Music in Ancient Greece and Rome
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MUSIC IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME MUSIC IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME John G.Landels London and New York First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Reprinted 2000 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. © 1999 John G.Landels The right of John G.Landels to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Landels, John G.(John Gray), 1926– Music in ancient Greece and Rome/John G.Landels. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Music, Greek and Roman-History and criticism. I. Title. ML169.L24 1999 780’938–dc21 98–3051 CIP MN r98 ISBN 0-415-16776-0 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-04284-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-21690-3 (Glassbook Format) CONTENTS List of figures vi Preface ix 1 Music in Greek life, poetry and drama 1 2(a) The aulos 24 2(b) Kithara and lyre 47 2(c) Other instruments 69 3 Scales, intervals and tuning 86 4 Music, words and rhythm 110 5 Music and acoustical science 130 6 Music and myth 148 7 The years between—Alexandria and southern Italy 163 8 The Roman musical experience 172 9 Notation and pitch 206 10 Some surviving scores 218 Appendix 1 Technical analysis of Greek intervals 264 Appendix 2 The construction of the water-organ (hydraulis) 267 Appendix 3 The Brauron aulos 271 Notes and suggested reading 276 Index 292 v FIGURES 1.1 Kithara 2 1.2 Aulos 2 1.3 Lyre 2 1.4 Aulos-player with discus-thrower and boxer 6 1.5 Aulos-players practising their arts 7 1.6 Soldiers on the march 9 1.7 Rhapsode 10 1.8 Sappho and Alkaios 11 1.9 Animal choros 20 1.10 Four figures from the Pronomos Vase 22 2a.1a Aulos 25 2a.1b Flute 25 2a.2 Aulos not-so-solemn 26 2a.3 ‘Exploded’ diagram of aulos 27 2a.4a Aulos carrying-case ‘de luxe’ 27 2a.4b Aulos-player with spare pipes in readiness 27 2a.5 Reed seen from above 28 2a.6 Reed (side view) 28 2a.7 Aulos pipes held wide apart 30 2a.8 Aulos-player wearing phorbeia 31 2a.9 Two types of bulb (holmos) 32 2a.10 Dog-fish egg-case 33 2a.11 Fingerholes on early aulos 35 2a.12 Key mechanism of aulos 37 2a.13 ‘Remote-control’ key on aulos, seen from above and below 37 2a.14 Aulos-player’s hands not in line 44 2a.15 Two pipes playing with articulated drone 45 2b.1 Round-based kithara, seventh century BC 47 2b.2 Round-based kithara, fifth century BC 49 2b.3 Round-based kithara with ‘cross-fret’ 49 2b.4 Flat-based kithara 50 2b.5 Support sling on kithara 56 vi FIGURES 2b.6 Lyre (front view) 62 2b.7 Tortoiseshell body of lyre 62 2b.8 Shape of lyre sounding-board 63 2b.9 Seated lyre-players (teacher and pupil) 65 2b.10 Barbitos 66 2b.11 ‘Thamyris’ or ‘Thracian’ kitharas 67 2c.1 Syrinx (Greek form) 70 2c.2 ‘Nude Youth Fluting’ 72 2c.3 Type of harp (exact name uncertain) 74 2c.4 Type of harp—trigonon 75 2c.5 Horizontal angular harp 75 2c.6 ‘Arched’ or ‘bow’ harp 76 2c.7 ‘Square’ lute 77 2c.8 ‘Pear-shaped’ lute 78 2c.9 Salpinx 79 2c.10 Harmonic series of notes playable on a salpinx 80 2c.11 Tympanon (played normally) 82 2c.12 Tympanon (reversed) 82 2c.13 Krotala 83 2c.14 Psithyra or ‘Apulian sistrum’ 84 2c.15 Mode of vibration of xylophone element (movement greatly exaggerated) 85 3.1 Eratocles’ ‘circle’ 108 4.1 Pitch-accentuation of Greek words 112 4.2 Correspondence between pitch-accents and musical setting 113 4.3 Dactylo-epitrite in musical notation 116 4.4 Normal Ionic 120 4.5 ‘Anaclastic’ Ionic 120 5.1 Pythagoras’ discovery 131 5.2 Monochord, side and plan view 133 5.3 ‘Multichord Measurer with Helikon’ 136 5.4 Air compressed by impacts 140 5.5 Harmony from synchronous impacts 144 5.6 Euclid’s ‘graph’ representing intervals 147 7.1 ‘Flue’ organ pipe 167 7.2 ‘Italiote’ kithara 169 8.1 Etruscan aulos 174 8.2 Etruscan lyre 175 8.3 Etruscan duet 176 vii FIGURES 8.4 Lituus 177 8.5 Bucina or cornu 179 8.6 Early Roman funeral 180 8.7 Etruscan transverse flute 181 8.8 Sound-waves deflected by an obstacle 191 8.9 Acoustics of theatre with raked seats 192 8.10 Set of resonators for smaller theatres 193 8.11 Complete set of resonators for larger theatres 194 8.12 Achilles being taught to play the lyre 197 8.13 Hornpipe or ‘Phrygian’ tibia 198 8.14 The ‘super-complete’ or bass aulos/tibia 199 8.15 Organist and horn-player in the amphitheatre 203 9.1 Instrumental notation, original octave 209 9.2 Full range of instrumental notes for aulos 211 9.3 Letters of the Greek alphabet used for the vocal notation 211 9.4 Notation system with vocal symbols added to the instrumental 212 9.5 Final extension of the notation system 213 9.6 Notation for the two-octave system in the Lydian key 216 10.1 Scores as written by Athenaios and Limenios 225 10.2 Athenaios’ paian, Section 1 229 10.3 Athenaios’ paian, Section 2 231 10.4 Athenaios’ paian, Section 3 233 10.5 Limenios’ paian, Section 1 237 10.6 Limenios’ paian, Section 2 239 10.7 Limenios’ paian, Section 3 241 10.8 Limenios’ paian, Section 4 244 10.9 Limenios’ prosodion 246 10.10 The Orestes fragment 251 10.11 Seikilos’ ‘epitaph’ 253 10.12 Invocation to a Muse 254 10.13 Invocation to Kalliope 255 10.14 Hymn to the Sun 256 10.15 Hymn to Nemesis 259 10.16 Studies for beginners 261 10.17 An early Christian hymn 263 Appendix 2.1 Sectional diagram of the hydraulis 267 Appendix 2.2 Section through the key-mechanism 269 Appendix 3.1 The Phrygian harmonia played on the Brauron aulos 275 viii PREFACE This book is not intended to be a definitive textbook on the music of the ancient Greeks and Romans; it has a more modest objective—to provide an introduction to the study of an interesting (at times baffling) subject, aimed at the student of Classical civilization, the student of the history of music, and at the general reader with an interest in either or both. It may perhaps be helpful to explain a number of policy decisions which have governed the layout and content. First, this book concentrates very closely on the sonic and practical aspects of music in the ancient civilizations—the instruments and how they were played, and the sounds, notes and rhythms, in so far as we can re-create them. (To this end, I have experimented in Chapter 4 with English translations which reproduce the rhythms of the Greek words; this is a difficult exercise, and if the results have a certain flavour of William McGonagall, I must ask the reader’s indulgence.) It examines the notation the ancients used, and the very small number of musical scores which have survived. I am also very concerned with the role of music in the performance of drama, and in other poetical genres which we do not immediately associate with music. On the intellectual side, the Greek theories about sound, pitch and harmony are treated in some detail, because they yield a lot of information on intonations, scale structures and the sound qualities of various instruments. But on the moral and aesthetic side, the Greek and Roman attitudes towards music, and their suppositions about its possible moral influence, and its role in education and the formation of character, have been copiously discussed by many authors; I feel that, to be honest, I have little to add, and there seems little point in going over such well-trodden ground. Second, there is the question of the geographical range and the timespan. The great majority of works on Greek music tend to ignore the Roman inheritance of this important tradition, or to pass it over in a few disparaging sentences. It is true, as will be made clear in Chapter 8, that music was of much less importance to the Romans than it had for the Greeks; but that does not mean that the Romans, the ancestors of the ix PREFACE nation who would consider themselves the most musical in Europe, were lacking in musical sense or in enthusiasm for music as listeners. Accordingly I have not, as is the fashion, ignored the years after the late Hellenistic period, but have pursued the story of music in comedy right through to Plautus and Terence, and tried to assess the musical culture of the early Empire, and the extent to which the Romans understood Greek acoustical theory.