V
All legendary references to the prehistoric era of Greek music point to its importation into Hellas by various artists, partly from the North (Thessaly and Thrace) and partly from the East (Asia Minor). In this we see probably nothing more than a racial recollection of the Dorian migration, which, as we know, took place about the year 1104 B. C. Orpheus, of whom we have already spoken, must be counted among the Northerners, the Thracians, for his native place was Pieria at the foot of Mt. Olympus. His pupil, Musaios, was supposed to have lived in Athens, and his son Eumolpos was the progenitor of the famous family of priests and singers which were entrusted perpetually with the rites of the Eleusinian mysteries, sacred to Demeter. Amphion, another of the Northern artists (the miraculous builder of the walls of Thebes), is described by Pausanias (Græco-Roman historian, 2d Cent., A. D.) as a relative of Tantalos of Lydia, and to have brought from there the Lydian mode. He is also credited with having increased the lyre from four to seven strings. Heraclides Ponticus calls him the founder of the kitharœdic school of poetry, which was governed by a method and laws distinct from the auletic school, associated with the aulos, the Grecian flute, from which it took its name. The regulation of the cult of Apollo at Delphi is ascribed to Philammon, whose son Thamyris, a native of the more uncultured regions of Thrace, was said to have challenged the muses to contest, and to have been punished for this offense with blindness.
Thus the North was, as we have seen, the home of the kitharœdic muse; Phrygia, on the other hand, must be considered as the cradle of the auletic school, of which the most prominent early names are Hyagnis, Marsyas, and Olympus, the three oldest players upon the flute. The first of these was said to be the inventor of that art. Marsyas was his son and first disciple, while Olympus introduced the art into Greece and became the first Hellenic master of artistic instrumental music.[38]
The first distinct period of musical composition is that of the nomoi (sing. nomos; Gr. [Greek: nomos] = law), a certain type of melodies constructed according to fixed rules, which were sung as solos to verses whose subject was usually the praise of some god. (The singers performing them were known as aœds and later as rhapsodists.) The earliest nomoi were melodies of very simple structure, but from the first there is a distinction between the kitharœdic and auletic types, the first of which is supposed to have followed the Homeric hexameter (iambic metre), and the latter to have been based on the elegiac measures, offering, however, a considerable variety of rhythm.
The pioneer representatives of these two opposing schools were, respectively, Olympus, already familiar to us, and Terpander, both of whom belong to the seventh century B. C. Concerning Olympus’ art a startling assertion is found in Plutarch. He was regarded by Greek musicians as the originator of the enharmonic genus. Upon clearer examination, it has been found that this use of the word ‘enharmonic’ does not coincide with the sense in which it is used above, where we explained the three genera of tetrachords. The quarter-tone division is, indeed, a much later product and does not seem ever to have attained to great popularity. The enharmonic scale of Olympus simply consisted of the diatonic with a step omitted, so as to avoid all semi-tone intervals in the melodies. This elided tone was probably the Lichanos of the Phrygian scale ([Greek: harmonia]), or f, if we take the octave from d to d´ on the white keys of the piano. The Phrygian was naturally the scale used by Olympus, whose home was Phrygia, but he is also said to have introduced this ‘enharmonic’ type of melody into the Dorian mode. When the full octachord came into consideration (originally the scale was limited to seven notes) the omission of the upper tone of the higher semi-tone interval (from b to c) followed as a matter of course. Thus Terpander’s ‘enharmonic’ scale is seen to be simply a sort of pentatonic system, the antiquity of which is already evident from our examination of primitive music.
Little is known of Olympus’ life. What part of Greece he inhabited we are not told. It seems certain that he practised his art in the service of Apollo. About one hundred years before the beginning of the Pythic games at Delphi he composed a song describing the fight of Apollo with the dragon, which afterward became known as the Nomos Pythicos, and which, as we have seen, was regularly performed upon the first day of the Pythic festivals.[39]
Of Terpander, however, the first of the kitharœdic nome writers, we have many isolated details, both of legend and fact. There is a story that the lyre of Orpheus was carried on the waves of the sea from the Thracian coast to Antissa on Lesbos, where Terpander was born. Orpheus is, indeed, the singer whom Terpander was said to emulate, while Olympus was supposed to follow the models of Homer. Terpander was the first victor in the Spartan Carneata (festival in honor of Apollo), which began during the twenty-sixth Olympiad. This indicates his settling in Sparta, which is further confirmed by Plutarch, who in his De musica calls him the chief representative of the first period in which Sparta flourished musically. Plutarch also records the legend that he successfully subdued a revolt of the Lacedemonians by the power of his music. To us the most important item of Terpander’s achievements is the addition of the eighth string to the lyre (kithara), thus completing the octave.
The next musician of extraordinary importance was Archilochos of Paraos, whose period has been fixed as 675-630. His popularity seems to have surpassed that of any other except Homer, with whom he was equal in the estimation of the ancients. His literary merit consists of the introduction into artistic poetry of the iambic and trochaic trimeter and tetrameter and the origination of the strophic form, by the alternation of shorter verses of different rhythm with longer ones. Similarly, his great musical achievement is the introduction of rhythmical change and the use of faster time. In using shorter measures he endowed his compositions with a certain folk-quality which, combined with the element of satire and fable, quickly brought them into popular favor. Archilochos was a pugnacious, combative character; he had taken part in the wars on Eubœa and found his death in a warlike exploit on Nasos. His invective and satirical poems were a totally new departure in Greek poetry. A peculiar practice, which in a sense survives in the method of our musical comedians, was introduced by Archilochos for humoristic effect, i. e., the interrupting of the song proper by the spoken word, followed by a return to the melody after a brief instrumental interlude. This was known as paracataloge. Its use was later transferred to the serious ode and even the tragedy. A reference in Plutarch to Archilochos’ accompaniments ‘under the vocal part, whereas the old ones sang everything in unison’ has aroused considerable controversy. We shall dismiss it with the well-supported conclusion of Riemann, that it does not point to any form of heterophony, but to certain methods of interluding, rhythmical ornamentation and playing in the upper octave (flageolet).
The strophic forms of Archilochos constituted the preliminary steps toward the development of lyric poetry, which, founded in the seventh century, ‘raised its graceful structure in the sixth.’ Alkman and Stesichoros furnish the transition to this subjective school, whose disciples are essentially the celebrants of love and wine. According to dialects it falls into three divisions—the Ionian, Dorian, and Æolian. The last, rooted in the kitharœdic school of Terpander, finds in its Lesbian home its first exponents—Alkaios and Sappho.
Alkaios (625-575 B. C.), son of a noble family of Mitylene, composed no less than ten books of sacred hymns and drinking, love, and war songs, in which the predominating note is the hate of tyranny and the joys of the banquet. His contemporary, Sappho, whose verses are likewise full of passion and pathos, takes flaming love as her theme, and a number of other Greek women poets of the sixth century follow her example. ‘The poems of Alkaios and Sappho are the most melodious of Greek creations.... Their fluent strophes, so easily subjected to musical treatment, have not only in antiquity but throughout a series of centuries been regarded as a fixed form’ (cf. the Odes of Horace). Ibykos and Anakreon, both living in the second half of the sixth century, belong to the same category. Both were wandering singers. The former is known to us through Schiller’s poem perpetuating the legend of the cranes; the latter is still a byword for the joy of life and the praise of love, wine, and song.
A group of auletic musicians living in the seventh century, to which belonged Xenokritos, Polymnestos, and Thaletas, is credited with new developments in the musical practice of Sparta, which were soon transferred to the other Hellenic states as well. This great and far-reaching innovation was the introduction of the choral dances.
The cradle of the dance was said to be the island of Crete. Thence came Thaletas, the most important of the group of composers just mentioned. His fame reached the Spartans, who summoned him to organize a Pæan in honor of Apollo, in order to allay the pest,[40] and this inaugurated his extended activity in Sparta, where he introduced also the pyrrhic ([Greek: pyrrhíchê]), a rapidly moving dance, and the gymnopædia ([Greek: gymnopaidia]) festival dances performed annually in honor of those who fell at Thyrea. In the regular order of gymnastic dance education the last named were first, then came the pyrrhics, and finally the ‘stage dances,’ including the famous hyporchemas—pantomimic dances—which doubtless were a development in the direction of the drama.
According to a description of Athenæus the gymnopædias resembled the regular wrestling of the palæstra, for all the young boys danced naked and executed rhythmic body motions and responsive movements of the hands. The pyrrhic, which, according to Aristoxenus, was not an importation but of native Spartan origin, was a sort of war dance, which later, however, took on a bacchic character, rods and torches displacing the spears. It is recorded that marching songs, accompanied by rhythmic motions, were popular in Sparta from early times, and in the second Messenian war (685 B. C.) inspired the warriors to victory. The word hyporchema, defined as a pantomimic dance, ‘in its narrowest sense signifies the pantomimic representation of the action described by the words’ (Athenæus, i. 15). The same authority says that ‘while the chorus danced, it sang’ and that ‘some of the hymns were danced and some were not, just as the Pæans were sung either with or without dancing.’ Among the hyporchemas are also included a great number of individual actions which made up the ceremonial of the great religious festivals and games, such as the gathering of the laurels for the victor, the garnering of the grapes, the bringing in of the tripod. To them belong also the so-called ‘Prosodies,’ sung to the accompaniment of the aulos during the processional into the temple or the approach to and withdrawal from the altar. All choral dancing was of course closely associated with music. And, while the monodic forms of composition continued to flourish, choral music came to stand highest in the public favor. The charm of variety afforded by a combination of the two was, moreover, quickly recognized.
The development of this choral music was the particular mission of a school of lyricists no less celebrated than the Æolian—namely, the Dorian. It was considered the highest form of lyricism. Larger periods and great variety, instead of short and regular strophes, distinguish its form, while its spiritual import is correspondingly broader. The hymnæ (bridal choruses); the scolia (praising a celebrated personality), out of which grew the encomium (song of praise), and the epinikion, sung in praise of the victors at the great festival games, are said to have introduced the softer, subjective, essentially lyrical element into the chorus. The dithyramb, originally a Bacchic festival song in honor of the god of wine (Dionysos), represents the highest of lyric choral forms. It originated in Phrygia, was developed artistically by Arion, living at the court of Periander in Corinth (628-585 B. C.), but was cultivated principally at Athens, first through Lasos of Hermione. Arion was the first to assemble a large chorus—50 men and boys—forming a circle around the altar of Dionysos, with a flute player in the centre. Before him Tyrtæus (685 B. C.) was said to have originated the division of the chorus into three parts—‘children, men, and old men’—but earlier than that we learn from Pollux of the partition of the chorus into two semi-choirs, which sang in responsive or antiphonary manner.
Simonides of Keos and Pindar are the chief figures of choral lyricism. The former, born on the isle of Keos (Ionia), lived first at the court of Hipparch in Athens, after whose assassination he went to Thessaly. After the battle of Marathon (490) he reappeared at Athens with an elegy upon the fallen warriors, which left him victor over Æschylus, the founder of the drama. He also won the dithyrambic contest in 471, and he died at the court of Hierons of Syracuse. The reproach of commercialism, made against Simonides because of his acceptance of favors and pay at the hand of rulers, reminds one of present-day criticism. In contrast to him, Pindar (522-448), the illustrious master, revered not less than Homer himself, was a retiring personality, ‘living for himself rather than others.’ He was born at Thebes. His life story has been embellished with legend and fiction, indicating the nation’s affection for him. He participated frequently in the national festivals and, it is related, found his death on the stage of the theatre at Argos. His works combine no less than seventeen books containing hymns, pæans, dithyrambs, parthenias, hyporchemas, encomiums, thernoi epinikia, and other forms, all intended for choral performance. His first Pythic ode is among the six fragments of Greek music preserved to us.
We must now consider what is perhaps the greatest and the most original creation of the Greek mind—the drama. Its forms we have seen in lyric poetry and in pantomimic dances of the chorus, furnishing the elements of dialogue and representative action. These forms are to be found independently among other nations of antiquity, but their combination is peculiar to the Greeks, to whom the entire world is indebted for the art of the theatre. Like the dithyrambic chorus, whose close connection with the worship of Dionysos we have observed, the drama was perpetually associated with these Bacchic festivals. The very name tragedy (from [Greek: tragos] = goat) indicates its root form—the satyr play, executed by men disguised with fur skin and the cloven hoof to represent the votaries of the God. Here is added another element of the drama—impersonation—though earlier cases of it are seen, for instance, in the disguise of the poet Chrysothemis as the god Apollo, when performing his compositions. Allegory and symbolism were things to which the Greek mind naturally inclined. Mythological conceptions were often visualized, such as the favorite fight of Apollo and the dragon, the myth of Demeter and Persephone represented in the Eleusinian mysteries, etc. The word [Greek: dran] is the general expression for secret action in the Pagan cult, hence in the antique drama, no less than our own opera, we may recognize a sacred origin (cf. Chap. XI, p. 325). The dithyrambic chorus, whose members themselves are thought to have been disguised as satyrs, furnished the last preparatory step leading to the tragedy, which, it should be noted, gradually developed out of the non-choral sections, the solo speeches of the leaders.[41] Similarly, the Comedy had its beginning in the rather coarse witticisms of the choral leaders in the Bacchic processions of the Dionysos festival (cf. Aristotle, ‘Poetics,’ 4).
The first real dramatist was Thespis, who, in 536 B. C., was summoned to Athens by the Pisistratides to produce a tragedy in which for the first time there appeared an actor outside of the chorus. It developed rapidly from then on—we need only mention the introduction of the comedy by Epicharmos (540-450) and its official sanctioning in Athens in 487. Phrynichos, the greatest dramatist before Æschylus, is remembered by the performance of the ‘Fall of Milet’ for which, because it reminded the Athenians of their defeat, he was punished, and the political tragedy henceforth forbidden. The names of the three greatest tragic poets, Æschylus (525-456), Sophocles (496-406), and Euripides (450-395), are too well known to require comment. Our present task is simply to point out the important part which music played in their works. The parallel frequently drawn between the modern opera or music drama on the one hand, and the classic tragedy on the other, we may dismiss with the statement of Riemann, that ‘the classic tragedy was a drama in which music as such coöperated, while in the modern (music drama) music occupies an eminently dominating place.’ We might add that, whereas we speak, for instance, of Wagner as being his own librettist, we might say of Euripides that he supplied his own music for his drama.
The three elements of modern opera—soloists, chorus, and orchestra—were, indeed, represented in the classic drama. The soloists were the actors (who sang most of their speeches) and the chorus leader with his assistants, who were sometimes drafted to the stage proper, to take part in the action. The chorus consisted of fifteen members in the tragedy, twenty-four in the comedy. It was placed on a lower eminence than the principals (on the ‘orchestra’) and represented at first (with Æschylus and Sophocles) the ‘moral consciousness of the people.’ Later, with Euripides, its contemplative function was superseded by its actual participation in the action as a mob. It sang together—or tutti, as we would say—the parados and aphodos, the processional and recessional choruses—for which the chorus was sometimes divided into sections, appearing one after the other, as, for instance, in the ‘Seven against Thebes,’ and the stasima, interspersed through the action. The choral dance of the tragedy, festive and stately, was called emmeleia; that of the satyr play, grotesque and rapid, the sikinnis, and the lampooning, lascivious dance of the comedy, cordax. The ‘orchestra’ consisted of one simple flute player, who used the double aulos. This was traditionally the characteristic ‘orgiastic’ instrument. The kithara, despite its popularity in other uses, was never admitted to the tragedy. The chief function of the flute may have been to keep the chorus ‘in tune,’ but it is certain that it played interludes, etc., and at times solo numbers, for we know that aulos playing had become a highly developed technical practice, and that aulos virtuosi achieved great reputations and were highly esteemed.
This leads us to the question of instrumental practice in general, the brief consideration of which is our next task.