Ancient Greece

This chapter outlines the evidence for musical history in ancient Greece, connecting it to philosophical approaches represented by Plato and others, as well as to recently elucidated documents with Ancient Greek musical notation. Ideas of ethos and mimesis are related to what may be known about the sounds of ancient Greek music as elicited from descriptions, surviving scores, and replicas of instruments such as the aulos (double pipe). The chapter seeks to elucidate the notion of mousikē (‘music’, as derived from the name of Greek divinities Mousai, the Muses) in its cultural context, and to connect elements of ancient musical traditions such as metre and harmonics to contemporary aural and musical realities

Hearing ancient sounds through modern ears

Sufficient evidence exists for us to hear with reasonable accuracy some of the rhythms, melodies and timbres of ancient Greek music. But even if we were to reconstruct a body of sound that faithfully represented Greek musical expression, could we really appreciate the kinds of effect this would have created in the ears of ancient hearers? One way to do so might be to match what ancient authors say about the effects of music with specific musical sounds (harmonies, rhythms, etc.) that we can recreate. This chapter examines how one might hear ancient sounds through modern ears by seeking to understand evidence of ancient rhythms, melodies and modes, as well as the sensations these musical sounds were said to have aroused in their time

Metre

This chapter gives an overview of the elements of Greek and Latin metre, introduces the main technical terms and symbols used, and offers some suggestions for learning and for further study. It is written to be read continuously; technical terms are indicated in bold when they are first introduced or explained, and later paragraphs assume a grasp of the explanations given in previous paragraphs

"Old" and "New" music

Greek texts preserve reflections by ancient musicians and authors on striking developments in musical styles that took place in Athens in the course of the fifth century BC. To many observers, the sounds and practices associated with the New Music signaled a dramatic change in the very nature of musical expression. The New Musicians enjoyed great popular success, but the explicit and implicit ideology of their music attracted the censure of traditionalists. However, New Music drew on earlier styles and techniques as well as diverging from them. This chapter considers some of the specific forms in which the much-vaunted newness of the New Music presents itself, and seeks to contextualize the innovation in relation to the music that preceded it

Recreating the music of Euripides’ Orestes

The fragment of the chorus of Euripides Orestes preserved on Pap. Vienna G 2315 leaves a host of unanswered questions. For whom was the papyrus inscribed? How much of Orestes was preserved on the roll? Whose music is it, and what melodic and harmonic sounds does it preserve? Can the gaps in the melody be filled so as to (re)create performable music based on the papyrus for the Euripidean text, and if so how? This article sets out in detail the steps that led to the creation of a score that has become part of a widely viewed Youtube video presentation of a performance in Oxford in July 2017

Plato and play: taking education seriously in Ancient Greece

In this article, the author outlines Plato’s notions of play in ancient Greek culture and shows how the philosopher’s views on play can be best appreciated against the background of shifting meanings and evaluations of play in classical Greece. Play—in various forms such as word play, ritual, and music—proved central to the development of Hellenic culture. In ancient Greece, play (paidia) was intrinsically associated with children (paides). However, both children and play assumed a greater cultural significance as literacy—and, consequently, education (paideia)— developed during the classical age of 500–300 BCE. Uniquely among ancient thinkers, Plato recognized that play influenced the way children developed as adults, and he proposed to regulate play for social ends. But Plato’s attitude toward play was ambivalent. Inclined to consider play an unworthy activity for adults, he seemed to suggest that intellectual play in some form, as demonstrated in the dialectical banter of Socrates, could provide a stimulus to understanding

Catullus 107: a Callimachean reading

Extract: ‘Excitement struggles with the restraint of form and language and the artifice of verbal repetition… runs riot.’ The repetition is more pronounced and personal here than in another Lesbia epigram, no. 70, where ‘the repetition dicit…dicit makes it certain that Catullus had [Callimachus, Ep. 25 Pf.] in mind’. Poem 70 illustrates how Catullus might allude to and adapt a Hellenistic model in expressing his personal feelings; while the longer elegiac poems in particular (and 66, the translation of Coma Berenices) show the depth of his engagement with Callimachean literary technique. We should not be surprised to find Callimachean elements here too, given the demonstrable correspondences with poem 68 in particular, a composition noted for its use of Alexandrian artifice. But while there are close echoes of the high emotion, the doctus poeta of 68 seems to be largely missing from 107. Here Catullus exults ipsa refers te / nobis (5–6); there his mistress se nostrum contulit in gremium (132)