University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Literature and Styles in Music I

Music in Ancient Greece

I Ancient Greeks attribute divine origin to music

A. Invented by Apollo, Amphion

• Demigod Orpheus is primary representative of music on earth

B. Music thought to have magical powers; significant in religious cults

1. Cult of Apollo--Lyre (Kithara)
   • later associated with ode and epic
   • characterized by stability and moderation in behavior
2. Cult of Dionysius--Aulos (single or double reed)
   • later associated with the drama and dythyramb
   • characterized by heighten emotion and passion

   C. Music held in great esteem as one of the principle subjects for intellectual study (along with Mathematics, Rhetoric etc.)

   • along with Mathematics, music thought to demonstrate the "divine harmony of the cosmos"

   II Periods in Music of Ancient Greece

   A. Age of the Epic (8th-7th century. B.C.)

   • Represented by Homer's Illiad and other epic poems that were recited to accompaniment of lyre in recitative style
     • lyre possibly used just for preludes and postludes rather than actual accompaniment
   • melodies improvised following standard formulas ("nomoi")
   • Citizen's choruses (monophonic or heterophonic)
     • songs for worship of the gods
     • Wedding hymns, funeral laments, etc.
   • Poetry, dancing, athletic competitions all use musical accompaniment
     • musical competitions part of festivals and games

   B. The rise of Lyric Poetry (7th-5th cent. B.C.)

   • Includes poems of love, war and other "popular" themes
   • deals with "common people" rather than heroes or gods
   • Lyre continues to be used: may have elaborated or improvised on melodies together with vocal line

   C. Classical style and the Rise of the Drama (6th-5th cent. B.C.)

   • "Classical" style emerges in "dythyramb" and drama
   • Dramas of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and others include music (both "choruses" and "solo monodies")
   • Doctrine of Ethos in effect (described by Plato and others)
     • different modes thought to affect character and moral tendencies

   D. Music in Decline (4th Cent. B.C. - 2nd Cent. A.D.)

   • poet-musicians turn to less sophisticated "popular forms"
     • composers described as "seeking to give immediate pleasure and sensation rather than to produce artistically balanced compositions"
   • Tendency toward experimentation and seeking for "novel effects"
     • seen in increasing use of chromaticism and "enharmonic" (i.e., microtonal) divisions of the tetrachord
     • virtuoso displays by solo instrumentalists become fashionable

    

                                                                     Music Theory of Greek Antiquity
   
   Major Theorists:
   Pythagorous, Cleonides, Aristoxenus, Ptolemy
   
   Topics:
   Notes, Intervals, Genera, Scale Systems, Tonoi, Modulation
   
   1. Genera of Tetrachords: Diatonic, Chromatic, Enharmonic
   
   2.. Greater Perfect System: Two octave scale made of conjunct and disjunct tetrachords (C.F. "Lesser Perfect System)
   
   3. Two Theories Regarding Greek "Modes" (Originially "Tonoi")
   
   A. Theory # 1: Difference between modes had to do with range since all modes had the same patterns of half steps and whole steps between notes (the pattern of "E" to "E").
   So this pattern starting on "E" would be called Dorian. If started on "D," it would be called Phrygian, etc.
   
   
   B. Theory # 2: Each modes has its own distinctive patterns of half steps and whole steps.
   Modes would be further differentiated by the distance between the "tonic" of the mode and the "Mese" in the Greater Perfect System (i.e., the pitch "A").
   
   Meaning of "Tonoi" and "Harmonia"
   
   Cleonides generally uses "Tonoi" to refer to range.
   He associates various "Harmonia" with these different ranges, but the different hamonia are also differentiated by octaves species, e.g., patterns of whole steps and half steps. He gives these octave species different ethnic names, e.g., Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian etc.
   
   Ptolemy appropriates Cleonides differentiation of octaves species but assumes they can start on any note, which is closer to the Medieval concept of mode.
   
   

   The Influence of Ancient Greek (and Roman) Music on Medieval Music

   I Musical style basically monophonic (perhaps heterophonic)

   2. Melody linked with words (poetry)

   • meter of poetry determines rhythm and meter of music

   3. Improvisation according to traditional formulas common

   4. A philosophy of music that regarded it as symbolic of the interlocking harmony of the cosmos (along with mathematics)

   5. The view that music could affect the character of the people listening to it (i.e., the Doctrine of Ethos)

   6. A scientifically founded acoustical theory (devised by Pythagoras and others) based on the division of the resonating string into basic proportions

   7. A scale system based on tetrachords and (more importantly) octaves

   • also modes differentiated by patterns of half-steps and whole-steps

Last Update 6/21/06