek music extend over a wide period from the 4th century bce to the 4th century ce, or even later if works written in late antiquity and the Middle Ages in Latin, Greek and Arabic are included. These later works, however, should be considered representatives of the transmission of ancient Greek music theory rather than parts of its primary corpus. Of the earlier treatises, some are technical manuals that provide valuable detail about the Greeks’ musical system, including notation, the function and placement of notes in a scale, characteristics of consonance and dissonance, rhythm, and types of musical composition. This group includes the Division of the Canon (Katatomē kanonos; sometimes erroneously attributed to Euclid); Cleonides, Harmonic Introduction (Eisagōgē harmonikē); Nicomachus of Gerasa, Manual of Harmonics (Harmonikon engcheiridion); Theon of Smyrna, On Mathematics Useful for the Understanding of Plato (Tōn kata to mathēmatikon chrēsimōn eis tēn Platōnos anagnōsin); Gaudentius, Harmonic Introduction (Harmonikē eisaōgē); Alypius, Introduction to Music (Eisagōgē mousikē); Bacchius, Introduction to the Art of Music (Eisagōgē technēs mousikēs); Dionysius, Introduction to the Art of Music (Eisagōgē technēs mousikēs); the so-called Bellermann's Anonymous; and others. By contrast, some of the treatises are long and elaborate books showing the way in which mousikē reveals universal patterns of order, thereby leading to the highest levels of knowledge and understanding. Authors of these longer books – Aristoxenus, Ptolemy, Porphyry and Aristides Quintilianus – were in some cases well-known figures of antiquity.

Literary sources supply much information about music, but they are not especially useful in determining how music sounded or was performed. Answers to these questions must be addressed through the music itself, musical instruments, and iconographic sources illustrating instruments, manner of performance (to some degree), and social contexts in which music was used, ranging from music lessons to processions, banquets, the theatre and festivals. Various types of lyre, the aulos and percussion instruments are seen being tuned and played (alone or in ensemble) or sometimes simply hanging on a wall. Statuary, gemstones and coins exhibiting instruments in three dimensions or low relief help clarify the perspective shown in paintings. Remains of musical instruments discovered in archaeological excavations can be of incalculable value in making reconstructions of instruments; such reconstructions help to bridge the gap between performances captured by the graphic or plastic artists and the sound of the music itself.

A final source of inestimable importance is the ever-growing body of musical fragments that appear in manuscripts and on stone and papyrus. At least six important new pieces, including a second fragment from a work of Euripides, came to light during the last 30 years of the 20th century. Although the precise number varies according to the differing assessments of scholars, more than 40 ‘fragments’ dating from between the 3rd century bce and the 4th century ce are now known (see §8 below). Some of these pieces are indeed quite fragmentary, but others are complete or nearly complete compositions. Theoretical sources have made it possible to transcribe these pieces with reasonable certainty.

Greece, §I: Ancient

3. Scope.

The broad subject of ‘ancient Greek music and music theory’ requires some definition of region and chronological limits. Cycladic sculpture of musicians, belonging to the period 2700–2100 bce, has been discovered on the islands of Keros, Thera and Naxos; frescoes from the Minoan period (c2300–1100 bce) survive; and various musical artefacts exist from Mycenaean (c1550–1100 bce) and Iron Age and Early Geometric (1100–800 bce) cultures. While this iconographic evidence is valuable, the terminus a quo normally envisioned by the phrase ‘ancient Greek’ is the so-called Archaic period, which is generally taken as referring to the Greek culture of the 8th to 6th centuries bce. The terminus ante quem is more difficult to define because of the vitality of Greek culture, but for the purposes of this article it will be taken as the middle of the 5th century ce.

Within this extended period, a number of different regions contributed to a culture now commonly considered ‘Greek’. Broadly speaking, ancient Greek musical culture was centred in the area of modern Greece (including the Peloponnese); Crete; to the north, the southern regions of Albania, the former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria; to the west, the southern regions of the Italian peninsula; to the east, Asia Minor; and to the south, the northern regions of the African coast (especially in the area of Libya and Egypt). This area includes peoples and regions frequently noted in early literary sources: peoples such as the Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians, Achaeans, Lydians, Phrygians, Thracians, Macedonians, Libyans and Egyptians; and regions such as Boeotia, Euboea, Aetolia, Attica, Achaea, Argolis, Laconia, Thessalia, Calabria and Lucania.

Greece, §I: Ancient

4. Musical life in ancient Greece.

A history, in the modern sense, of ancient Greek music cannot be written because the surviving texts are insufficiently precise in matters of chronology, biography, attribution and even factual detail. Ostensibly historical treatments (by such authors as Alexander, Aristoxenus, Glaucus of Rhegium and Heraclides Ponticus) are cited and excerpted or paraphrased in Pseudo-Plutarch's On Music (Peri mousikēs), but the early treatments themselves do not survive. As noted above (§2), other literary sources provide information about musical matters, but their approaches tend to be technical, antiquarian or museographic rather than historical. It is possible to extract from the sources a considerable picture of ancient Greek music and musical life, but this picture must remain chronologically and historically ambiguous.

The Greeks developed specific musical forms for a wide range of occasions. Encountered in the literary sources are examples of hymns, dithyrambs, wedding songs, threnodies, drinking-songs, love songs, work songs and many other types. Although the music (in the modern sense) for these compositions no longer survives, with the exception of the musical fragments, the texts themselves provide significant evidence about form, structure and rhythm, and they also frequently describe music-making.

The term ‘composition’ should not be misunderstood to imply only a piece of music represented in musical notation. While such compositions of ancient Greek music do exist, pieces of music were also transmitted aurally and performed over the years by many different persons, doubtless with individual variations. On the other hand, some compositions apparently remained individual creations, no longer performed but still recalled by later Greek writers in descriptive terms that conveyed important and influential features of the work.

In the earliest traditions music was performed by a solo singer or chorus with and without instrumental accompaniment. Scenes of music-making already appear in the ‘Shield of Achilles’ (Iliad, xviii.478–607) and elsewhere in the Iliad; the Odyssey incorporates both Phemius and Demodocus, two of the most renowned traditional epic singers (aoidoi or oidoi), as strategic characters within the epic. It is uncertain whether the Iliad and the Odyssey were sung or recited, but extended musical forms – both solo and choral – certainly existed. Purely instrumental music was also popular. Beginning in the 6th century bce, virtuosity and innovation became more prominent in instrumental music, which in turn encouraged complexity in the other musical forms. Conservative poets and philosophers deplored the violation of earlier traditions, but the new styles flourished. Remarkable descriptions of some famous compositions survive, including the Pythic Nomos, a composition for the aulos recalled by Strabo (fl c 1st century bce–1st century ce) in the Geography (ix.3.10; cf Pollux, Onomasticon, iv.78, 84). The composition is not preserved, but similar types of extended and vivid imitative pieces exist in other folk traditions, which may provide some idea of the remarkable effects that could have been used in the Pythic Nomos.

Music in this sense of a performing art was called melos. A distinction was made between melos in general, which might be no more than an instrumental piece or a simple song, and perfect melos (teleion melos; cf Aristides Quintilianus, On Music, i.4), which consisted not only of the melody and the text (including its inherent elements of rhythm and diction) but also highly stylized dance movement. Melic composition (melopoiïa) together with rhythmic composition (rhuthmopoiïa) was the process of selecting and applying the various components of melos and rhythm to create a complete composition (see §6(iii) (g) below). Melic composition is subdivided by Aristides Quintilianus (On Music, i.12) into three classes – dithyrambic, nomic and tragic – parallel to his three classes of rhythmic composition (On Music, i.19) – systaltic, diastaltic and hesychastic. In addition, the three broad classes of melic composition may contain various subclasses, such as erotic, comic and panegyric. By these classifications Aristides Quintilianus would seem to be referring to music written in honour of Dionysus (dithyrambic) or Apollo (nomic) or for the tragedy. Any piece of music might be elevating (diastaltic), depressing (systaltic), or soothing (hesychastic), as appropriate (similar definitions are provided in Cleonides' Harmonic Introduction, 13).

Although the treatise of Aristides Quintilianus is rather late, its system of classification accords with the statements of earlier writers, and there can be little question that from a very early period the Greeks had developed a sophisticated musical typology. Forms might be typified by subject matter, rhythm and metre, large-scale structure, and so on. Plato's Athenian Stranger (Laws, iii, 700a8–e4) observes that the types were once distinct: a hymn would not be confused with a dirge, dithyramb or paean. Nevertheless, Plato also clearly implies that this distinction was beginning to be lost by the mid-4th century bce. A similar point is made in his Republic (iv, 424b5–c6), where Socrates argues against innovations in music because they threaten the fundamental structure of the state: ‘One must be cautious about changing to a new type of music as this risks a change in the whole. The modes [tropoi] of music are never moved without movement of the greatest constitutional laws’. Plato's remarks underscore the fact that the practical manifestations of music form only one part of the Greek concept of mousikē: music occupied a prominent place in everyday life not only because it was amusing and socially valuable but also because it embodied universal principles and was a vehicle for higher understanding.

Writers such as Plato restricted themselves to relatively general descriptions of musical types, but fuller typologies are preserved in the Sophists at Dinner (c200 ce) of Athenaeus and the Bibliotheca (cmid-9th century ce) of Photius, sources that tend, by their nature, to be lexicographic or museographic. Section 239 of the Bibliotheca, which preserves a summary of the Useful Knowledge (Chrestomathia) of Proclus (410/12–85 ce), provides a description of various musical types. After distinguishing between music intended for the gods and music intended for human activity, Proclus lists the types associated with each classification: For the gods: hymn, prosodion, paean, dithyramb, nomos, adonidia, iobakchos and hyporcheme
For humans: encomion, epinikion, skolion, erotica, epithalamia, hymenaios, sillos, threnos and epikedeion
For the gods and humans: partheneion, daphnephorika, tripodephorika, oschophorika and eutika.

It is impossible to know whether this particular typology would have been shared by earlier Greek writers, but it is clear that the Greeks were conscious of specific musical types and their distinctions. Proclus's classification and typology supply a useful model for examining each form (see Dithyramb; Encomium; Hymenaios; Hymn, §I; Kōmos; Nenia; Nomos; Paean; Partheneia; Prosodion; Skolion; Thrēnos; and Tragōidia).

Although a complete picture of the musico-poetic types remains elusive, enough detail survives in the texts, early commentaries, iconography and notated musical fragments to reveal considerable musical sophistication, variety and vitality. Grander and more complex types such as the hymn, paean, prosodion and dithyramb played important roles in religious and civic life. The nomos, originally a form associated with venerable tradition, became the particular vehicle for musical innovation and the development of the virtuoso. The epinikion provided a form in which important personal and human victories could be memorialized to inspire future generations. In the dithyramb, hyporcheme and partheneion, the relationship of dance and music was especially prominent, but the most complete union of music, text, movement and costume was developed in the drama, which formed a centrepiece of the civic and religious festivals of the Greeks. Likewise, everyday social life was supported by wedding and funeral music, love songs, work songs, banquet songs, and so on. In each piece, whether formal and complex or simple and folklike, musicians drew on a wealth of tradition, a powerful and innately sonorous language, and virtually limitless combinations of rhythms, metres, tonoi, inflections of melodic scale, gesture and dance, some of which are described in the technical treatises (see §6(iii) below).

Greece, §I: Ancient

5. Musical instruments.

Ancient Greek music was fundamentally vocal and literary in character, but musical instruments appealed to the Greeks at least as much as they did to other early musical cultures. The musico-poetic types noted above (§4) were coloured and brightened by the sounds of an array of instruments that could produce varied timbres ranging from percussive attacks to long, sustained melodic lines and from imprecise noise to the subtlest shading of pitch.

Athenaeus, Pollux and the authors of other anecdotal and lexicographic works provide detailed definitions and classifications of musical instruments, the beauty of which also appealed to Greek painters and sculptors. Red- and black-figure vase painters portrayed countless scenes of Greeks of all classes, as well as the gods themselves, engaged in playing musical instruments, while sculptors portrayed musical instruments in terracotta statuary and on gemstones and low reliefs. In addition to this literary and iconographic evidence, a number of instruments survive as archaeological artefacts. Taken with the other evidence, these remains make it possible to reconstruct individual instruments and experiment with them to discover characteristics of timbre, pitch, tuning and performing practice.

The instruments employed by the Greeks fall into the four traditional Hornbostel-Sachs classifications: idiophones, membranophones, aerophones and chordophones. Distinctions between the chordophones and aerophones – and among the instruments in each group – were simply assumed by most writers, but the percussion instruments (idiophones and membranophones) receive little attention. They were, however, seen by some writers as sharing at least one trait with the chordophones: both were struck in order to sound. If classification is based on performing technique, the idiophones, membranophones and chordophones can be considered a single class, distinct from the aerophones. Moreover, the chordophones and membranophones share a distinct physical characteristic that suggests they be grouped apart from the aerophones: both require tension for the instrument to sound. (The following paragraphs provide only a summary treatment; for a fuller technical description of many of the instruments, see the individual entries devoted to them.)

(i) Idiophones and membranophones.

(ii) Aerophones.

(iii) Chordophones.

Greece, §I, 5: Ancient: Musical instruments

(i) Idiophones and membranophones.

The Greek idiophones include the krotala (crotala), kroupezai or kroupala, kumbala or krembala (cymbala), seistron (sistrum), rhombos and kōdōn (bells). The rhoptron is, in a sense, an idiophone, but like the other drums (tumpana), it is also a membranophone. Idiophones, made of naturally sonorous materials that produced relatively indistinct pitches, were used for a variety of purposes, while the membranophones were associated particularly with the rites of Dionysus and Cybele. All these instruments, capable of a wide dynamic range and various types of articulation depending on the way in which they are struck, could have been used to articulate the rhythmic and metric patterns of music; in at least some cases they must have been used to coordinate performers by marking time. The percussion could also easily sound multiple simultaneous patterns, such as the contrast between the rhythmic and metric patterns that appears in the musical fragments, or a dynamic distinction between the arsis and thesis of various rhythmic feet.

(a) Krotala.

Made of hollow blocks of some hard material and hinged with leather, krotala (see Crotala) were held and clapped together in the hand; they were quite strongly associated with mystery, excitement and vigorous celebration. In the Aristotelian On Marvellous Things Heard (Peri thaumasiōn akousmatōn, 839a1–2), the author recalls a haunted cave on the island of Lipara, where laughing is heard at night accompanied by the sound of drums, kumbala and krotala; and the Homeric hymn To the Mother of the Gods (Eis mētera theōn) calls on the Muse to celebrate Cybele with the sounds of krotala, drums and auloi.

(b) Kroupezai, kroupala.

These were essentially krotala worn on the foot and operated with the heel resting on the ground and the front part of the foot tapping up and down. Metal taps were normally attached to both of the inner faces of the kroupezai, and the sound of the instrument would have been harder, sharper and more metallic than that of the krotala. If the tapping of the kroupezai was used to help coordinate an ensemble, it is probable that they struck some regular pulse, possibly marking the thesis in each foot or each individual metron. Augustine (De musica, iii.1) refers specifically to the role of the kroupezai (which he called scabella – see Scabellum) in articulating the larger metric patterns, and a number of the musical fragments exhibit dots (stigmai) that quite clearly mark rhythmic or metric patterns. If the kroupezai sounded at these points, an ensemble could easily follow the pattern.

(c) Kumbala, krembala.

Higher-pitched metallic instruments, rather like the finger-cymbals still common in Asian musical cultures, kumbala (see Cymbala) were mentioned by Athenaeus (Sophists at Dinner, xiv.39) as an example of instruments that simply produce a noise; he observed that they were popular with women for the accompaniment of dancing, adding that some people use shells or pieces of pottery to create a rhythm for the dancers.

(d) Seistron.

Commonly associated with the Egyptian cult of Isis, the seistron (see Sistrum) was likened to the krotala by Pollux, who observed that it was used by wet-nurses to amuse sleepless infants so they would fall asleep. Aristotle used the term platagē in Politics (viii.6, 1340b25–31) to refer to the ‘rattle’ of Archytas, which he commended as a useful toy for parents to give their children to amuse themselves and to distract them from breaking things in the house. As the verb platagein refers to clapping the hands, Archytas's rattle was probably rather like the modern mounted castanets. The seistron, however, would have had a higher and more metallic tone, rather different from the krotala or Archytas's rattle.

(e) Rhombos.

As a term in the context of sound, rhombos simply refers to a whirling or rumbling. The term can be applied to the Bullroarer, a piece of wood whirled around on a string, or as a synonym for the rhoptron, a drum with bronze snares stretched across the head to provide a nasal buzzing sound. The bullroarer might have been called a rhombos not only because of its whirling motion but also because the piece of wood may normally have been cut into a rhombus shape to cause it to vibrate more vigorously and produce more sound as it whirled through the air. Its mysterious rising and falling pitch, associated particularly with the ceremonies of the priests of Cybele, was caused by the speed at which the rhombos was spun.

(f) Rhoptron.

Associated with the Corybantes, it was described by Plutarch in his life of Crassus as an instrument used by the Parthians to frighten their opponents in battle. He observed that rhoptra make a dead, hollow noise, like the bellowing of beasts mixed with the sound of thunder. Plutarch's definition accords with the definition provided by the Suda for tumpana, which are described as constructed from hollowed-out pine or fir, fitted with bronze bells (kōdōnes), the mouth (stoma) of the tumpanon covered with oxhide (see Tympanum). In both definitions the drum is described as an object with only one opening, not as a short hollow frame with two openings, and the bronze objects are not attached to the outside of the drum. In Plutarch's definition they are stretched over the hollow, and in the definition of the Suda they are fitted into the drum before it is covered with oxhide. Although modern scholarship commonly refers to the rhoptron as a tambourine, the instrument is much more akin to a snare drum. While a chorus of tambourines could hardly produce the sort of sound described by Plutarch and the Suda, the sound of an ensemble of large snare drums could be overwhelming and terrifying in battle.

In addition to the rhoptra the Greeks used ordinary frame drums. Vase painters sometimes show these held by one hand inside the frame, indicating that only one end of the frame was covered with skin. The drums, however, are also shown held by a handle, and in these cases both ends may have been covered with skin. Rhoptra and frame drums alike seem to have been played with the fingers rather than with sticks of any sort. Although drums are sometimes shown in association with auloi and other percussion instruments, they were frequently used as solo instruments to accompany dance in the celebrations of Dionysus and Cybele or as instruments of the battlefield, together with the salpinx and horn.

Greece, §I, 5: Ancient: Musical instruments

(ii) Aerophones.

The primary wind instruments of the Greeks were the aulos, syrinx, hydraulis, salpinx and horn (keras). Wind instruments, like the percussion, were associated particularly with the cults of Cybele and Dionysus, but the instruments were always regarded with some ambivalence in Greek musical culture as not truly ‘Greek’. This is reflected in the various myths surrounding the discovery of the aulos and the syrinx. While the invention of the lyre is clearly assigned to Hermes and the instrument is inextricably linked to Apollo, legend places the origin of the aulos in Phrygia. An origin in Asia Minor naturally links the aulos with Dionysus because prominent cults of Dionysus existed in both Phrygia and Thrace. Indeed, it was commonly assumed by ancient authorities that the god – and thus his music – had come to Greece from these ‘foreign’ regions. The syrinx, likewise, was said to have been invented by Cybele, the Celts, or other gods or non-Greek peoples. Nevertheless, as the aulos and the other wind instruments became fixtures of Greek musical culture in the festivals, symposia, the theatre and everyday life, other legends attributed the discovery of the aulos to Apollo and to Athena, who threw it away when she realized that playing it distorted her features. The instrument, it seems, landed in Phrygia, thereby linking the two traditions.

(a) Aulos.

This was the most important of the Greek wind instruments; its use in some of the musical forms has already been noted above (§4). In addition to the larger cultural view of the instrument, literary sources give substantial detail about the origin, history and construction of the aulos; numerous archaeological remains and iconographic representations provide specific examples. On this basis rather complete reconstructions of Greek auloi have been made, facilitating observations about the timbre, pitch, tuning and performing practice of the instrument. (For a fuller description see Aulos, §I.)

It should be stressed that the aulos is a reed instrument – not a flute, as some continue to translate it – consisting of two quite distinct and separate parts: a mouthpiece and a resonator (fig.2). The technical writings concern not only the various shapes and sizes of the resonator but also the material and construction of the reeds. Pollux (Onomasticon, iv.70) described the parts of auloi as the glotta, trupēmata, bombukes, holmoi and hupholmia. The resonators, or bombukes, were made of all sorts of material, laterally pierced by a number of finger-holes, trēmata or trupēmata. The reeds (glotta) were held by the bulb-shaped holmoi, which could be inserted directly into the resonator or another bulb, the hupholmion, which increased the resonating length of the pipe.

The aulos had only four trupēmata until certain innovators (such as Diodorus or Pronomus) made one with ‘many holes’. Four finger-holes are frequently displayed in paintings of the aulos, and surviving pipes of Egyptian and other cultures indeed have only four holes; remains of Greek auloi, however, exhibit more than four trupēmata. Once the auloi were developed to include more than four trupēmata, it was necessary to find a way to close the holes not needed for a particular performance. Some of the surviving remains of auloi include metal bands encircling the pipe at the location of each trupēma, a hole in each band corresponding to the trupēma itself. The bands can be turned to open or close the various trupēmata; mechanisms were eventually developed to assist the performer in turning them more easily and quickly, thereby enabling the aulete to change and expand the intervallic patterns available on a single aulos.

Theophrastus in the History of Plants (Peri phutōn historias, iv.11) described the manufacture of the mouthpiece, but in the absence of any aulos mouthpieces the passage is subject to a number of interpretations. The literary evidence has been interpreted to refer to a double reed or to a single beating reed; the first section on the mouthpiece in the Aristotelian On Things Heard (Peri akoustōn, 801b34–40) may suggest, however, that the aulos was played with either type of reed.

Iconographic and textual evidence indicates that auloi came in various shapes and sizes and were normally, but not always, played in pairs. It is unclear whether the pipes played in unison or in some other manner. In order for the two pipes to sound simultaneously, the aulete would have had to provide a tight seal around both mouthpieces. This was accomplished with the aid of the Phorbeia, a kind of mouthband shown in many illustrations of auletes.

The aulos, with its unique sound and flexibility of pitch, was fully capable of playing the subtly inflected scales described in the treatises. Beyond this it is nearly impossible to generalize about the instrument, especially over several centuries' development. It could be played with single or double reeds, in pairs or as a single pipe, in low or high registers, outdoors – in settings such as the theatre or processions – or indoors at symposia or private occasions, by men or women, with or without the phorbeia, and so on.

(b) Syrinx.

A single pipe or a group of reeds bound together, the Syrinx (surinx) always remained a simple pastoral instrument. The ‘Shield of Achilles’ (Iliad, xviii.526) portrays shepherds delighting themselves with the syrinx, and even Plato (Republic, iii.10, 399d), while excluding all musical instruments from his city except for the lyra and the kithara, allows that ‘in the fields, the shepherds would have the syrinx’. The Homeric hymn To Hermes (Eis Hermēn, 511–12) attributes the general invention of the syrinx to Hermes; Pan, the son of Hermes, is the figure most commonly connected with the instrument, especially by later writers such as Ovid (Metamorphoses, i.689ff).

The syrinx could be tuned by cutting the pipes to the proper length, which would produce a fully graduated instrument of the type known to Pollux, who used (iv.69) the image of a bird's wing in describing the instrument as an ensemble of reeds ranging from longer to shorter; by boring a single hole in each pipe to define its speaking length; and by plugging wax into the various pipes in order to produce sounding lengths in the proper ratio.

(c) Hydraulis.

Described by Philo of Byzantium (iv.77) as a ‘syrinx played by the hands’, the Hydraulis (hudraulis) is briefly noted in Athenaeus's Sophists at Dinner (iv.75) as the invention of Ctesibius, an engineer and perhaps a barber who lived in Alexandria, and its sound is characterized as ‘sweet and delightful’. Its mechanism was sufficiently complex to ensure that it could never have become a common instrument, but at least by the 1st century bce it had become a recognized part of the musical culture.

Descriptions suggest that the hydraulis was originally an instrument of flue pipes blown with a relatively light wind pressure, rather than the large instrument of metal pipes (and perhaps reeds) blown with a high wind pressure that later became common in outdoor arenas. The tuning of the pipes of the hydraulis is not specified in any source, and archaeological remains do not allow for a positive identification of their pitch. Most iconographic representations show eight pipes, but instruments with seven, nine, ten and 15 pipes are also portrayed. It seems reasonable to suppose that the pipes were tuned in some combination of whole tones and semitones, but it is not possible to be certain.

(d) Salpinx and keras (horn).

The Salpinx and keras produced specific pitches of considerable volume that could be heard over great distances. The Greeks recognized the value of such musical instruments in battle to provide military signals, stir the warriors and frighten their opponents. Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides all mention the salpinx on a number of occasions, and the second speaker in Pseudo-Plutarch's On Music (1140c) confirms the military use of the instrument. Salpinxes are shown quite frequently in vase paintings; a number of nearly complete instruments survive. The instrument, made of bronze and iron with a bone mouthpiece, created a sound described as roaring, loud, powerful, violent, terrifying, war-like and hostile, and so on. Pollux also comments on the various signals played by the salpinx in its military role – such as encouragement, advance, and retreat – as well as its use for fanfares and other signals in various contexts. Players of the salpinx often wore the phorbeia, which must have served the same purpose as it did for the aulos.

Other simple pipes were also used by the Greeks and Romans for various types of signal, but little is known about them beyond occasional iconographic or literary references. Horns were sometimes added to the ends of long bronze pipes to form a type of bell. This instrument, the Lituus, was used in Roman regiments. A curved salpinx supported by a central wooden crossbar was also used both by the Greeks, who called it a bukanē, and by the Romans, who called it a Cornu.

Greece, §I, 5: Ancient: Musical instruments

(iii) Chordophones.

According to tradition, Hermes, after he had constructed a seven-string lyre, taught Orpheus to play it, who in turn taught Thamyris and Linus, while Linus taught Amphion (see Amphion (i)) and Heracles. When Orpheus was killed, his lyre was thrown into the sea and later washed onto the shore at Antissa in Lesbos, where fishermen found it and took it to Terpander. This line of descent supports the Greeks' strong association of the string instruments with one of their most venerable composers. In fact, Terpander, Archilochus, Alcman, Sappho, Theognis, the tragedians and others refer to one or another of the string instruments, and these early musicians are also associated with them by later Greek writers, who describe their everyday use. Thus, the string instruments remained most basic to the Greeks’ musical culture. In the Iliad, the Homeric hymns and the Scutum Herculis, Apollo, Hermes and Artemis play the phorminx with a plectrum. Mortals play the phorminx in both the ‘Shield of Achilles’ and the Scutum Herculis, and Pindar frequently refers to the instrument. Plato clearly preferred the string instruments to the winds.

Terms applied to the string instruments in literary sources are variable, but the instruments can be separated into two major classes: (a) lyres and (b) psalteria. Instruments of the first class, named for the lyra (lura), have freely resonating strings strummed with a plectrum; instruments of the second class, named for the psaltērion were plucked by the fingers. In early Homeric literature, Phorminx and kitharis are the common terms associated with instruments of the first class. Later, these terms are joined by lura and chelus (chelys; see Lyra (i)), Barbitos and Kithara. The complementary evidence of iconography suggests that the chelys lyra was the small instrument, constructed on a tortoise (chelus) shell, used in music lessons and for private music-making; the phorminx, an instrument of moderate size with a rounded bottom and perhaps a fuller tone; the barbitos, associated with Dionysian ceremonies, a chelys lyra with long arms and probably a low and resonant tone; and the kithara, commonly associated with Apollo, the large concert instrument used in contests, the theatre and festivals. Among the psalteria were the psaltērion itself; the epigoneion and simikion, instruments that may have had as many as 40 strings, perhaps rather like the modern zither; the Magadis, Pēktis and phoenix, instruments with strings tuned in pairs, not unlike the modern dulcimer; and the sambukē (see Sambuca (i)) and the Trigōnon, which were held aloft, like the modern Irish harp, and – especially in the case of the trigōnon – played primarily in the home by women (Pollux, Onomasticon, iv.58–61).

In addition to the instruments of the two major classes, iconographic sources occasionally represent a lute-like instrument, distinct from all the others in having strings stretched over a neck, and an instrument that has been described by modern scholars as a seistron or a xylophone but actually seems to have been played with the same sort of technique used for the other string instruments. No ancient names are known for either of these instruments.

(a) Lyres.

Instruction in playing the lyre was a basic part of Athenian education. Men and women could employ the instrument for simple recreation, the accompaniment of dancing, music in wedding ceremonies or singing at symposia; the lyre was also employed in contests.

The construction of the lyra is described in the Homeric hymn To Hermes (41–56), supplemented by later authorities: the soundbox (ēcheion) is formed by the back of a tortoise shell, over which oxhide (derma boos) is stretched and pinned to the shell by stalks of reed (kalamos); two arms (pēcheis), spanned by a crossbar (zugon), extend from the shell; and seven consonant strings of sheep gut (hepta de sumphōnous oïōn chordas) are stretched from the crossbar across a bridge (magas) to the bottom of the instrument, where they are attached to the chordotonos. The instrument is played with a plectrum (plēktron). More detailed descriptions of individual parts of lyres are preserved by Athenaeus, Pollux, Hesychius, the Suda and the Etymologicon magnum. This general design was used for all the instruments of the lyre family.

The number of strings on the lyra, phorminx, barbitos and kithara is fairly well attested by literary and iconographic sources: it may have had in earliest times only three or four strings, but from at least as early as the time of Terpander, it had seven or more. As lyres developed, subsequent strings were added, each of which is attributed by the literary sources to such famous musicians as Prophrastus of Pieria, Histiaeus of Colophon, Melanippides and Timotheus of Miletus. Beyond that, there is no literary source of comparable authority to Theophrastus's History of Plants for the tuning and arrangement of the strings; despite much scholarly conjecture, the sound and tuning of the string instruments are essentially unknown. Only a few archaeological remains of parts of these instruments survive, and reconstructions are far more hypothetical than reconstructions of any of the other instruments.

In addition to being struck by the plectrum, the strings were manipulated in some way by the fingers of the performer's left hand, which are usually represented as extended just behind the strings (fig.3). The evidence is insufficient to determine precisely the function of the left hand, but it has been proposed that the fingers dampened or plucked certain strings, or lightly touched one or more of the strings to produce harmonics. Movement of the left hand was, however, restricted by the wrist band that supported the instrument. The fingers of the hand could move, and the hand itself might rotate, but the arm could not make sudden movements towards the left or right side of the instrument without upsetting its balance.

Although the four lyres exhibit significant structural differences, they have a great deal in common, and it is reasonable to suppose that a person able to string, tune and play one of the lyres could also have played, at least to some degree, any of the others. The important role of musical instruction in playing the chelys lyra meant that any educated Greek might possess a degree of technical and musical facility that could be employed in any number of social and religious contexts. Likewise, the skill displayed by a kitharode in one of the competitions or in the theatre would be appreciated not just by an audience intellectually versed and prepared to respond as spectators and auditors but also by one that understood the achievement in quite practical terms. Thus, in a functional sense, the lyres served as the common thread that tied together the entire musical culture in a way not matched by any of the other instruments.

(b) Psalteria.

The role of the psalteria in Greek musical culture remains unclear. Although various instruments are mentioned here and there in literary sources, only some of them are represented in iconographic sources – and only infrequently. Psalteria, such as the psaltērion and epigoneion, with a large number of strings, may have been associated chiefly with the class of highly skilled musicians and musical scientists that appeared in the 6th century bce, but at least some of them, such as the sambukē and trigōnon seem to be exclusively women's instruments. If the style of solo kithara music criticized by Plato (Laws, ii, 669d–670a) did indeed emerge from the music of the epigoneion, the historical importance of this instrument would be considerably greater than the limited literary and iconographic record would suggest.

The magadis and pēktis receive conflicting definitions among the ancient authorities. The magadis, attributed to both the Lydians and the Thracians, was particularly associated with antiphonal sounds of low and high pitch and especially with singing in octaves (Aristotelian Problems, xix.18, 39). If a particular characteristic of the magadis – and perhaps also the pēktis – was the simultaneous sounding of octaves, it is possible that its strings were tuned in pairs, an arrangement that would also have produced additional sympathetic resonance in the instrument.

Unlike the other psalteria, the trigōnon – a ‘triangular’ psaltērion – is represented with some frequency in vase painting, with at least three varieties of the basic instrument. In most representations the instrument sits on the performer's lap or on a platform next to the performer; all are fairly large instruments that reach as high or somewhat higher than the top of the performer's head, and all have a separate soundbox. In each case, the trigōnon rests on its arm, not on the soundbox. The number of strings shown varies from perhaps nine to 32. All the representations of the open trigōnon show the instrument with the longest strings most distant from the performer, who is in every case a female. The sambukē is frequently associated with the trigōnon and magadis in the literary sources, but its distinctive features remain uncertain. The literary emphasis on the similarity in appearance between the sambukē and a ship, taken together with the appearance of the soundbox in one of the closed trigōna, which resembles a hull, suggests that this particular form of the trigōnon might be the sambukē. Like the trigōnon, the sambukē was strongly associated with women. Aristides Quintilianus (On Music, ii.16) describes the instrument as having a faint sound, which would have made it suitable for use in the private chambers of the Muses or mortal women, the common context for the trigōna in vase paintings.

Athenaeus (Sophists at Dinner, iv.78, 80, 82) refers in a number of places to the Pandoura, which Pollux (Onomasticon, iv.60) defines as a three-string instrument invented by the Assyrians. Athenaeus (iv.81) also mentions a four-string instrument called a skindapsos, which may have been a larger version of the same instrument.

The general types of instrument used by the Greeks remained relatively stable over a long period, although particular instruments came in and out of favour and, with the possible exception of the percussion instruments, all became mechanically more complex over the centuries. The array of musical instruments employed in Greek culture attests the importance of varied colours in their musical expression, which involved various combinations of instruments and voices, the precise combination determined partly by tradition and partly by the preferences of individual performers. There is no question that part of the appeal of musical instruments in Greek culture was aesthetic. Their sound and appearance are often described in sensual terms and their iconography places them in scenes that range from the pleasant and appealing to the impressive and inspiring. Beyond this, the association of musical instruments with particular divinities provided a basis for the creation of affective responses that might complement or conflict with the responses elicited by other means, such as text, rhythm, tempo and melodic structure.

Greece, §I: Ancient

6. Music theory.

A significant body of Greek literature can properly be considered music theory, although some works are known only as titles mentioned in passing or as brief quotations in the works of Athenaeus and similar writers. Nevertheless, a substantial portion of Greek music theory does survive (see §2 above). While this literature is commonly known to modern scholarship as ‘ancient Greek music theory’, the phrase is a misnomer. First, most of the surviving literature is not ancient in the sense of having been written before the 1st or 2nd centuries bce. With the exception of quotations in later literature, the earliest surviving independent theoretical works are Aristoxenus's Harmonic Elements and Rhythmic Elements, both of which are fragmentary. At least some parts of the Division of the Canon are perhaps nearly contemporary, but all the other treatises date from the end of the 1st century ce or later. Secondly, the modern conceptual meaning of the phrase ‘music theory’ is foreign to these writings. With the possible exception of the rather late writer Alypius, it is quite unlikely that any of the authors intended his work for practising musicians or was concerned with actual pieces of music. Ancient Greek music theory is not primarily interested in analysing pieces of music or explaining compositional or performing practice. As long as its imperfections are understood, ‘ancient Greek music theory’ provides a useful phrase in referring collectively to the specialized literature ranging from the Pythagorean excerpts quoted in various sources to the treatises of Porphyry, Aristides Quintilianus, Alypius and Bacchius written between the 3rd and 5th centuries ce.

The nature of the sources themselves is problematic. Of the independent theoretical works, only Aristoxenus's Rhythmic Elements survives in any medium older than the 11th century ce, and with a few exceptions even those quoted in other sources exist only in manuscripts of this period or later. The extent to which these later copies preserve the form and content of any of the treatises is, in general, impossible to determine, and it cannot be established for certain whether the titles or even the authors assigned to the treatises in the manuscripts represent the actual authors and titles at the time the treatises were first composed. It is also uncertain whether the earliest treatises on ancient Greek music theory were ‘composed’ (in the modern sense of the term) by an individual author or whether they were only later assembled by disciples or from tradition. In rare cases it is possible to see the way in which a treatise ‘grows’, even to the extent of changing its entire method of argumentation, as it is transmitted across the centuries (see Barbera, M1990, and Euclidean Division, D.ii 1991). Of course, similar problems exist for other Greek literary remains, and there is no special reason to distrust the authenticity of the corpus of ancient Greek music theory, independent treatises and fragments. Still, the inherent limitations of the form in which it exists must be recognized.

These problems notwithstanding, the tradition of scholarship in the field of ancient Greek music theory underlines an importance that goes beyond the evidence it supplies about the Greeks' own music; the theory is also significant as an intellectual monument that exerted a profound influence on later Latin, Byzantine and Arabic musical writings. As such, its significance resides in later writers' use and understanding of the literature at least as much as in the degree to which it presents an accurate picture of ancient Greek music.

Three basic traditions may be discerned in the corpus of ancient Greek music theory: (i) a Pythagorean tradition (including its later manifestations in Platonism and Neoplatonism) primarily concerned with number theory and the relationships between music and the cosmos (including the influence of music on behaviour); (ii) a related, scientific tradition of harmonics associated with a group known as ‘Harmonicists’; (iii) an Aristoxenian tradition based on Aristotelian principles. Some of the treatises fit comfortably in a single tradition, while others combine the traditions. The characteristics of each tradition can be generalized (in so far as music is concerned), although for the most part no single treatise provides a comprehensive treatment of any of the traditions. (For discussion of individual theorists, see the separate entries devoted to them.)

(i) Pythagoreans.

(ii) Harmonicists.

(iii) Aristoxenian tradition.

(iv) Legacy.

Greece, §I, 6: Ancient: Music theory

(i) Pythagoreans.

These writers were particularly interested in the paradigmatic and mimetic characteristics of music, which they saw as underlying its power in human life. Plato in particular was greatly influenced by the Pythagorean tradition in his treatments of music and his concern with regulating its use, especially in the Republic, the Laws and the Timaeus (see §§1 and 4 above; see also Damon; Ethos; and Mimesis). In general, Pythagoreans were not concerned with deducing musical science from musical phenomena because in their view the imperfection of temporal things precluded them from conveying more than a reflection of higher reality. The important truths about music were to be found instead in its harmonious reflection of number, which was ultimate reality. As a mere temporal manifestation, the employment of this harmonious structure in actual pieces of music was of decidedly secondary interest. The scientific side of Pythagoreanism, and particularly the part of it concerned with musical science, is primarily known through the Division of the Canon and the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch (and the treatise On Music attributed to Pseudo-Plutarch), Nicomachus of Gerasa, Theon of Smyrna, Ptolemy and, as later merged with Neoplatonism, the writings of Porphyry, Aristides Quintilianus, Iamblichus and later writers.

Plato's Republic, x.13–16, provides a general description of the ‘harmony of the spheres’, but in the Timaeus (34b–37c), Plato presents a much more detailed model for the creation of the soul of the universe, one that embodies characteristic Pythagorean ratios and means, which produce the kind of musical shape shown in fig.4. As a series of ratios, the numbers on the left represent such musical intervals as the octave (2:1), double octave (4:1) and triple octave (8:1), while the numbers on the right represent the octave and a 5th (3:1), the triple octave and a tone (9:1) and the quadruple octave and a major 6th (27:1). Aristides Quintilianus paraphrases this material quite closely in On Music (iii.24), developing it with various Neoplatonic interpretations of the numbers and mathematical processes.

Many of these same numbers and ratios appear in the Division of the Canon, which presents a systematic application of Pythagorean mathematics to such musical topics as consonance, the magnitudes of certain consonant intervals, the location of movable notes in an enharmonic tetrachord, and the location of the notes of the Immutable System on a monochord. The Introduction to the Division defines the physical basis of sound as a series of motions; by producing a percussion (plēgē) of air, motion creates sound: denser motion is associated with greater string tension and higher pitch, sparser motion with lesser string tension and lower pitch. Since pitches are related to the number of motions of a string, the pitches of notes are made up of certain numbers of parts; thus, they can be described and compared in numerical terms and ratios. Notes are related to one another in one of three numerical ratios: multiple, superparticular and superpartient; the relationship of consonant notes (i.e. those spanning the 4th, 5th, octave, 12th and 15th) can be expressed in a multiple or a superparticular ratio (i.e. 4:3, 3:2, 2:1, 3:1 and 4:1) formed only of the numbers of the tetractys (tetraktus) of the decad (1, 2, 3, 4, the sum of which equals 10), although the Division does not explicitly refer to this famous Pythagorean tetractys.

The Pythagoreans were also concerned with the measurement of intervals smaller than the 4th, which they identified through mathematical processes. The tone, for instance, was shown to be the difference (9:8) between the 5th and the 4th, and various sizes of ‘semitone’ were identified, such as 256:243 (the ‘limma’), 2187:2048 (the ‘apotomē’), and ‘semitones’ that could be created by proportioning the ratio 9:8 to create any number of small subdivisions (e.g. 18:17:16 or 36:35:34:33:32 etc.). The size of the semitone and the addition of tones and semitones to create 4ths, 5ths and octaves became a subject of heated controversy between the Pythagoreans, with their fundamentally arithmetic approach, and the Aristoxenians, who adopted a geometric approach to the measurement of musical space.

The mathematical background for the Division of the Canon and other Pythagorean treatments of music is explained in Nicomachus’s Introduction to Arithmetic (Arithmetikē eisagōgē) and in On Mathematics Useful for the Understanding of Plato (especially ‘On Music’, 19–61) by Theon of Smyrna. Likewise, the Manual of Harmonics (6 and 8) of Nicomachus of Gerasa includes a discussion of the basic Pythagorean consonances (including the famous story of Pythagoras's discovery of them, which also appears in a somewhat different version in the Harmonic Introduction, 11, of Gaudentius); the two means, harmonic and arithmetic, described by Archytas of Tarentum and employed by Plato in the Timaeus to construct his musical soul of the universe; and the scale of Philolaus. A group of excerpts (Jan, 266.2–282.18) attributed to Nicomachus in some manuscripts preserves further observations about the relationships between the 28 musical notes and the harmonia of the cosmos.

Both Gaudentius's Harmonic Introduction (15–16), and Ptolemy’s Harmonics provide examples of the application of Pythagorean music theory to the construction of musical genera and scales also known in the other theoretical traditions. In Harmonics, i.13, Ptolemy describes Archytas’s measurement of the three genera of the tetrachord (see §6(iii)(c) below): the enharmonic (in descending order, 5:4, 36:35 and 28:27), the chromatic (32:27, 243:224 and 28:27) and the diatonic (9:8, 8:7 and 28:27); and in Harmonics, ii.14, he provides an extensive collection of measurements of the three genera expressed in terms of Pythagorean mathematics, attributed to Archytas, Eratosthenes, Didymus and himself.

Greece, §I, 6: Ancient: Music theory

(ii) Harmonicists.

These theorists are primarily known through Aristoxenus’s negative assessment in his Harmonic Elements, at the beginning of which he defines the study of harmonics as pertaining to the theory of scales and tonoi (see §6(iii)(d–e) below). Earlier authors, identified by him as ‘the Harmonicists’ (hoi harmonikoi), had based their theory on a single genus in the range of an octave, which they had represented in a series of diagrams. Although the precise nature of the Harmonicists' diagrams cannot be determined, they may have been something like the diagrams that form the last two sections of the Division of the Canon or the monochord division of Thrasyllus preserved in section 36 of Theon of Smyrna’s On Mathematics Useful for the Understanding of Plato.

Diagrams of this sort indeed show the ‘close-packing’ (katapuknōsis) of intervals that Aristoxenus describes as a feature of the Harmonicists' diagrams, and, since they are intended to illustrate all the locations where pitches might be found rather than any genuine musical scale, they also fail to show, as Aristoxenus noted, anything about actual scales or tonoi. Aristoxenus refers to katapuknōsis on two principal occasions in the treatise: first (i.7: da Rios, 12.8–12), where he observes that there is a close relationship among scales, ‘positions of the voice’ and the tonoi, a relationship that must be examined not by close-packing, but rather in the reciprocal melodic relationships of the scales themselves; second (i.27–8: da Rios, 35.9–37.4), where he contrasts continuity (sunecheia) and consecution (hexēs) as he observes that musical continuity is a matter of musical logic, or synthesis (sunthesis), not a series of consecutive notes closely packed together on a chart with the smallest possible interval separating one from another. Two additional passing references (ii.38: da Rios, 47.15; and ii.53: da Rios, 66.5) appear later in the treatise, echoing the earlier points.

Turning to the concept of synthesis (i.5: da Rios, 9.12–11.10) as crucial to his study, Aristoxenus notes that the Harmonicist Eratocles (fl 5th century bce) was primarily interested in the possible cyclic orderings of the intervals in an octave, which led him – long before Ptolemy's Harmonics – to observe seven species. Aristoxenus derides such mechanical manipulation, which was apparently typical of the Harmonicist approach, because it does not take into account the possible species of the 5th and 4th and the various musical syntheses, which would produce many more than seven species.

In treating the tonoi, some of the Harmonicists arranged them in the ascending order of Hypodorian, Mixolydian, Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian, with the first three separated from each other by a half-tone and the final three by a tone, while others, basing their assumptions on the aulos, thought that the ascending order should be Hypophrygian, Hypodorian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian, with the first three separated from each other by three dieses, the Dorian and the Phrygian by a tone, and the last three once again by three dieses. Aristoxenus (ii.37–8: da Rios, 46.17–47.16) objected that their identification of a series of tonoi separated by some small interval resulted simply in a closely packed diagram and not in any useful understanding of musical phenomena.

The characteristics of the aulos and musical notation were two apparent preoccupations of the Harmonicists, but Aristoxenus dismisses both of these as unscientific. In his view, the Harmonicists ‘have it backwards when they think that placing some apparent thing is the end of comprehension, for comprehension is the end of every visible thing’ (ii.41: da Rios, 51.10–13); by concentrating on the ‘subject of judgment’ rather than on judgment itself, the Harmonicists ‘miss the truth’ (ii.41: da Rios, 52.1–4).

Though clearly representing the Pythagorean tradition, the Division of the Canon exhibits precisely the sort of limited diagrammatic view of music theory attributed by Aristoxenus to the Harmonicists. The two final sections of the Division may not have been part of its earliest form (Barbera, Euclidean Division, D(ii)1991, pp.40–44), but the structure of the demonstrations and the division of the monochord itself are nevertheless expressed in diagrammatic terms. Moreover, the Division says nothing at all about the ways in which one note might or might not move to another; makes no specific reference to the various genera, although the enharmonic genus is certainly produced by the demonstrations of propositions 17 and 18; and is limited to a single two-octave display. Likewise, the Introduction to Music of Alypius, devoted almost entirely to a series of notational tables (see §7 below), might be seen as growing out of the Harmonicist tradition, although its late date would make such a classification largely irrelevant.

Greece, §I, 6: Ancient: Music theory

(iii) Aristoxenian tradition.

The most systematic discussion of ostensibly musical phenomena is found in the fragmentary Harmonic Elements of Aristoxenus and later treatises based on its principles (especially the Aristoxenian epitome by Cleonides and parts of the treatises of Gaudentius, Bacchius, Ptolemy and Aristides Quintilianus). Aristoxenus himself was concerned with the philosophical definitions and categories necessary to establish a complete and correct view of the musical reality of scales and tonoi, two primary elements of musical composition, and in the first part of his treatise he introduces and discusses such subjects as motion of the voice (hē tēs phōnēs kinēsis), pitch (tasis), compass (hē tou bareos te kai oxeos diatasis), intervals (diastēmata), consonance and dissonance, scales (sustēmata), melos, continuity and consecution, genera (genē), synthesis, mixing of genera (mignumenos tōn genōn), notes (phthongoi) and position of the voice (ho tēs phōnēs topos). From these, he develops a set of seven categories – genera, intervals, notes, scales, tonoi, modulation (metabolē) and melic composition (melopoiïa) – framed by two additional categories: first, hearing and intellect, and last, comprehension. As the later Aristoxenian tradition did not share Aristoxenus's broader philosophical interests, the framing categories and much of the subtlety of language and argument largely disappeared, while the seven ‘technical’ categories (especially the first three) were rearranged and expanded to include additional technical details – such as the names of the individual notes – that Aristoxenus took for granted. The surviving portions of Aristoxenus's treatise do not contain his explanations of each category, but the tradition as a whole may be summarized as follows.

(a) Notes.

(b) Intervals.

(c) Genera.

(d) Scales.

(e) Tonoi and harmoniai.

(f) Modulation.

(g) Melic composition.

Greece, §I, 6(iii): Ancient, Music theory: Aristoxenian tradition

(a) Notes.

Aristoxenus's definition is both economical and sophisticated: ‘a falling of the voice on one pitch is a note; then, it appears to be a note as such because it is ordered in a melos and stands harmonically on a single pitch’ (i.15: da Rios, 20.16–19). This subtle definition distinguishes among a voice, which is articulate sound; a single pitch, which is a position of a voice; and a note, which is a production of sound at a single relative ordered position within a musical composition, a melos. In the treatise of Cleonides this becomes: ‘A note is the musical falling of the voice on one pitch’ (Jan, 179.9–10); while Gaudentius preserves much of the original: ‘a note is the falling of the voice upon one pitch; pitch is a tarrying and standing of the voice; whenever the voice seems to stop on one pitch, we say that the voice is a note that can be ordered in melos’ (Jan, 329.7–11). Aristoxenus did not name or define all the notes (since it seems they were ‘so well known to the adherents of music’; i.22: da Rios, 29.1–2), and the surviving portions of his treatise do not describe the full array of notes and tetrachords (groups of four notes) that came to be known as the Greater and Lesser Perfect Systems. Later theorists, however, present and characterize them as shown in Table 1. (In the table the pitches are purely conventional, intended only to show the intervallic pattern; various classifications pertaining to the genera are given in parentheses.)

The tetrachord was regarded by Aristoxenus as the basic musical unit, and all but three of the note names indicate the tetrachord (hypaton, meson, synemmenon, diezeugmenon and hyperbolaion) to which they belong. The proslambanomenos (‘added note’) was not considered a part of any tetrachord; the mese formed the upper limit of the meson and the paramese the lower limit of the diezeugmenon.

Greece, §I, 6(iii): Ancient, Music theory: Aristoxenian tradition

(b) Intervals.

Intervals are defined as bounded by two notes of differing pitch, distinguished by magnitude, by consonance or dissonance, as rational or irrational, by genus, and as simple or compound (the first four distinctions also apply to scales). For Aristoxenus, the 4th and the 5th, not the octave, were the primary scalar components of music and music theory. He required that intervals, in order to be musical, be combined in a certain way; thus the study of intervals was not just a matter of measurement, as it had been for the Pythagoreans and the Harmonicists, but a matter of understanding ‘synthesis’, the coherent musical arrangement of intervals (i.27: da Rios, 35.10–36.1). Once again, Cleonides simplifies the definition to: ‘an interval is bounded by two notes, dissimilar in height and depth’ (Jan, 179.11–12), although he provides (in §5) a rather comprehensive summary of the five Aristoxenian distinctions. Theorists readily accepted the possibility that intervals could be of infinite magnitude but in general restricted their interest to the range between the smallest enharmonic dieses (approximately a quarter-tone) and the double-octave-and-a-5th, identified by Aristoxenus as the practical range of the human voice or a musical instrument. The consonant intervals were at least the 4th, 5th, octave, 12th and double octave; the Aristoxenians tended to include the 11th (or indeed any consonant interval compounded with the octave), while the Pythagoreans rejected this interval since it could not be represented by a multiple or superparticular ratio. Intervals were simple if bounded by musically consecutive notes (an implicit rejection of Harmonicist katapuknōsis), otherwise they were compound; thus an interval of the same magnitude might be simple or compound depending on the context. In clear contradistinction to the Pythagorean sense, intervals were rational if they were known and employed in music (e.g. the tone, semitone, ditone), irrational if they varied from the defined forms. For Pythagoreans, of course, rationality was a matter of expressible numerical relationships (e.g. 3:2, 4:3, 2:1 etc.): intervals that cannot be expressed in such a relationship are irrational, even though they may be employed in practice. Additional distinctions such as ‘paraphonic’ and ‘antiphonic’ were also developed by later theorists such as Theon of Smyrna, Gaudentius and Bacchius.

Greece, §I, 6(iii): Ancient, Music theory: Aristoxenian tradition

(c) Genera.

Aristoxenus recognized three basic genera of tetrachords: the enharmonic (also known as harmonia), the chromatic (also known as chrōma, i.e. ‘colour’), and the diatonic, the last two of which exhibited various shades (chroai). The intonations were created by the two middle notes of the tetrachord, which were ‘movable’ (kinoumenoi), in relation to the two outer notes, which were ‘immovable’ (hestōtes). To describe these intonations Aristoxenus posited (i.21–7: da Rios, 28.3–35.8) a tetrachord of two and a half tones, with the tone itself consisting of half tones, third tones and quarter tones. Specific numerical terms are avoided because his descriptions are intended to be approximations; the shades are not actually fixed but infinitely variable within their regions (i.23: da Rios, 30.14–16). The character of the genera is not perceived in a particular order of specific intervals arranged sequentially in a static scale but rather in characteristic dynamic progressions of intervals, or ‘roads’ (hodoi), that differ in ascent and descent (iii.66–72: da Rios, 83–9). These progressions are readily recognizable, even though the exact sizes of the intervals may vary from piece to piece. In order to convey the characteristic quality of the genera, the theorist does not need to specify every possible note and interval but rather the relative sizes of interval and their typical patterns of succession. So, Aristoxenus was able to reduce the infinite number of possible arrangements to a manageable series of archetypal genera.

In the later Aristoxenian treatises, only the static descriptions of the genera survive. Cleonides deduced a tetrachord of 30 units on which the genera and shades are projected in specific numbers (see Table 2). The three notes bounding the two small intervals were known as a pycnon (puknon) if their composite interval was smaller than the remaining interval in the tetrachord, as is the case in the first four shades. Later theorists expanded the division of the tetrachord into 60 parts, expressed the divisions in terms of ratios instead of parts, or provided somewhat different names, but the basic Aristoxenian design remained the standard for all subsequent theorists who concerned themselves with the subject of genera.

Greece, §I, 6(iii): Ancient, Music theory: Aristoxenian tradition

(d) Scales.

Aristoxenus rejected the closely packed scales of the Harmonicists because by ignoring the principles of synthesis and continuity and consecution they did not accord with musical logic. Scales, he asserts, must always follow ‘the nature of melos’ (hē tou melous phusis): an infinite number of notes cannot simply be strung together; and if a melos ascends or descends, the intervals formed by notes separated by four or five consecutive degrees in the scale must form the consonant intervals of a 4th or a 5th. Scales larger than the tetrachord are assembled by combining tetrachords, either by conjunction (sunaphē, e.g. e'–f'–g'–a' and a'–b'–c''–d'') or disjunction (diazeuxis, e.g. e'–f'–g'–a' and b'–c''–d''–e''). Relying on the aforestated principles, Aristoxenus (iii.63–74: da Rios, 78.13–92.5) formulated a detailed set of possible progressions.

The later Aristoxenians expanded this discussion to include consideration of the ways in which the tetrachords are combined to produce the Greater and Lesser Perfect systems, but they were also concerned with the classification of scales according to four of the distinctions applied to intervals, to which were added distinctions between gapped or continuous, conjunct or disjunct, and modulating or non-modulating scales. They also explored the various species (eidē) or forms (schēmata) of the 4th, 5th and octave, perhaps building on Aristoxenus's own description of the species of the 4th, which appears at the very end of the surviving portion of his Harmonic Elements. Of these, the octave species are the most important because of their apparent relationship to the tonoi; they are commonly described and named as follows: hypate hypaton–paramese (b–b'), Mixolydian; parhypate hypaton–trite diezeugmenon (c'–c''), Lydian; lichanos hypaton–paranete diezeugmenon (d'–d''), Phrygian; hypate meson–nete diezeugmenon (e'–e''), Dorian; parhypate meson–trite hyperbolaion (f'–f''), Hypolydian; lichanos meson–paranete hyperbolaion (g'–g''), Hypophrygian; and mese–nete hyperbolaion (a'–a''), Common, Locrian and Hypodorian. The association of ethnic names with the octave species probably does not come from Aristoxenus, who criticized (ii.37–8: da Rios, 46.17–47.16) their application to the tonoi by the Harmonicists.

The final distinction of scales as modulating or non-modulating pertains to the number of ‘functional’ mesai. According to Aristoxenus, function (dunamis) is a matter of context; Cleonides, the Aristotelian Problems and, especially, Ptolemy (Harmonics, ii) elaborate on the term, making it clear that the ‘function’ of notes involved their relationship in a specific sequence of intervals typical of any one of the genera. The mese, in particular, played an important role because of its strategic position at a point from which a scale could proceed either by conjunction or by disjunction.

Greece, §I, 6(iii): Ancient, Music theory: Aristoxenian tradition

(e) Tonoi and harmoniai.

The section of the Harmonic Elements in which Aristoxenus discussed the tonoi has not survived, but it is clear from other sections of the treatise that Aristoxenus associated the tonoi with ‘positions of the voice’. This feature is preserved in Cleonides' later definition (Jan, 202.6–8), which states that the term tonos can refer to a note, an interval, a position of the voice and a pitch. Cleonides attributes to Aristoxenus 13 tonoi, with the proslambanomenoi advancing by semitone over the range of an octave between the Hypodorian and the Hypermixolydian; Aristides Quintilianus (On Music, i.10) observes that the ‘younger theorists’ (neōteroi) added two additional tonoi, and in fact just such a set of 15 tonoi is preserved in the notational tables of Alypius. The full set may be displayed as in Table 3 (the pitches are purely conventional). Cleonides probably borrowed his arrangement from an earlier ‘Aristoxenian’ treatise or inadvertently conflated material from the Harmonicist and Aristoxenian traditions. It is doubtful that the left column of this table is an accurate representation of Aristoxenus's own treatment, inasmuch as he derided a rather similar arrangement of the tonoi by the Harmonicists.

Ptolemy (Harmonics, esp. ii.3–11) presents a different conception of the tonoi, based on the seven octave species; this is not strictly a part of the Aristoxenian tradition but is related to it. In Ptolemy's view, since the seven octave species might be replicated within a single range of so-called ‘thetic’ notes and the dynamic function of the various notes is determined by the mese (which is itself partly determined by the intervals that surround it), there need only be seven tonoi (see Table 4).

Ptolemy's conception is unexceptionable as a logical system, but it is unlikely that it represents either a historical view of the tonoi or a description of contemporary practice. Aristoxenus specifically repudiated such figures as Eratocles for limiting their view to a mechanical manipulation of the seven octave species or other intervallic patterns, and the Harmonicists in general for basing their theory on a single genus in the range of an octave, which they represented in a series of diagrams. Moreover, even the musical fragments dated to a period more or less contemporary with Ptolemy tend to exhibit a much wider range of tonoi and distribution of relative pitch than Ptolemy's characteristic octave would suggest. His system did, however, have a profound impact on later theorists.

Many of the ethnic names applied to the tonoi are also applied to harmoniai described by Plato (especially in Republic, iii), Aristotle (especially Politics, viii), other philosophers and some of the music theorists. Aristides Quintilianus, for instance, preserves in Alypian notation six scales, which he says Plato ‘calls to mind’ (mnēmoneuei) in his discussion of the character of the harmoniai (fig.5; the pitches are purely conventional, intended only to show the intervallic pattern; an asterisk indicates a diesis).

These scales may indeed be early, and with their unusual gapped character they are reminiscent of the spondeion scale described in Pseudo-Plutarch's On Music (1135a–b). It is also noteworthy that one of the earliest surviving fragments of ancient Greek music, which preserves a few lines from Euripides' Orestes (PWien G2315), exhibits in its notation either the Dorian or Phrygian harmonia as presented by Aristides Quintilianus.

Both Plato and Aristotle considered that the harmoniai could have an impact on human character (see Ethos), but in their use of the term they are almost certainly referring to a full complex of musical elements, including a particular type of scale, range and register, characteristic rhythmic pattern, textual subject, and so on. In terms of Greek music theory, references to particular harmoniai would normally subsume the corresponding tonos, but the converse would not necessarily be true (see Mathiesen, F1976 and F1984).

Greece, §I, 6(iii): Ancient, Music theory: Aristoxenian tradition

(f) Modulation.

Since the functions of the notes in a scale would change in the course of a modulation, a full comprehension of musical logic would be impossible without determining the nature of a modulation. Aristoxenus's discussion of modulation is not preserved in the fragments of the Harmonic Elements, but Cleonides articulates four types of modulation: in scale, genus, tonos and melic composition. Scalar modulation is based on the number of potential ‘functional’ mesai within a scale, and shifts of this sort could be used to change from one tonos to another. Modulations involving shifts of a consonant interval or a whole tone were considered more musical because, as Cleonides states, ‘it is necessary that for every modulation, a certain common note or interval or scale be present' (Jan, 205.18–19). The importance of the mese in establishing a modulation is confirmed by the Aristotelian Problems, xix.20 (919a13–28), which observes that ‘all good mele’ (panta gar ta chrēsta melē) use the mese more frequently than any of the other notes, adding that the mese – like the grammatical conjunction ‘and’ – is a kind of musical conjunction. Problems, xix.36 (920b7–15) further hypothesizes that the mese is so important because all the other strings of the instrument are tuned to it. Both statements are reasonable: the mese is not only an immovable note – and therefore well suited to govern the tuning of an instrument – but also the ‘pivot’ note from which the scale may ascend either through a conjunct tetrachord – the synemmenon – or across the tone of disjunction and into the diezeugmenon tetrachord. Several notes might function as mese, depending on the placement of whole tones and semitones in a scale and its range. In fact, such shifts of mesai can be seen in a number of the musical fragments; these would presumably fit Cleonides' definition of ‘modulating’ scales.

Ptolemy's Harmonics (i.16 and ii.16) demonstrates a series of tunings that would enable the performer to modulate among several tonoi, while Aristides Quintilianus (i.11) describes a ‘diagram of the modes akin to a wing’ (pterugi de to diagramma tōn tropōn ginetai paraplēsion), which demonstrates the various common points among the tonoi, at which a modulation might presumably take place. (See also Metabolē).

Greece, §I, 6(iii): Ancient, Music theory: Aristoxenian tradition

(g) Melic composition.

The subject of melic composition, Aristoxenus's final category, remains obscure in the surviving treatises. Aristides Quintilianus (i.12) refers to choice (lēpsis), mixing (mixis) and usage (chrēsis) as the three parts of melic (and rhythmic) composition. Choice is a matter of deciding upon the proper scale and position of the voice; mixing involves the arrangement of notes, positions of the voice, genera and scales; and usage pertains to three types of musical gesture: sequence (agōgē), succession (plokē) and repetition (petteia) (a fourth, prolongation – tonē – was added by Cleonides). In sequence, the melody moves up or down by successive notes (a revolving – peripherēs – sequence involves shifting between conjunct and disjunct tetrachords); in succession, the notes outline a sequence of parallel intervals moving up or down (e.g. C–E–D–F–E–G–F–A or C–F–D–G–E–A or other comparable patterns); repetition is a matter of knowing which notes should be used (and how often) and which not; and prolongation pertains to sustaining particular notes. Additional melodic figures are described in the Byzantine treatise known as Bellermann's Anonymous, but these may pertain more to Byzantine than to ancient Greek music.

Aristides Quintilianus remarks that the particular notes used will indicate the ethos of the composition. Cleonides identified (Jan, 206.3–18) three types: (1) diastaltic, or elevating, which conveyed a sense of magnificence, manly elevation of the soul and heroic deeds, especially appropriate to tragedy; (2) systaltic, or depressing, which expressed dejection and unmanliness, suitable to lamentation and eroticism; and (3) hesychastic, or soothing, which evoked quietude and peacefulness, suitable to hymns and paeans. Aristides Quintilianus, who identifies a similar triad, calls the hesychastic ‘medial’, and much of books ii and iii is devoted to an explanation of musical ethos.

Greece, §I, 6: Ancient: Music theory

(iv) Legacy.

By the end of the 4th century ce ancient Greek music theory was merely part of the residue of an ancient civilization, and the distinctions among the traditions were blurred or forgotten. Three of the latest treatises, however, those of Gaudentius, Aristides Quintilianus and Alypius, were the immediate sources for writers such as Cassiodorus and Martianus Capella, who together with Boethius were the earliest writers to preserve and transmit the tradition of ancient Greek music theory to the Latin readers of the Middle Ages. Thus, these later Greek writers represent both the final stages of Greek music theory in antiquity and, as filtered through their Latin interpreters, the first stages of ancient Greek music theory as it came to be known in the Middle Ages.

Greece, §I: Ancient

7. Notation.

Fragments of ancient Greek music as early as the 3rd century bce already exhibit a type of musical notation recognizable from the various theoretical treatments written many centuries later. No surviving treatise contemporary with these earliest fragments discusses the notational symbols, despite the fact that they were certainly known to the Harmonicists and Aristoxenus. Bacchius, a late writer, uses notation in his treatise to illustrate many of his points, but this is unique. A number of explanations are possible for the absence of theoretical discussion before the treatises of Gaudentius, Aristides Quintilianus, Bacchius and Alypius, but it is not unreasonable to assume that musical notation was largely the province of the practising musician rather than the theorist and came to be recorded in later theory only as a way of preserving (or recovering) a dying tradition.

(i) Pitch.

The fullest surviving treatment of Greek pitch notation is that in Alypius's Introduction to Music (for a discussion of the notation itself see Alypius), but it is likely that Gaudentius, too, originally included all 15 tonoi of the ‘younger theorists’ in his Harmonic Introduction, even though the treatise now breaks off in section 22 in the middle of the Hypoaeolian tonos. Bellermann's Anonymus includes a table of the Lydian scale and a brief discussion of the notation. A somewhat different type of diagram purporting to illustrate ‘the harmonia of the ancients’ (hē para tois archaiois harmonia) is presented by Aristides Quintilianus (i.7), who states that the first octave is marked out by 24 dieses and the second by 12 semitones (fig.6).

Aristoxenus might have had just such a diagram in mind when he criticized the Harmonicists for katapuknōsis, and it could indeed represent an early form of notation. In any event, many of the signs and rotation of the note shapes are similar to signs and patterns in the tables of Alypius. An insufficient number of notes is present to fill out the double octave, but one or two symbols may perhaps be missing. Using symbols that match the tables of Alypius, Aristides Quintilianus also includes (i.11) other diagrams in which the notes advance by semitone and by tone and in which they are arrayed in the shape of a wing to show the concordances among the various tonoi (see Bellermann, J1847; Chailley, J1973; and Winnington-Ingram, J1973 and 1978).

(ii) Rhythm.

In general, the rhythm of a piece of music was indicated by the natural poetic rhythm of the text (descriptions of which appear in Aristoxenus's Rhythmic Elements and Aristides Quintilianus's On Music, i.13–29, as well as in numerous specialized Greek treatises on rhythm and metre), but the textual rhythm could be modified by the music. Thus, in addition to the symbols indicating various notes, some music written in ancient Greek notation, including some of the earliest fragments, exhibits symbols (fig.7) indicating rhythmic value, ligation, articulation and rests; dots (stigmai) appear as well, perhaps marking out rhythmic or metric units, although this has been a matter of debate. The signs are described only in the much later Byzantine treatise known as Bellermann's Anonymus.

The interpretation of these signs as they appear in pieces of music is not always certain, but in general the durational signs increase the value of an individual note (or a group of notes linked by a ligation sign) two-, three-, four- or fivefold; the signs of ligation normally indicate that a group of notes is equivalent to whatever duration may be marked; the signs of articulation, which fall between the two repeated notes to which they apply, indicate either a hard (kompismos) or soft (melismos) articulation; the rest may appear alone or be combined with one of the durational signs; and the sign of division marks the beginning of an instrumental interjection within a vocal piece (an example appears in the famous fragment from Euripides' Orestes; PWien G2315).

Greece, §I: Ancient

8. Extant ‘melos’.

Pieces of music notated with symbols recognizable from the tables of Alypius have been preserved on stone, on papyrus and in manuscripts. Those preserved on stone can be dated with relative certainty, but the ones notated on papyrus may be earlier than the date applied on paleographic grounds. Pieces preserved in manuscript are (with the exception of the forgeries) certainly earlier than the dates of the manuscripts. Pöhlmann (L(i)1970) identified 40 pieces (including five he regarded as forgeries) in his edition, which remains the only reasonably comprehensive study of the music itself; current scholarship recognizes about 45 pieces, the approximation due to differences of opinion about the proper characterization of a ‘piece’. In the following list, the pieces included in Pöhlmann's collection are only briefly described; the new fragments are given a somewhat fuller description, followed by bibliographic references, if available.

(i) Stone.

(a) The Delphic hymns (c128 bce; the precise dates of the two pieces are debated), originally installed on the walls of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi, are the most extensive surviving examples of melos. One of the pieces, a paean, is notated in vocal notation (fig.8); a certain Athenaeus has recently been proposed (Bélis, L(i)1985) as the composer. The other piece, a paean and prosodion notated in instrumental notation (see Hymn, §I, 3), was composed and performed by Limenius, according to the title. Both pieces exhibit modulation and a generally complex musical style. (Pöhlmann, nos.19–20)

(b) Fragments inscribed on stone from a sanctuary in Caria (1st century bce) unfortunately do not preserve a single complete word, although occasional musical notes appear. (West, L(i)1992, pp.8–10)

(c) The Epitaph of Seikilos (1st century ce), inscribed on a tombstone, consists of a brief heading (including the name of Seikilos) and a complete epigram meticulously notated in vocal and rhythmic notation. (Pöhlmann, no.18)

(d) A Hymn to Asclepius (3rd century ce, but perhaps preserving an earlier composition), inscribed on red limestone, is composed in hexameters, preceded by a single line of musical notation. West (L(i)1986) has proposed that every line of the hymn was sung to the same music.

(ii) Papyri.

(e) A fragment from Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, 1499–1509 and 784–92 (PLeid Inv.510; c280 bce) exhibits either a rearrangement of the text as it is known in later manuscript sources or a composite of excerpts, such as might be used by a virtuoso performer. The melody, which modulates and includes the reduplication of syllables for which Euripides was famous, is rather disjunct and chromatic; some rhythmic notation appears. (Mathiesen, L(i)1981)

(f) A fragment from Euripides' Orestes, 338–44 (PWien G2315; mid-3rd century bce) exhibits an enharmonic or more probably a chromatic melody, accompanying instrumental notes and, once again, reduplication of syllables. (Pöhlmann, no.21)

(g) Two small fragments (mid-3rd century bce) appear in an ostensible treatise on music (PHibeh 231), but very little can be positively transcribed. (West, L(i)1992, pp.2–4)

(h) Two phrases, perhaps from a tragedy, are exhibited in diatonic notation in PZenon 59533 (mid-3rd century bce). (Pöhlmann, no.35)

(i) Two small vocal fragments (PWien G13763 and 1494; c200 bce), mixing vocal and instrumental notation, may perhaps belong to a single piece. (Pöhlmann, nos.28–9)

(j) A set of six small fragments (PWien 29825a–f); c200 bce), perhaps from a satyr play or a tragedy, provides additional examples of modulation and the diastolē. (Pöhlmann, nos.22–7)

(k) A fragment from a satyr play (POxy 2436; 1st–2nd century ce) preserves in vocal notation a rather melismatic melody, with considerable use of rhythmic notation. (Pöhlmann, no.38)

(l) A passage from a tragedy (POslo 1413; 1st–2nd century ce), written in anapests, exhibits a highly florid melody and abundant use of rhythmic notation. A second passage from the same papyrus, written in iambic trimeter on the subject of Philoctetes, displays a similar melodic style but may not be from the same composition. (Pöhlmann, nos.36–7)

(m) A long passage of tragic dialogue on the return of Orestes, interrupted by a line of untexted vocal notation, is preserved in PMich 2958 (2nd century ce); here again, the setting makes use of a number of two- and three-note melismas. A second, shorter passage of indeterminate subject appears in the same papyrus. (Pöhlmann, nos.39–40)

(n) Several fragments, probably from a tragedy, are preserved in POxy 3704 (2nd century ce). (Haslam, L(i)1986, pp.41–7)

(o) PBerlin 6870 and 14097 (2nd–3rd century ce) contain an anthology of compositions – including a paean, two instrumental pieces, a lament and a lyric phrase – exhibiting as usual vocal, instrumental and rhythmic notation. (Pöhlmann, nos.30–33; cf West, L(i)1992, pp.12–14)

(p) POxy 3161 (3rd century ce) contains fragments from dramatic laments concerning Thetis and Achilles and the Persians and Lydians, one lament on each side of the papyrus. (Mathiesen, L(i)1981)

(q) POxy 3162 (3rd century ce) a short fragment of indeterminate content, exhibiting a stigmē on almost every note. (Mathiesen, L(i)1981)

(r) POxy 3705 (3rd century ce) is unusual in providing four alternative musical settings of the same iambic trimeter. (Haslam, L(i)1986, pp.47–8; cf West, L(i)1992, pp.14–15)

(s) POxy 1786 (late 3rd century ce) preserves the earliest surviving Greek Christian hymn with musical notation, almost every vocal note of which is also marked with rhythmic notation. The melody employs a considerable number of two- and three-note melismas. (Pöhlmann no.34; cf West, L(i)1992, pp.47–54)

(t) POxy 4461 (2nd century ce), a short fragment preserving a series of musical excerpts. (West, L(i)1998, pp.83–5 and pl.XII)

(u) POxy 4462 (2nd century ce), five small fragments notated in the Hyperiastian tonos, perhaps representing several compositions. (West, L(i)1998, pp.86–9 and pl.XII)

(v) POxy 4463 (2nd–3rd century ce) preserves 15 lines of text, 13 of which exhibit musical notation in the Hyperiastian tonos and several melismas. (West, L.i 1998, pp.89–93 and pl.XIII)

(w) POxy 4464 (2nd–3rd century ce) contains eight lines of text with musical notation, perhaps representing musical excerpts. (West, L(i)1998, pp.93–5 and pl.XIII)

(x) POxy 4465 (2nd–3rd century ce) exhibits two columns of text, notated predominantly in the Hyperiastian tonos and with several short melismas. (West, L(i)1998, pp.95–7 and pl.XIII)

(y) POxy 4466 (3rd or 4th century ce) preserves the beginning of seven lines of text with notation in the Lydian tonos; line 2 begins with an elaborate nine-note melisma. (West, L(i)1998, pp.98–9 and pl.XIV)

(z) POxy 4467 (3rd century ce) exhibits 12 lines of a lyric, nine of them with notation in the Hypoiastian tonos. (West, L(i)1998, pp.99–102 and pl.XIV)

(aa) POxy inv.89B/29–33 and a new fragment in Yale University’s Beinecke Library (PCtYBR inv.4510) await publication.

(iii) Manuscripts.

(bb) Several hymns addressed to the Muses, the sun and Nemesis (commonly attributed to Mesomedes) appear in a number of manuscripts, sometimes with vocal notation, sometimes without. No rhythmic notation is present, and the lines and notation are frequently garbled in the manuscript tradition. (Pöhlmann, nos.1–5; cf Mathiesen, L(i)1981)

(cc) Six short pieces in instrumental notation (with occasional rhythmic notes and stigmai) demonstrating various rhythmic patterns are provided in Bellermann's Anonymous. (Pöhlmann, nos.7–12)

(dd) Hē koinē hormasia, which appears in several manuscripts and exhibits an enigmatic table of notation, may provide a pattern for tuning a lyre in the Lydian tonos, but no fully convincing interpretation of this diagram has been offered. (Pöhlmann, no.6; cf Mathiesen, L(i)1981)

Greece, §I: Ancient

BIBLIOGRAPHY

and other resources

This is a highly selective bibliography, with an emphasis on current literature; for further bibliography see the dictionary entries on the various authors and topics referred to in the text. Fuller bibliographies may also be found in the surveys listed in §B below.

A Manuscripts. B Surveys. C Encyclopedias. D Greek authors – texts, translations, commentaries (i) Collections (ii) Individual authors (selective list). E General accounts. F Greek musical life (including ethos and education). G Instruments. H Pythagorean theory and the harmony of the spheres. I Aristoxenus, Aristoxenians and Harmonicist theory. J Notation. K Rhythm, metre and dance. L Extant melos – collections and transcriptions: (i) Literature (ii) Recordings and videotape. M Influence and history of scholarship.

a: manuscripts

b: surveys

c: encyclopedias

d: greek authors – texts, translations, commentaries

e: general accounts

f: greek musical life (including ethos and education)

g: instruments

h: pythagorean theory and the harmony of the spheres

i: aristoxenus, aristoxenians and harmonicist theory

j: notation

k: rhythm, metre and dance

l: extant ‘melos’ – collections and transcriptions

m: influence and history of scholarship

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

a: manuscripts

T.J. Mathiesen: Ancient Greek Music Theory, RISM, B/XI (1988)

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

b: surveys

Bibliographies, Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, xi (1877), 1–33 [covering the years 1873–7, ed. H. Buchholtz]; xv (1878), 149–70 [1877–8, ed. W. Velke]; xxviii (1881), 168–82 [1879–80, ed. H. Guhnauer]; xliv (1885), 1–35 [1881–4, ed. H. Guhnauer]; civ (1901), 1–75 [1884–99, ed. K. von Jan]; cxviii (1903), 212–35 [1899–1902, ed. E. Graf]; cxliv (1910), 1–74 [1903–8, ed. H. Abert]; cxciii (1923), 1–59 [1909–21, ed. H. Abert]; ccxlvi (1935), 1–42 [1921–31 and some later entries, ed. K.G. Fellerer]

R.P. Winnington-Ingram: ‘Ancient Greek Music, 1932–1957’, Lustrum, iii (1958), 6–57, 259–60

T.J. Mathiesen: A Bibliography of Sources for the Study of Ancient Greek Music (Hackensack, NJ, 1974)

H. Ōki: Répertoire de littérature musicale de la Grèce antique: 1958–1978 (Yokohama, 1981)

A.J. Neubecker: ‘Altgriechische Musik, 1958–1986’, Lustrum, xxxii (1990), 99–176

T.J. Mathiesen: Apollo’s Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NE, 1999), 669–783

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

c: encyclopedias

F. von Drieberg: Wörterbuch der griechischen Musik in ausführlichen Artikeln über Harmonik, Rhythmik, Metrik, Kanonik, Melopoie, Rhythmopoie, Theater, u.s.w. nach den Quellen neuarbeitet (Berlin, 1835)

S. Michaelides: The Music of Ancient Greece: an Encyclopaedia (London, 1978)

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

d: greek authors – texts, translations, commentaries

(i) collections

StrunkSR2, i [trans. of excerpts from Plato’s Republic and Timaeus, Aristotle’s Politics, Athenaeus’s Sophists at Dinner, Aristides Quintilianus’s On Music, and the full treatises of Cleonides, Gaudentius, and Sextus Empiricus’s Against the Musicians]

J. van Meurs, ed.: Aristoxenus, Nicomachus, Alypius: auctores musices antiquissimi (Leiden, 1616) [Gk. texts]; repr., with Lat. trans. by M. Meibom, in van Meurs’s Opera omnia, vi (Florence, 1745), 335–528

M. Meibom, ed. and trans.: Antiquae musicae auctores septem (Amsterdam, 1652/R) [Gk. texts and Lat. trans., with copious annotations, for the treatises of Aristoxenus, Cleonides and the Division of the Canon (both attrib. Euclid in this edn), Nicomachus, Alypius, Gaudentius, Bacchius and Aristides Quintilianus; also incl. Lat. text for bk ix of Martianus Capella]

K. von Jan, ed.: Musici scriptores graeci: Aristoteles, Euclides, Nicomachus, Bacchius, Gaudentius, Alypius et melodiarum veterum quidquid exstat (Leipzig, 1895/R) [incl. texts for the Aristotelian Problems (and other passages from Aristotle), the Division of the Canon (attrib. Euclid), Cleonides, and the other authors listed in the title]

A. Barker, ed.: Greek Musical Writings (Cambridge, 1984–9) [vol.i: trans. of excerpts from Homer, Hesiod, the Homeric hymns, Pindar, lyric poetry, tragedy and comedy, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle and the Aristotelian Problems, Theophrastus, Pseudo-Plutarch’s On Music; vol.ii: excerpts from Pythagorean writings, Plato, Aristotle and the Aristotelian Problems and On Things Heard, Theophrastus, minor authors quoted by Theon of Smyrna and Porphyry, and full teatises of Aristoxenus, the Division of the Canon, Nicomachus, Ptolemy, Aristides Quintilianus]

L. Zanoncelli, ed. and trans.: La manualistica musicale greca: [Euclide], Cleonide, Nicomaco, excerpta Nicomachi, Bacchio il Vecchio, Gaudenzio, Alipio, excerpta neapolitana (Milan, 1990) [incl. Gk. texts of Jan listed in the title, together with It. trans. and commentary]

(ii) individual authors (selective list), not including editions and translations in the above collections

Alypius

C.E. Ruelle, trans.: Alypius et Gaudence ... Bacchius l’Ancien (Paris, 1895)

Anonymous (Bellermann's)

D. Najock, ed. and trans.: Anonyma de musica scripta Bellermanniana (Leipzig, 1975)

Aristides Quintilianus

R.P. Winnington-Ingram, ed.: Aristidis Quintiliani De musica libri tres (Leipzig, 1963)

T.J. Mathiesen, trans.: Aristides Quintilianus on Music in Three Books (New Haven, CT, 1983)

[Pseudo-]Aristotle

C.E. Ruelle, ed. and trans.: Problèmes musicaux d’Aristote (Paris, 1891)

F.A. Gevaert and J.C. Vollgraff, ed. and trans.: Problèmes musicaux d’Aristote (Ghent, 1903/R)

C.E. Ruelle, H. Knoellinger and J. Klek, eds.: Aristotelis quae feruntur Problemata physica (Leipzig, 1922)

W.S. Hett, trans.: Problems (London and Cambridge, MA, 1926–37, 2/1965–70)

Aristoxenus

C.E. Ruelle, ed. and trans.: Eléments harmoniques d’Aristoxène (Paris, 1871)

R. Westphal, ed. and trans.: Aristoxenos von Tarent: Melik und Rhythmik des classischen Hellentums (Leipzig, 1883–93/R)

H.S. Macran, ed. and trans.: The Harmonics of Aristoxenus (Oxford, 1902/R)

R. da Rios, ed. and trans.: Aristoxeni Elementa harmonica (Rome, 1954)

L. Rowell: ‘Aristoxenus on Rhythm’, JMT, xxiii (1979), 63–79

L. Pearson, ed. and trans.: Elementa rhythmica: the Fragment of Book II and the Additional Evidence for Aristoxenian Rhythmic Theory (Oxford, 1990)

Athenaeus

G. Kaibel, ed.: Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV (Leipzig, 1887–90/R)

C.B. Gulick, ed. and trans.: The Deipnosophists (London and Cambridge, MA, 1927–41/R)

Bacchius

K. von Jan, ed. and trans.: Die Eisagoge des Bacchius (Strasbourg, 1890–91)

O. Steinmayer, trans.: ‘Bacchius Geron’s Introduction to the Art of Music’, JMT, xxix (1985), 271–98

Boethius

G. Friedlein, ed.: Anicii Manlii Torquati Severini Boetii De institutione arithmetica libri duo, De institutione musica libri quinque (Leipzig, 1867/R)

O. Paul, ed. and trans.: Fünf Bücher über die Musik (Leipzig, 1972/R)

C. Bower, trans.: Fundamentals of Music (New Haven, CT, 1989)

Cleonides

C.E. Ruelle, ed. and trans.: L’introduction harmonique de Cléonide: La Division du canon d’Euclide le géomètre: Canons harmoniques de Florence (Paris, 1884)

J. Solomon, ed. and trans.: Cleonides: Eisagōgē harmonikē: Critical Edition, Translation, and Commentary (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1980)

Dionysius

J.F. Bellermann, ed.: ‘Eisagōgē technēs mousikēs Bakcheiou tou gerontos’, Anonymi scriptio de musica (Berlin, 1841), 101–8

A.J.H. Vincent, trans.: ‘Introduction à l’art musical par Bacchius l’ancien’, Notice sur divers manuscrits grecs relatifs à la musique, avec une traduction française et des commentaires (Paris, 1847), 64–72

Euclid

T.J. Mathiesen, trans.: ‘An Annotated Translation of Euclid’s Division of a Monochord’, JMT, xix (1975), 236–58

A. Barbera, ed. and trans.: The Euclidean Division of the Canon: Greek and Latin Sources (Lincoln, NE, 1991)

Gaudentius

StrunkSR2, i

C.E. Ruelle, trans.: Alypius et Gaudence ... Bacchius l’Ancien (Paris, 1895)

Martianus Capella

A. Dick, ed.: Martianus Capella: De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (Leipzig, 1925/R)

W.H. Stahl, R. Johnson and E.L. Burge, trans.: Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts (New York, 1977)

J. Willis, ed.: Martianus Capella (Leipzig, 1983)

Nicomachus

C.E. Ruelle, ed. and trans.: Nicomaque de Gérase: Manuel d’harmonique et autres textes relatifs à la musique (Paris, 1881)

F.R. Levin, trans.: The Manual of Harmonics of Nicomachus the Pythagorean (Grand Rapids, MI, 1994)

Philodemus

J. Kemke, ed.: Philodemi de musica librorum quae exstant (Leipzig, 1884)

G.M. Rispoli, ed. and trans.: Il primo libro del Peri mousikēs di Filodemo (Naples, 1969)

G.M. Rispoli: ‘Filodemo sulla musica’, Cronache ercolanesi, iv (1974), 57–84

A.J. Neubecker, ed. and trans.: Philodemus: Über die Musik IV. Buch (Naples, 1986)

D. Delattre: ‘Philodème, de la musique, livre IV’, Cronache ercolanesi, xix (1989), 49–143

Plato

J. Burnet, ed.: Platonis opera (Oxford, 1900–07/R)

H.N. Fowler and others, eds. and trans.: Plato (London and Cambridge, MA, 1914–35/R)

[Pseudo-]Plutarch

H. Weil and T. Reinach, eds. and trans.: Plutarque de la musique; Peri mousikēs (Paris, 1900)

F. Lasserre, ed. and trans.: Plutarque: De la musique (Olten, 1954)

K. Ziegler, ed.: Plutarchi Moralia, vi/3 (Leipzig, 1966)

B. Einarson and P.H. de Lacy, eds. and trans.: ‘On Music’, Plutarch’s Moralia, xiv (London and Cambridge, MA, 1967)

L. Gamberini, trans.: Plutarco ‘Della musica’ (Florence, 1979)

Porphyry

I. Düring, ed.: Porphyrios Kommentar zur Harmonielehre des Ptolemaios (Göteborg, 1932/R)

I. Düring, trans.: Ptolemaios und Porphyrios über die Musik (Göteborg, 1934/R)

Ptolemy

J. Wallis, ed.: Klaudiou Ptolemaiou harmonikon biblia g (Oxford, 1682/R)

I. Düring, ed.: Die Harmonielehre des Klaudios Ptolemaios (Göteborg, 1930/R)

I. Düring, trans.: Ptolemaios und Porphyrios über die Musik (Göteborg, 1934/R)

Sextus Empiricus

C.E. Ruelle, ed. and trans.: Contre les musiciens (livre VI du traité contre les savants) (Paris, 1898)

R.G. Bury, trans.: ‘Against the Musicians’, Sextus Empiricus, iv (London and Cambridge, MA, 1949/R), 372–405

J. Mau, ed.: Sexti Empirici opera (Leipzig, 1954–62)

D.D. Greaves, ed. and trans.: Against the Musicians (Adversus musicos) (Lincoln, NE, 1986)

Theon of Smyrna

E. Hiller, ed.: Theonis Smyrnaei philosophi platonici: Expositio rerum mathematicarum ad legendum Platonem utilium (Leipzig, 1878/R)

J. Dupuis, trans.: Théon de Smyrne, philosophe platonicien: Exposition des connaissances mathématiques utiles pour la lecture de Platon (Paris, 1892/R; Eng. trans., 1979, as Mathematics Useful for Understanding Plato)

Theophrastus

A. Hort, ed. and trans.: Enquiry into Plants and Minor Works on Odours and Weather Signs (London, 1916)

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

e: general accounts

F.A. Gevaert: Histoire et théorie de la musique de l’antiquité (Ghent, 1875–81/R)

A. Rossbach and R. Westphal: Theorie der musischen Künste der Hellenen, i–iii (Leipzig, 3/1885–9/R)

L. Laloy: Aristoxène de Tarente, disciple d’Aristote, et la musique de l’antiquité (Paris, 1904)

T. Reinach: La musique grecque (Paris, 1926)

W. Vetter: Antike Musik (Munich, 1935)

C. Sachs: The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West (New York, 1943)

M. Wegner: Das Musikleben der Griechen (Berlin, 1949)

F. Behn: Musikleben im Altertum und frühen Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1954)

I. Düring: ‘Greek Music: its Fundamental Features and its Significance’, Journal of World History, iii (1956), 302–29

I. Henderson: ‘Ancient Greek Music’, NOHM, i (1957), 336–403

H. Husmann: Grundlagen der antiken und orientalischen Musikkultur (Berlin, 1961)

L. Gamberini: La parola e la musica nell’antichità, confronto fra documenti musicali antichi e dei primi secoli del Medioevo (Florence, 1962)

H. Koller: Musik und Dichtung im alten Griechenland (Berne, 1963)

G. Wille: Musica romana: die Bedeutung der Musik im Leben der Römer (Amsterdam, 1967)

A.J. Neubecker: Altgriechische Musik: eine Einführung (Darmstadt, 1977)

G. Wille: Einführung in das römische Musikleben (Darmstadt, 1977)

J. Chailley: La musique grecque antique (Paris, 1979)

G. Comotti: La musica nella cultura greca e romana (Turin, 1979; Eng. trans., rev., 1989)

La musica in Grecia: Urbino 1985

A. Riethmüller and F. Zaminer, eds.: Die Musik des Altertums (Laaber, 1989)

M.L. West: Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992)

W.D. Anderson: Music and Musicians in Ancient Greece (Ithaca, NY, 1994)

J.G. Landels: Music in Ancient Greece and Rome (London, 1999)

T.J. Mathiesen: Apollo’s Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NE, 1999)

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

f: greek musical life (including ethos and education)

H. Abert: Die Lehre vom Ethos in der griechischen Musik (Leipzig, 1899/R)

E.M. von Hornbostel: ‘Tonart und Ethos’, Musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge: Festschrift für Johannes Wolf, ed. W. Lott, H. Osthoff and W. Wolffheim (Berlin, 1929/R), 73–8

G. Pietzsch: Die Musik im Erziehungs- und Bildungsideal des ausgehenden Altertums und frühen Mittelalters (Halle, 1932/R)

L. Harap: ‘Some Hellenic Ideas on Music and Character’, MQ, xxiv (1938), 153–68

O. Tiby: La musica in Grecia e a Roma (Florence, 1942)

H.I. Marrou: Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité (Paris, 1948; Eng trans., 1956)

E.K. Borthwick: The Influence of Music on Greek Life and Thought (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1952)

H. Koller: Die Mimesis in der Antike (Berne, 1954)

P. Moraux: ‘La “mimesis” dans les théories anciennes de la danse, de la musique, et de la poésie’, Etudes classiques, xxiii (1955), 3–13

A.J. Neubecker: Die Bewertung der Musik bei Stoikern und Epikureern: eine Analyse von Philodems Schrift De musica (Berlin, 1956)

L. Richter: Zur Wissenschaftslehre von der Musik bei Platon und Aristoteles (Berlin, 1961)

E.A. Lippman: ‘The Sources and Development of the Ethical View of Music in Ancient Greece’, MQ, xlix (1963), 188–209

E.A. Lippman: Musical Thought in Ancient Greece (New York, 1964)

W.D. Anderson: Ethos and Education in Greek Music (Cambridge, MA, 1966)

E.A. Lippman: ‘The Place of Music in the System of Liberal Arts’, Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. J. LaRue (New York, 1966), 545–59

J.G. López: ‘Sobre el vocabulario etico-musical del Griego’, Emerita, xxxvii (1969), 335–52

T.J. Mathiesen: ‘Problems of Terminology in Ancient Greek Theory: harmonia’, Festival Essays for Pauline Alderman, ed. B. Karson (Provo, UT, 1976), 3–17

C. Lord: Education and Culture in the Political Thought of Aristotle (Ithaca, NY, 1982)

T.J. Mathiesen: ‘Harmonia and Ethos in Ancient Greek Music’, JM, iii (1984), 264–79

K. Ioannides: ‘L’éthos musical chez Platon’, Philosophia, xv–xvi (1985–6), 254–65

T.J. Mathiesen: ‘Music, Aesthetics, and Cosmology in Early Neo-Platonism’, Paradigms in Medieval Thought: Applications in Medieval Disciplines: Northridge, CA, 1987, ed. N. van Deusen and A.E. Ford (Lewiston, NY, 1990), 37–64

A. Scheithauer: ‘Musik, musikalische Bildung und soziales Ansehen im frühen Griechentum’, AMw, liii (1996), 1–20

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

g: instruments

SachsH

A.A. Howard: ‘The Aulos or Tibia’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, iv (1893), 1–60

H. Huchzermeyer: Aulos und Kithara in der griechischen Musik bis zum Ausgang der klassischen Zeit (nach den literarischen Quellen) (Emsdetten, 1931)

K. Schlesinger: The Greek Aulos (London, 1939)

M. Wegner: Die Musikinstrumente des alten Orients (Münster, 1950)

J.G. Landels: Ancient Greek Musical Instruments of the Woodwind Family (diss., U. of Hull, 1961)

M. Wegner: Griechenland, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, ii/4 (Leipzig, 1963, 2/1970)

H. Becker: Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der antiken und mittelalterlichen Rohrblattinstrumente (Hamburg, 1966)

J.G. Landels: ‘Ship-Shape and Sambuca-Fashion’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, lxxxvi (1966), 69–77

E.W. Bushala: ‘Rhoptron as a Musical Instrument’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, x (1969), 169–72

H. Hickmann: ‘Eine Sonderform des griechischen Sistrums’, Musa – mens – musici: im Gedenken an Walther Vetter, ed. H. Wegener (Leipzig, 1969), 27–8

H. Hickmann: ‘Der Skindapsos: ein Nachtrag zur Terminologie antiker Saiteninstrumente’, Speculum musicae artis: Festgabe für Heinrich Husmann, ed. H. Becker and R. Gerlach (Munich, 1970)

H.D. Roberts: Ancient Greek Stringed Instruments, 700–200 B.C. (diss., U. of Reading, 1974)

M.A. Schatkin: ‘Idiophones of the Ancient World’, Jb für Antike und Christentum, xxi (1978), 147–72

E. Keuls: ‘The Apulian “Xylophone”: a Mysterious Musical Instrument Identified’, American Journal of Archaeology, lxxxiii (1979), 476–7

J.M. Snyder: ‘Aulos and Kithara on the Greek Stage’, Panathenaia: Studies in Athenian Life and Thought in the Classical Age, ed. T. Gregory and A. Podlecki (Lawrence, KS, 1979), 75–95

L. Vorreiter: Die schönsten Musikinstrumente des Altertums (Frankfurt, 1983)

D. Paquette: L’instrument de musique dans la céramique de la Grèce antique: études d’organologie (Paris, 1984)

A. Bélis: ‘Auloi grecs du Louvre’, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, cviii (1984), 111–22

A. Barker: ‘Che cos’era la “mágadis”?’, La musica in Grecia: Urbino 1985, 96–107

A. Bélis: ‘A propos de la construction de la lyre’, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, cix (1985), 201–20

M. Di Giulio: ‘Iconografia degli strumenti musicali nell’arte apula’, La musica in Grecia: Urbino 1985, 108–20

A. Bélis: ‘La phorbéia’, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, cx (1986), 205–18

A. Bélis: ‘L’aulos phrygien’, Revue archéologique, xlviii (1986), 21–40

A. Bélis: ‘Kroupezai, scabellum’, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, cxii (1988), 323–39

M. Maas and J.M. Snyder: Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece (New Haven, CT, 1989)

M.J. Kartomi: On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments (Chicago, 1990)

D. Restani: ‘Dionysos tra aulos e kithara: un percorso di iconografia musicale’, Dionysos: mito e mistero: Comacchio 1989, ed. F. Berti (Ferrara, 1991), 379–95

M. Maas: ‘Polychordia and the Fourth-Century Greek Lyre’, JM, x (1992), 74–88

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

h: pythagorean theory and the harmony of the spheres

E. Frank: Plato und die sogennanten Pythagoreer: ein Kapitel aus die Geschichte des griechischen Geistes (Halle, 1923)

B.L. van der Waerden: ‘Die Harmonielehre der Pythagoreer’, Hermes, lxxviii (1943), 163–99

G. Junge: ‘Die Sphärenharmonie und die pythagoreisch-platonische Zahlenlehre’, Classica et mediaevalia, ix (1947), 183–94

J. Handschin: ‘The Timaeus Scale’, MD, iv (1950), 3–42

M. Vogel: ‘Die drei Tongeschlechter des Archytas’, GfMKB: Hamburg 1956, 233–5

O. Becker: ‘Frühgriechische Mathematik und Musiklehre’, AMw, xiv (1957), 156–64

J. Handschin: ‘Die Lehre von der Sphärenharmonie’, Gedenkschrift Jacques Handschin (Berne and Stuttgart, 1957), 359–64

B. Kytzler: ‘Die Weltseele und der musikalische Raum (Platons Timaios 35a ff.)’, Hermes, lxxxvii (1959), 393–414

E. Moutsopoulos: La musique dans l’oeuvre de Platon (Paris, 1959)

G. Arnoux: Musique platonicienne, âme du monde (Paris, 1960)

K. von Fritz: Mathematiker und Akusmatiker bei den alten Pythagoreern (Munich, 1960)

W. Burkert: Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos und Platon (Nuremberg, 1962, Eng. trans., 1972, as Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism)

E. Moutsopoulos: ‘Dialectique musicale et dialectique philosophique chez Platon’, Annales de la Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines d’Aix, xxxvii (1963), 159–63

R. Crocker: ‘Pythagorean Mathematics and Music’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, xxii (1963–4), 189–98, 325–35

R. Haase: Geschichte des harmonikalen Pythagoreismus (Vienna, 1969)

E.G. McClain: ‘Plato’s Musical Cosmology’, Main Currents in Modern Thought, xxx (1973), 34–42

F.R. Levin: The Harmonics of Nicomachus and the Pythagorean Tradition (University Park, PA, 1975)

E.G. McClain: ‘A New Look at Plato’s Timaeus’, Music and Man, i (1975), 341–60

E.G. McClain: The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself (Stony Brook, NY, 1978)

F. Zaminer: ‘Pythagoras und die Anfänge des musiktheoretischen Denkens bei den Griechen’, JbSIM (1979–80), 203–11

A. Barbera: The Persistence of Pythagorean Mathematics in Ancient Musical Thought (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1980)

G. Jahoda: ‘Die Tonleiter des Timaios: Bild und Abbild’, Festschrift Rudolf Haase, ed. W. Schulze (Eisenstadt, 1980), 43–80

A. Barbera: ‘Republic 530C–531C: Another Look at Plato and the Pythagoreans’, American Journal of Philology, cii (1981), 395–410

A.C. Bowen: ‘The Foundations of Early Pythagorean Harmonic Science: Archytas, Fragment 1’, Ancient Philosophy, ii (1982), 79–104

A. Barbera: ‘The Consonant Eleventh and the Expansion of the Musical Tetraktys’, JMT, xxviii (1984), 191–224

A. Barbera: ‘Placing Sectio canonis in Historical and Philosophical Contexts’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, civ (1984), 157–61

A. Bowen: ‘Euclid’s sectio canonis and the History of Pythagoreanism’, Science and Philosophy in Classical Greece (New York, 1991), 164–87

A. Barker: ‘Ptolemy’s Pythagoreans, Archytas, and Plato’s Conception of Mathematics’, Phronesis, xxxix (1994), 113–35

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

i: aristoxenus, aristoxenians and harmonicist theory

D.B. Monro: The Modes of Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1894)

R.P. Winnington-Ingram: ‘Aristoxenus and the Intervals of Greek Music’, Classical Quarterly, xxvi (1932), 195–208

R.P. Winnington-Ingram: Mode in Ancient Greek Music (Cambridge, 1936/R)

O. Gombosi: Die Tonarten und Stimmungen der antiken Musik (Copenhagen, 1939/R)

A. Auda: Les gammes musicales: essai historique sur les modes et sur les tons de la musique depuis l’antiquité jusqu’à l’époque moderne (Woluwé-St Pierre, 1947)

L. Richter: ‘Die Aufgaben der Musiklehre nach Aristoxenos und Klaudios Ptolemaios’, AMw, xv (1958), 209–29

J. Chailley: L’imbroglio des modes (Paris, 1960)

M. Vogel: Die Enharmonik der Griechen (Düsseldorf, 1963)

R. Crocker: ‘Aristoxenus and Greek Mathematics’, Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. J. LaRue (New York, 1966), 96–110

J. Chailley: ‘Nicomaque, Aristote et Terpandre devant la transformation de l’heptachorde grec en octocorde’, Yuval, i (1968), 132–54

F.R. Levin: ‘Synesis in Aristoxenian Theory’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, ciii (1972), 211–34

A. Barker: ‘Hoi kaloumenoi harmonikoi: the Predecessors of Aristoxenus’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, xxiv (1978), 1–21

A. Barker: ‘Music and Perception: a Study in Aristoxenus’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, xcviii (1978), 9–16

A. Barbera: ‘Octave Species’, JM, iii (1984), 229–41

A. Barker: ‘Aristoxenus’ Theorems and the Foundations of Harmonic Science’, Ancient Philosophy, iv (1984), 23–64

J. Solomon: ‘Towards a History of Tonoi’, JM, iii (1984), 242–51

A. Bélis: ‘La théorie de l’âme chez Aristoxène de Tarente’, Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes, lix (1985), 239–46

A. Bélis: Aristoxène de Tarente et Aristote: le Traité d’harmonique (Paris, 1986)

M. Litchfield: ‘Aristoxenus and Empiricism: a Reevaluation Based on his Theories’, JMT, xxxii (1988), 51–73

L.E. Rossi: ‘POxy9 + POxy 2687: trattato ritmico-metrico’, Aristoxenica, Menandrea, fragmenta philosophica, ed. F. Adorna (Florence, 1988), 11–30

A. Barker: ‘Aristoxenus’ Harmonics and Aristotle’s Theory of Science’, Science and Philosophy in Classical Greece, ed. A.C. Bowen (New York, 1991), 188–226

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

j: notation

J.F. Bellermann: Die Tonleitern und Musiknoten der Griechen (Berlin, 1847)

C. Sachs: ‘Die griechische Instrumentalnotenschrift’, ZMw, vi (1923–4), 289–301

C. Sachs: ‘Die griechische Gesangsnotenschrift’, ZMw, vii (1924–5), 1–5

G. Pighi: ‘Ricerche sulla notazione ritmica greca’, Aegyptus, xxi (1941), 189–220; xxiii (1943), 169–243; xxxix (1959), 280–89

J.M. Barbour: ‘The Principles of Greek Notation’, JAMS, xiii (1960), 1–17

A. Bataille: ‘Remarques sur les deux notations mélodiques de l’ancienne musique grecque’, Recherches de papyrologie, i (1961), 5–20

J. Chailley: ‘Nouvelles remarques sur les deux notations musicales grecques’, Recherches de papyrologie, iv (1967), 201–16

J. Chailley: ‘La notation archaïque grecque d’après Aristide Quintilien’, Revue des études grecques, lxxxvi (1973), 17–34

R.P. Winnington-Ingram: ‘The First Notational Diagram of Aristides Quintilianus’, Philologus, cxvii (1973), 243–9

R.P. Winnington-Ingram: ‘Two Studies in Greek Musical Notation’, Philologus, cxxii (1978), 237–48

D. Jourdan-Hemmerdinger: ‘La date de la “notation vocale” d’Alypios’, Philologus, cxxv (1981), 299–303

E. Pöhlmann: ‘Zur Frühgeschichte der Überlieferung griechischer Bühnendichtung und Bühnenmusik’, Beiträge zur antiken und neueren Musikgeschichte (Frankfurt, 1988), 23–40

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

k: rhythm, metre and dance

R. Westphal: Die Fragmente und die Lehrsätze der griechischen Rhythmiker (Leipzig, 1861)

R. Westphal: Griechische Rhythmik und Harmonik nebst der Geschichte der drei musischen Disziplinen (Leipzig, 1867)

C. del Grande: Sviluppo musicale dei metri greci (Naples, 1927)

L. Séchan: La danse grecque antique (Paris, 1930)

W.J.W. Koster: Rhythme en metrum bij de Grieken van Damon tot Aristoxenus (Groningen, 1940)

T. Georgiades: Der griechische Rhythmus: Musik, Reigen, Vers und Sprachen (Hamburg, 1949/R; Eng. trans., 1956/R, as Greek Music, Verse and Dance)

J. Dewaele: ‘Une genèse difficile: la notation de “rhythme”’, Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences, vi (1953), 420–29

H. Husmann: ‘Zu Metrik und Rhythmik des Mesomedes’, Hermes, lxxxiii (1955), 231–6

P. Moraux: ‘La “mimesis” dans les théories anciennes de la danse, de la musique, et de la poésie’, Etudes classiques, xxiii (1955), 3–13

T. Georgiades: Musik und Rhythmus bei den Griechen (Hamburg, 1958)

L.B. Lawler: The Dance in Ancient Greece (London and Middletown, CT, 1964)

G. Prudhommeau: La danse grecque antique (Paris, 1965)

M. Wegner: Musik und Tanz (Göttingen, 1968)

G. Pighi: Studi di ritmica e metrica (Turin, 1970)

W.J.W. Koster: ‘Quelques remarques sur l’étude de rythmique Ox. Pap. 2687(9)’, Revue des études grecques, lxxxv (1972), 47–56

J.W. Fitton: ‘Greek Dance’, Classical Quarterly, new ser., xxiii (1973), 254–74

H. and H. Huchzermeyer: ‘Die Bedeutung des Rhythmus in der Musiktherapie der Griechen von der Frühzeit bis zum Beginn des Hellenismus’, Sudhoffs archivalische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, lviii (1974), 113–48

T.J. Mathiesen: ‘Rhythm and Meter in Ancient Greek Music’, Music Theory Spectrum, vii (1985), 159–80

M.W. Haslam: ‘3707: Treatise on Meters’, Oxyrhynchus papyri, liii (1986), 56–60 and pl.7

B. Gentili and F. Perusino, eds.: Mousike: metrica ritmica e musica greca in memoria di Giovanni Comotti (Pisa and Rome, 1995)

Greece, §I: Ancient: Bibliography

l: extant ‘melos’ – collections and transcriptions

(i) Literature

K. von Jan, ed.: Musici scriptores graeci: supplementum melodiarum reliquiae (Leipzig, 1899/R)

T. Reinach: Les hymnes delphiques à Apollon avec notes musicales (Paris, 1912)

J.F. Mountford: ‘Greek Music in the Papyri and Inscriptions’, New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature: Second Series, ed. J.U. Powell and E.A. Barber (Oxford, 1929), 148–83

E. Pöhlmann: Griechische Musikfragmente: ein Weg zur altgriechischen Musik (Nuremberg, 1960)

M.L. West: ‘Two Notes on Delphic Inscriptions’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, ii (1968), 176 only

E. Pöhlmann: Denkmäler altgriechischer Musik (Nuremberg, 1970) [transcrs. and analyses of most of the extant pieces]

A.W.J. Hollerman: ‘The Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1786 and the Relationship between Ancient Greek and Early Christian Music’, Vigiliae christianae, xxvi (1972), 1–17

M.W. Haslam, ed.: ‘3161 and 3162: Texts with Musical Notation’, Oxyrhynchus papyri, xliv (1976), 58–72, pls.VI–VII

J. Solomon: ‘Orestes 344–45: Colometry and Music’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, xviii (1977), 71–83

D. Jourdan-Hemmerdinger: ‘Le nouveau papyrus d’Euripide: qu’apporte-t-il à la théorie et à l’histoire de la musique?’, Les sources en musicologie: Orléans 1979, 35–65

T.J. Mathiesen: ‘New Fragments of Ancient Greek Music’, AcM, liii (1981), 14–32

A. Bélis: ‘A proposito degli “Inni delfici”’, La musica in Grecia: Urbino 1985, 205–18

J. Solomon: ‘The New Musical Fragment from Epidaurus’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, cv (1985), 168–71

M.K. Černý: ‘Druhý zhudebněný fragment z Euripida’ [The second fragment of Euripides with music], Listy filologické, cix (1986), 132–40

M.W. Haslam, ed.: ‘3704 and 3705: Texts with Musical Notation’, Oxyrhynchus papyri, liii (1986), 41–8 and pls.II, IV, VI

J. Solomon: ‘The Seikilos Inscription: a Theoretical Analysis’, American Journal of Philology, cvii (1986), 455–79

M.L. West: ‘The Singing of Hexameters: Evidence from Epidaurus’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, lxiii (1986), 39–46

M.L. West: ‘Analecta musica’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, xcii (1992), 1–54

M.L. West: Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992)

M.L.West, ed.: ‘III: Texts with Musical Notation’, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, lxxxv (1998), 81–102 and pls.XII–XIV

(ii) Recordings and videotape

The Theory of Classical Greek Music, F.A. Kuttner and J.M. Barbour, Musurgia Records, Theory Ser., A/1 (1955)

Musique de la Grèce antique, Atrium musicae de Madrid, cond. G. Paniagua, Harmonia Mundi HM 1015 (1978)

La musique grecque antique, videotape, dir. H. Oki (Yokahama, 1990)