A Popular History of the Art of Music

agreeable divinities who presided over the more becoming and nobler activities of the Greek mind. By music the Greeks meant much more than merely the tonal art itself. Under this term they included pretty much all t

ate which we might take approximately at about 1000 B.C., when the Homeric poems began to be chanted or sung by traveling minstrels called Rhapsodists. The schools of rhapsodies lasted for about 250 years, when choral and patriotic song began to be developed. In connection with this part of the history, there was in the later portion

. The limits of the present work do not permit tracing this course of progress with the amplitude which its relation to liberal education would otherwise warrant, or even to the extent which its bearing upon the present ideals of the

times, or to improvise a new one appropriate to the case in hand. The heroes themselves were not loth to take part in these exercises. Ulysses, the Odyssey tells us, occasionally took the lyre in his own hand and sang a rhapsody of his own adventures. Several centuries later, Solon,

in illustration of the position of the minstrel in Argos in the

len

stened to the i

the calami

ost from Troy,

om her chambe

of Icarius, t

heard the he

heme. Down by

not alone; the

hen the glorio

the strong-buil

holding up a

e, and with a

ake the sacred

knowest many a

ods and heroes

ebrate. Take, t

e of these, an

the wine; but c

. It cuts me

rrow without b

m, my lord, o

; whose glo

and through Arg

emachus, the

her! canst th

ell graced poet

th a theme to

The bards des

use, for he at

at each mu

ly those were admitted as masters who were able to treat the current topics with the light and inspiring touch of real poetry, and only those taken as apprentices who evinced proper talent and promise. The training of these schools was long, partly spent in ac

(Bank's translation, 365), the general idea o

dances and i

Some on the sm

conducted; th

riage song; a

lash'd from many

ds of slaves. Ga

the dancers fo

ill pipe indent

, while broken

o the lyre wit

love-enkindled

elsewhere imag

ome in dances

hers. To the m

on; and the w

mps, with dances,

el contest among the immortal gods themselves, described by

uneful cho

mortals; in th

of Latona

en harp; th'

, thrill'd back

seen th' asse

ncircled wit

contest wit

f Pieria rais

they seemed as

r, sonoro

in the hope of preventing a secession of this rather unruly state. He accomplished his mission, a circumsta

persuasions to obedience and unanimity, and as by means of numbers they had great grace and power, they softened insensibly the manners of the audience, drew them off from the animosities which then prevailed, and united them in zeal for excellence and virtue." Again, of the subject matter of the Spartan songs, he says:

ly Dionysos and Apollo. By the term choral song we are not to understand anything resembling our singing of a chorus in parts. There was no part-singi

s of manners occurring in various actions, chances, characters-each particular is imitated, and those to whom the words, the son

tive dance appropriate to the service of the particular divinity to whom they were devoted. Presently competitive singing came into vogue, in connection with the famous games, an

ational stories. At proper points the chorus came in with the refrain, which remained a fixed quantity, being put in, apparently, at whatever points the inspiration or breath of the le

ey circled around the platform of the leader in a sort of mystic dance, each man accompanying himself upon his cithara. From this to adding a second speaker to the one already upon the stage was but a short step. It was taken, and the result was a drama with a chorus in connection. In the earlier plays the speakers represented as many characters as necessary for carrying out the action. Later they changed costume to some extent, the chorus meanwhile occupying the time with their own songs, which generally had the character of a comment upon the action as developed at the moment. The changes of costume were extremely slight,

ing by one door represented a prince at home; from another a prince abroad; by another door he represented a common person. The chorus occupied the central place in front of the stage, much in the same location as the parquet is now. In the center of this space was an altar, originally dedicated to Dionysos, and an offering was probably placed upon it. Later the Choreagos, or leader of the chorus, sat upon it and directed the movements of the singers, much as the operatic director does now. The theaters were very large, being vast amphitheaters, open to the sky, but with an awning available over the more expensi

have our word orchestra. By orchestic they meant an apparatus of mystical dancing or posturing and marching and certain gestures. We do not know precisely what this famous orchestic was, for no example of it has come down to us in intelligible form. But from the descriptions of it by contemporary writers, it seems to have formed the pantomimic complement of the acting, with a certain added grace of art in grouping and posturing, suited to attract and satisfy the eye of a public accustomed to national games, and the beautiful conceptions of Phidias upon the Parthenon frieze.

were not favorable to this. Previous to the time of Socrates, orators in addressing popular assemblies, lawyers in pleading cases, and all public speakers, appear to have made use of the cithara as a sort of accompaniment, if for no other purpose than to assure themselves of securing a proper pitch of the voice. But Socrates drew attention to verbal distinctions, made words the image of exact concepts, and in general set in operation an era of s

sical character, showing that this great master observed tonal effects in a purely musical spirit, but he did not make a scientific treatise upon the art. In his Politics he has much admirab

any other string is out of tune it affects only the particular string which is not correctly adjusted. One of his most instructive, but also, as it turned out, most misleading questions was why they did not magadize (sing in) fourths and fifths as well as in octaves, since the consonances of the fourth and the fifth are almost as

I in the year 600 B.C. Pythagoras lived there twenty years in connection with one of the temples, where he seems to have gained the confidence of the priesthood and learned much of his philosophy and so-called musical science. He defined the mathematical relation of the octave as produced by half of a given string, the fifth produced by two-thirds and the fourth by t

of all things. It was one of the laws of his religion that before retiring at night his disciples should sing a hymn in order to compose their spirits and prepare them for rest. The verses selected for this use were probably of a devotion

he sea, the sky,

t the heavens with

irits fall in awe,

belong, so wise,

and shin

it appears that the basis of their scale was the tetrachord of four tones, placed at an interval of two steps and a half step. The outside tones of the tetrachord remained fixed upon the lyre, but the two middle ones were varied for the purpose of modulation. The Dorian tetrachord corresponded to our succession mi, fa, sol, la; the Phrygian re, mi, fa, sol; the Lydian from do. Besides these modes, the Greeks had what they called genera, of which there were three-the diatonic, to which the examples already given belong; the chromatic, in which the tetrachord had the form of mi, fa, fi, la, the interval between the two upper tones being equal to a step and a half; and the enharmonic, in which the first two intervals were one-quarter of a step and the upp

uted magical properties to the fact, and sought to demonstrate the entire theory of music by the production of similar combinations. The latest writer of the Greek school was Claudius Ptolemy, who lived at Alexandria about 150 A.D. In his work upon harmony he gives a very large number of tables of fractions of this kind-his own and those of all previous Greek theorists, and it is to his book that we principally owe all the exact knowledge of Greek musical theory which we possess. Am

made by Ptolemy, taken from his work. (Edition by John Wallis, Oxford, 1682, pp. 88 and 172.) He gives

, 8/7 × 10/9

ic, 9/8 × 8/7

ic, 10/9 × 9/8

c, 10/9 × 11/10

ic, 9/8 × 9/8 ×

but the large and small steps stand in the wrong order. It is in Ptolemy's record of the determinations of Did

us), 9/8 × 10/9

later that the happy thought of Didymus came to recognition as the true statement of the mathematical relation of the first four tones of the scale, and then only through the ears of a race of musicians following the great thesis of Aristoxenos, that in music it is always the ear which must be the arbiter, and not abstract reasoning or calculation. The ratios of the major and minor thi

st common shape of which is that made familiar to all by the pedal piece of the square pianoforte. This instrument rarely had more than six strings, and as it had no finger board it could have had no more notes than strings. Chappell, the English historian, attempts to demonstrate that certain ones of these instruments had a bridge dividing the string into two parts, thus largely increasing th

g.

. Fi

TH

of Asiatic origin penetrated the general musical practice of Greece. Athen?

y magadis

ud the twen

at the r

youth and bea

lyre of Terpander h

ecord where, in the contests, they broke their cheeks by the wind pressure. The flute or aulos does not seem to have been used in connection with the cithara at all, and the Greeks had nothing corresponding to what we call an orchestra. The aulos was appro

ed that the modern mind has been able to conceive. Upon the ?sthetic side musical theory is entirely indebted to the Greek. Nothing more suitable or appropriate can be said concerning musical taste and cultivation than what was said by Aristotle 300 years before Christ. For example, he has the following (Politics, viii, C. Jowett's translation, p. 245): "The customary branches of education are in number four. They are: (1) reading and writing, (2) gymnastic exercises, (3) music, t

o invite men to t

ks of others whom he

d delight them all

s that there is no better w

merry, and the ban

hear the voice

xpressive of entreaty or persuasion or prayer to God, or of instruction to man, or again willingness to listen to persuasion or entreaty or advice. These two harmonies I ask you to leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave." These he explains will be only the Dorian and the Phrygian harmonies. In another place Plato shows himself a disciple of the Egyptian ideas of conse

d of song and music, ought not to seek for that which is pleasant, but for that which is true." In another place, however, he speaks of music as a kind of imitation. He says that music without words is very difficult to understand. ("Laws," ibid., 668.) All these inconsistencies disappear, howe

series of the Dorian mode. Tones in the chromatic or enharmonic modes were named by other letters, and the system was extremely complicated. The notes of the instrumental accompaniment were still different from those of the vocal part. No genuine example of this music has come down to us in reliable form, and curiously enough, no classical writer gives any idea of the notation of music. All that we know of this notation we derive from Alypius, who lived about 150 A.D. Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit of a monastery in Sicily, published

ikely that these melodies, if not really genuine, as related to the composition

E FIRST PYTHIC

ven by Athanasius Kircher, (F.A. Gev

is

ation of Gr

clef to be G, and the signature five flats. This will transpose the piece one degree lower than above written, but the melody will b