(Gk.: ‘change’ or ‘exchange’).
A term used in ancient Greek writings to indicate a tonal or rhythmic change in music, or one of ēthos. There is no better translation of metabolē than ‘modulation’, although the latter term most commonly refers to change of key, whereas the ancient Greek term was used in more varied ways.
Metabolē denotes change from one state to another – most often a change of note function or pitch – while an underlying entity remains the same. Bacchius, a music theorist from late antiquity, defined metabolē as ‘an alteration of the substratum, or the transposition of something similar into a dissimilar place’ (Introduction to the Art of Music, ed. Jan, 305.5–6). The underlying entity may be the musical composition itself, but often the change is musically very precise, just as modulation in tonal music of the 18th and 19th centuries often entails change of tonal centre while other musical characteristics such as mode remain constant.
Cleonides, a disciple of Aristoxenus, described four kinds of metabolē (Introduction to Harmonics, xiii, ed. Jan, 204.19–206.18): by genus, system, tonos and melodic composition. Metabolē by genus is the change from one of the three genera (diatonic, chromatic, enharmonic) to another (see fig.1a).
Metabolē by melodic composition is a change of character or ēthos, for example, from grandeur and heroism to melancholy. The other two kinds of metabolē, by system and tonos, are more complicated. Aristoxenus, an early author upon whom Cleonides relies, distinguished between simple and modulating melodies, and said of the latter that they undergo a change of their order (On Harmonics, xxxviii). Later writers such as Ptolemy and Aristides Quintilianus help clarify Cleonides’ meaning to some degree. Metabolē by system most often entails use of the synēmmenōn or conjunct system as a way of changing the names (and possibly function) of the notes lying within a specified range (Ptolemy, Harmonics, ii.6). The note mesē is shared by the mesōn and synēmmenōn tetrachords (see fig.1b); metabolē is effected by reinterpreting the old synēmmenōn tetrachord as the new mesōn tetrachord.
Thus the functional notes of the hypatōn and mesōn tetrachords have modulated from B–a to E–d. Examples of this kind of metabolē as well as metabolē by genus occur in the Delphic paeans attributed to Athenaeus and Limenius (Pöhlmann, nos.19–20).
Metabolē by tonos can be considered a variant of metabolē by system. The latter is confined to making the change by means of a system, that is, by an interval of a 4th, 5th or octave, whereas the former can be effected by retuning the immutable two-octave system so as to bring into the central octave (by convention, E–e) a sequence of intervals characteristic of a different octave species (harmonia, tonos or tropos – ancient theorists use a variety of terms). In fig.1c, according to the dual nomenclature posited by Ptolemy to indicate systemically absolute (‘thetic’) and functional (‘dynamic’) positions, the functional Dorian tonos is replaced by the functional Phrygian.
Another kind of metabolē by tonos may be approximately equivalent to a change of key but with retention of mode. Ptolemy addressed such a change (Harmonics, ii.7–8), as did other later theorists. In music of the 18th and 19th centuries this kind of modulation requires a relocation of the tonic and may convey as well a change of pitch and range, although the latter changes are hardly necessary. The presentation and discussion by the late Aristoxenian writers Cleonides, Bacchius and Alypius (Introduction to Music), seem to allow for this kind of modulation; Ptolemy, however, disparaged it (Harmonics, ii.9).
Both Ptolemy (Harmonics, iii.7) and Aristides Quintilianus (On Music, iii.26) drew analogies between tonal metabolē and changes in the soul, not only in the short term but also over a lifetime. The ‘higher’ tonoi such as the Mixolydian tend to excite the listener and are comparable to similar stages in life such as war; the ‘lower’ tonoi such as the Hypodorian tend to calm the listener and may accord with times of scarcity and thrift.
That ancient Greek music contained various kinds of tonal changes is evident not only from theoretical writings but also from extant musical fragments. Furthermore, the degree to which music modulated was debated from at least the late 5th century bce. In addition to well-known criticisms by Aristophanes (Clouds, 961–72) and Plato (Republic, iii, 399c7, d1, d4, 404d12), there is a passage by Pherecrates, quoted by Pseudo-Plutarch (On Music, xxx) in which Music bewails the tonal mistreatment she has received at the hands of the contemporary musicians Melanippides, Cinesias, Phrynis and Timotheus, which included ‘exharmonic’ bends in the music.
In addition to tonal metabolē, ancient Greek theorists recognized rhythmic metabolē, in both tempo and meter (Aristides Quintilianus, On Music, i.13, 19; Bacchius, Introduction to the Art of Music, ed. Jan, 304.6–305.6).
C. von Jan, ed.: Musici scriptores graeci (Leipzig, 1895/R)
R.P. Winnington-Ingram: Mode in Ancient Greek Music (Cambridge, 1936/R)
W.D. Anderson: Ethos and Education in Greek Music (Cambridge, MA, 1966)
E. Pöhlmann, ed.: Denkmäler altgriechischer Musik (Nuremberg, 1970)
‘The Ancient Harmoniai, Tonoi, and Octave Species in Theory and Practice’, JM, iii (1984), 221–86 [series of articles by A. Barbera, C. Bower, T.J. Mathiesen, C.V. Palisca and J. Solomon]
A. Barker, ed.: Greek Musical Writings (Cambridge, 1984–9)
M.L. West: Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992)
W.D. Anderson: Music and Musicians in Ancient Greece (Ithaca, NY, 1994)
ANDRÉ BARBERA