The Modes of Ancient Greek Music. D. B. Monro

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      Aristoxenus is the chief authority on the keys of Greek music. In this department he is considered to have done for Greece what Bach's Wohltemperirtes Clavier did for modern Europe. It is true that the scheme of keys which later writers ascribe to him.

      

      'No one,' says Aristoxenus (p. 37 Meib.), 'has told us a word about the keys, either how they are to be arrived at (tina tropon lêpteon), or from what point of view their number is to be determined. Musicians assign the place of the keys very much as the different cities regulate the days of the month. The Corinthians, for example, will be found counting a day as the tenth of the month, while with the Athenians it is the fifth, and in some other place the eighth. Some authorities on music (harmonikoi) say that the Hypo-dorian is the lowest key, the Mixo-lydian a semitone higher, the Dorian again a semitone higher, the Phrygian a tone above the Dorian, and similarly the Lydian a tone above the Phrygian. Others add the Hypo-phrygian flute [i.e. the scale of the flute so called] at the lower end of the list. Others, again, looking to the holes of the flute (pros tên tôn aulôn trupêsin blepontes), separate the three lowest keys, viz. the Hypo-phrygian, Hypo-dorian, and Dorian, by the interval of three-quarters of a tone (trisi diesesin), but the Phrygian from the Dorian by a tone, the Lydian from the Phrygian again by three-quarters of a tone, and the Mixo-lydian from the Lydian by a like interval. But as to what determines the interval between one key and another they have told us nothing.'

It will be seen that (with one marked exception) there was agreement about the order of the keys in respect of pitch, and that some at least had reduced the intervals to the succession of tones and semitones which characterises the diatonic scale. The exception is the Mixo-lydian, which some ranked immediately below the Dorian, others above the Lydian. Westphal attributes this strange discrepancy to the accidental displacing of some words in the MSS. of Aristoxenus [3]. However this may be, it is plain that in the time of Aristoxenus considerable progress had been made towards the scheme of keys which was afterwards connected with his name. This may be represented by the following table, in which for the sake of comparison the later Hypo-lydian and Hypo-dorian are added in brackets:

      Mixo-lydian

       semitone - {

       Lydian

       tone -{

       Phrygian

       tone -{

       Dorian

       semitone - {

       Hypo-dorian [Hypo-lydian]

       tone -{

       Hypo-phrygian

       tone -{

       [Hypo-dorian]

§ 11. Names of Keys (hypo-).

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A point that deserves special notice at this place is the use of the prefix Hypo- (hypo-) in the names of keys. In the final Aristoxenean system Hypo- implies that a key is lower by the interval of a Fourth than the key to whose name it is prefixed. This convention served to bring out the special relation between the two keys, viz. to show that they are related (to use modern language) as the keys of a tonic and dominant. In the scheme of keys now in question there is only one instance of this use of Hypo-, namely in the Hypo-phrygian, the most recently introduced. It must have been on the analogy of this name that the term Hypo-dorian was shifted from the key immediately below the Dorian to the new key a Fourth below it, and that the new term Hypo-lydian was given to the old Hypo-dorian in accordance with its similar relation to the Lydian. In the time of Aristoxenus, then, this technical sense of Hypo- had not yet been established, but was coming into use. It led naturally to the employment of Hyper- in the inverse sense, viz. to denote a key a Fourth higher (the key of the sub-dominant). By further steps, of which there is no record, the Greek musicians arrived at the idea of a key for every semitone in the octave; and thus was formed the system of thirteen keys, ascribed to Aristoxenus by later writers. (See the scheme at the end of this book, Table II.) Whether in fact it was entirely his work may be doubted. In any case he had formed a clear conception—the want of which he noted in his predecessors—of the principles on which a theoretically complete scheme of keys should be constructed.

      In the discussions to which we have been referring, Aristoxenus invariably employs the word tonos in the sense of 'key.' The word harmonia in his writings is equivalent to 'Enharmonic genus' (genos enarmonion), the genus of music which made use of the Enharmonic diësis or quarter-tone. Thus he never speaks, as Plato and Aristotle do, of the Dorian (or Phrygian or Lydian) harmonia, but only of the tonoi so named. There is indeed one passage in which certain octave scales are said by Aristoxenus to have been called harmoniai: but this, as will be shown, is a use which is to be otherwise explained (see p. 54).

§ 12. Plutarch's Dialogue on Music.

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      After the time of Aristoxenus the technical writers on music make little or no use of the term harmonia. Their word for 'key' is tonos; and the octachord scales which are distinguished by the succession of their intervals are called 'species of the octave' (eidê tou dia pasôn). The modes of the classical period, however, were still objects of antiquarian and philosophic interest, and authors who treated them from this point of view naturally kept up the old designation. A good specimen of the writings of this class has survived in the dialogus de musicâ of Plutarch. Like most productions of the time, it is mainly a compilation from earlier works now lost. Much of it comes from Aristoxenus, and there is therefore a special fitness in dealing with it in this place, by way of supplement to the arguments drawn directly from the Aristoxenean Harmonics. The following are the chief passages bearing on the subject of our enquiry:

      (1) In cc. 15–17 we find a commentary of some interest on the Platonic treatment of the modes. Plutarch is dwelling on the superiority of the older and simpler music, and appeals to the opinion of Plato.

      'The Lydian mode (harmonia) Plato objects to because it is high (oxeia) and suited to lamentation. Indeed it is said to have been originally devised for that purpose: for Aristoxenus tells us, in his first book on Music, that Olympus first employed the Lydian mode on the flute in a dirge (epikêdeion aulêsai Lydisti) over the Python. But some say that Melanippides began this kind of music. And Pindar in his paeans says that the Lydian mode (harmonia) was first brought in by Anthippus in an ode on the marriage of Niobe. But others say that Torrhebus first used that mode, as Dionysius the Iambus relates.'

      'The Mixo-lydian, too, is pathetic and suitable to tragedy. And Aristoxenus says that Sappho was the inventor of the Mixo-lydian, and that from her the tragic poets learned it. They combined it with the Dorian, since that mode gives grandeur and dignity, and the other pathos, and these are the two elements of tragedy. But in his Historical Treatise on Music (historika tês harmonias hypomnêmata) he says that Pythoclides the flute-player was the discoverer of it. And Lysis says that Lamprocles the Athenian, perceiving that in it the disjunctive tone (diazeuxis) is not where it was generally supposed to be, but is at the upper end of the scale, made the form of it to be that of the СКАЧАТЬ