The Modes of Ancient Greek Music Part 10

22), the names Syntono-lydian and Lydian answer to the ordinary Lydian and Hypo-lydian respectively. Accordingly the Lydian of Aristides agrees with the Hypo-lydian species as given in the pseudo-Euclidean _Introductio_. The Dorian of Aristides is the Dorian species of the _Introductio_, but with an additional note, a tone below the Hypate.

The Phrygian of Aristides is not the Enharmonic Phrygian species; but it is derived from the diatonic Phrygian octave _d-e-f-g-a-b-c-d_ by inserting the enharmonic notes _e*_ and _b*_, and omitting the diatonic _g_. By a similar process the Mixo-lydian of Aristides may be derived from the diatonic octave _b-b_, except that _a_ as well as _g_ is omitted, and on the other hand _d_ is retained. If the scale of the Syntono-lydian is completed by the lower _c_ (as a.n.a.logy would require), it will answer similarly to the Lydian species (_c-c_).

-- 34. _Credibility of Aristides Quintilia.n.u.s._

But what weight can be given to Aristides as an authority on the music of the time of Plato? The answer to this question depends upon several considerations.

1. The date of Aristides is unknown. He is certainly later than Cicero, since he quotes the _De Republica_ (p. 70 Meib.). From the circ.u.mstance that he makes no reference to the musical innovations of Ptolemy it has been supposed that he was earlier than that writer.

But, as Aristides usually confines himself to the theory of Aristoxenus and his school, the argument from silence is not of much value. On the other hand he gives a scheme of notation containing two characters, [Symbol: [] and [Symbol: *], which extend the scale two successive semi-tones beyond the lowest point of the notation given by Alypius[1]. For this reason it is probable that Aristides is one of the latest of the writers on ancient music.

[Footnote 1: This argument is used, along with some others not so cogent, in Mr. W. Chappell's _History of Music_ (p. 130).]

2. The manner in which Aristides introduces his information about the Platonic Modes is highly suspicious. He has been describing the various divisions of the tetrachord according to the theory of Aristoxenus, and adds that there were anciently other divisions in use. So far Aristides is doubtless right, since Aristoxenus himself says that the divisions of the tetrachord are theoretically infinite in number (p. 26 Meib.),--that it is possible, for example, to combine the Parhypate of the Soft Chromatic with the Lichanos of the Diatonic (p. 52 Meib.). But all this concerns the genus of the scale, and has nothing to do with the species of the Octave, with which Aristides proceeds to connect it. It follows either that there is some confusion in the text, or that Aristides was compiling from sources which he did not understand.

3. The Platonic Modes were a subject of interest to the early musical writers, and were discussed by Aristoxenus himself (Plut. _de Mus._ c. 17). If Aristoxenus had had access to such an account as we have in Aristides, we must have found some trace of it, either in the extant _Harmonics_ or in the quotations of Plutarch and other compilers.

4. Of the four scales which extend to the compa.s.s of an octave, only one, viz. the Dorian, conforms to the rules which are said by Aristoxenus to have prevailed in early Greek music. The Phrygian divides the Fourth _a-d_ into four intervals instead of three, by the sequence _a b b* c d_. As has been observed, it is neither the Enharmonic Phrygian species (_c e e* f a b b* c_), nor the Diatonic _d-d_, but a mixture of the two. Similarly the Mixo-lydian divides the Fourth _b_-_e_ into four intervals (_b b* c d e_), by introducing the purely Diatonic note _d_. The Lydian is certainly the Lydian Enharmonic species of the pseudo-Euclid; but we can hardly suppose that it existed in practical music. Aristoxenus lays it down emphatically that a quarter-tone is always followed by another: and we cannot imagine a scale in which the highest and lowest notes are in no harmonic relation to the rest.

5. Two of the scales are incomplete, viz. the Ionian, which has six notes and the compa.s.s of a Seventh, and the Syntono-lydian, which consists of five notes, with the compa.s.s of a Minor Sixth. We naturally look for parallels among the defective scales noticed in the _Problems_ and in Plutarch's dialogues. But we find little that even ill.u.s.trates the modes of Aristides. The scales noticed in the _Problems_ (xix. 7, 32, 47) are hepta-chord, and generally of the compa.s.s of an octave. In one pa.s.sage of Plutarch (_De Mus._ c. 11) there is a description--quoted from Aristoxenus--of an older kind of Enharmonic, in which the semitones had not yet been divided into quarter-tones. In another chapter (c. 19) he speaks of the omission of the Trite and also of the Nete as characteristic of a form of music called the [Greek: spondeiakos tropos]. It may be said that in the Ionian and Syntono-lydian of Aristides the Enharmonic Trite (_b*_) and the Nete (_e_) are wanting. But the Paramese (_b_) is also wanting in both these modes. And the Ionian is open to the observation already made with regard to the Phrygian, viz. that the two highest notes (_c d_) involve a mixture of Diatonic with Enharmonic scale. We may add that Plutarch (who evidently wrote with Aristoxenus before him) gives no hint that the omission of these notes was characteristic of any particular modes.

6. It is impossible to decide the question of the modes of Aristides without some reference to another statement of the same author. In the chapter which treats of Intervals (pp. 13-15 Meib.) he gives the ancient division of two octaves, the first into dieses or quarter-tones, the second into semitones. The former of these ([Greek: he para tois archaiois kata dieseis harmonia]) is as follows:

[1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

[Symbols: -o < 6="" 1-1="" 9="" l="" j="" a="" v="" e="">

[Symbols: o- > 9 n 6 J r- v 0 3 E]

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

[Symbols: 3.. N 1-1 3 E , '- cc > < y="">

[Symbols: r a..1-1 E 3 A ,'- 33 <>

After every allowance has been made for the probability that these signs or some of them have reached us in a corrupt form, it is impossible to reduce them to the ordinary notation, as Meibomius sought to do. The scholar who first published them as they stand in the MSS. (F. L. Perne, see Bellermann, _Tonleitern_, p. 62) regarded them as a relic of a much older system of notation. This is in accordance with the language of Aristides, and indeed is the only view consistent with a belief in their genuineness. They are too like the ordinary notation to be quite independent, and cannot have been put forward as an improvement upon it. Are they, then, earlier?

Bellermann has called our attention to a peculiarity which seems fatal to any such claim. They consist, like the ordinary signs, of two sets, one written above the other, and in every instance one of the pair is simply a reversed or inverted form of the other. With the ordinary signs this is not generally the case, since the two sets, the vocal and instrumental notes, are originally independent. But it is the case with the three lowest notes, viz. those which were added to the series at a later time. When these additional signs were invented the vocal and instrumental notes had come to be employed together. The inventor therefore devised a pair of signs in each case, and not unnaturally made them correspond in form. In the scale given by Aristides this correspondence runs through the whole series, which must therefore be of later date. But if this is so, the characters can hardly represent a genuine system of notation. In other words, Aristides must have been imposed upon by a species of forgery.

7. Does the fragment of the _Orestes_ tell for or against the Modes described by Aristides?

The scale which is formed by the notes of the fragment agrees, so far as it extends, with two of the scales now in question, viz. the Phrygian and the Dorian. Taking the view of its tonality expressed in the last chapter (p. 93), we should describe it as the Dorian scale of Aristides with the two highest notes omitted. The omission, in so short a fragment, is of little weight; and the agreement in the use of an additional lower note (Hyper-hypate) is certainly worth notice.

On the other hand, the Dorian is precisely the mode, of those given in the list of Aristides, which least needs defence, as it is the most faithful copy of the Perfect System. Hence the fact that it is verified by an actual piece of music does not go far in support of the other scales in the same list.

If our suspicions are well-founded, it is evident that they seriously affect the genuineness of all the antiquarian learning which Aristides sets before his readers, and in particular of his account of the Platonic modes. I venture to think that they go far to deprive that account of the value which it has been supposed to have for the history of the earliest Greek music.

For the later period, however, to which Aristides himself belongs, these apocryphal scales are a doc.u.ment of some importance. The fact that they do not agree entirely with the species of the Octave as given by the pseudo-Euclid leads us to think that they may be influenced by scales used in actual music. This applies especially to the Phrygian, which (as has been shown) is really diatonic. The Ionian, again, is perhaps merely an imperfect form of the same scale, viz. the octave _d-d_ with lower _d_ omitted. And the Syntono-lydian may be the Lydian diatonic octave _c-c_ with a similar omission of the lower _c_. -- 35. _Evidence for Scales of different species._

The object of the foregoing discussion has been to show, in the first place, that there was no such distinction in ancient Greek music as that which scholars have drawn between Modes ([Greek: harmoniai]) and Keys ([Greek: tonoi] or [Greek: tropoi]): and, in the second place, that the musical scales denoted by these terms were primarily distinguished by difference of _pitch_,--that in fact they were so many keys of the standard scale known in its final form as the Perfect System. The evidence now brought forward in support of these two propositions is surely as complete as that which has been allowed to determine any question of ancient learning.

It does not, however, follow that the Greeks knew of no musical forms a.n.a.logous to our Major and Minor modes, or to the mediaeval Tones. On the contrary, the course of the discussion has led us to recognise distinctions of this kind in more than one instance. The doctrine against which the argument has been mainly directed is not that ancient scales were of more than one species or 'mode' (as it is now called), but that difference of species was the basis of the ancient Greek Modes. This will become clear if we bring together all the indications which we have observed of scales differing from each other in species, that is, in the _order_ of the intervals in the octave. In doing so it will be especially important to be guided by the principle which we laid down at the outset, of arranging our materials according to chronology, and judging of each piece of evidence strictly with reference to the period to which it belongs.

It is only thus that we can hope to gain a conception of Greek music as the living and changing thing that we know it must have been.

1. The princ.i.p.al scale of Greek music is undoubtedly of the Hypo-dorian or common species. This is sufficiently proved by the facts (1) that two octaves of this species (_a-a_) const.i.tute the scale known as the Greater Perfect System, and (2) that the central _a_ of this system, called the Mese, is said to have been the key-note, or at least to have had the kind of importance in the scale which we connect with the key-note (Arist. _Probl._ xix. 20). This mode, it is obvious, is based on the scale which is the descending scale of the modern Minor mode. It may therefore be identified with the Minor, except that it does not admit the leading note.

It should be observed that this mode is to be recognised not merely in the Perfect System but equally in the primitive octave, of the form _e - e_, out of which the Perfect System grew. The important point is the tonic character of the Mese (_a_), and this, as it happens, rests upon the testimony of an author who knows the primitive octave only. The fact that that octave is of the so-called Dorian species does not alter the _mode_ (as we are now using that term), but only the compa.s.s of the notes employed.

The Hypo-dorian octave is seen in two of the scales of the cithara given by Ptolemy (p. 85), viz. those called [Greek: tritai] and [Greek: tropoi], and the Dorian octave (_e - e_) in two scales, [Greek: parupatai] and [Greek: ludia]. It is very possible (as was observed in commenting on them) that the two latter scales were in the key of _a_, and therefore Hypo-dorian in respect of mode. The Hypo-dorian mode is also exemplified by three at least of the instrumental pa.s.sages given by the _Anonymus_ (_supra_, p. 89).

2. The earliest trace of a difference of species appears to be found in the pa.s.sage on the subject of the Mixo-lydian mode quoted above (p. 24) from Plutarch's _Dialogue on Music_. In that mode, according to Plutarch, it was discovered by a certain Lamprocles of Athens that the Disjunctive Tone was the highest interval, that is to say, that the octave in reality consisted of two conjunct tetrachords and a tone:

[Music: Mese Disj. Tone]

As the note which is the meeting-point of the two tetrachords is doubtless the key-note, we shall not be wrong in making it the Mese, and thus finding the octave in question in the Perfect System and in the oldest part of it, viz. the tetrachords Meson and Synemmenon, with the Nete Diezeugmenon. How then did this octave come to be recognised by Lamprocles as distinctively Mixo-lydian? We cannot tell with certainty, because we do not know what the Mixo-lydian scale was before his treatment of it. Probably, however, the answer is to be sought in the relation in respect of pitch between the Dorian and Mixo-lydian keys. These, as we have seen (p. 23), were the keys chiefly employed in tragedy, and the Mixo-lydian was a Fourth higher than the other. Now when a scale consisting of white notes is transposed to a key a Fourth higher, it becomes a scale with one [Symbol: Flat]. In ancient language, the tetrachord Synemmenon (_a-b[Symbol: Flat]-c-d_) takes the place of the tetrachord Diezeugmenon. In some such way as this the octave of this form may have come to be a.s.sociated in a special way with the use of the Mixo-lydian key.

However this may be, the change from the tetrachord Diezeugmenon to the tetrachord Synemmenon, or the reverse, is a change of mode in the modern sense, for it is what the ancients cla.s.sified as a change of System ([Greek: metabole kata systema])[1]. Nor is it hard to determine the two 'modes' concerned, if we may trust to the authority of the Aristotelian _Problems_ (_l. c._) and regard the Mese as always the key-note. For if _a_ is kept as the key-note, the octave _a-a_ with one [Symbol: b] is the so-called Dorian (_e - e_ on the white notes). In this way we arrive at the somewhat confusing result that the ancient Dorian species (_e - e_ but with _a_ as key-note) yields the Hypo-dorian or modern Minor mode: while the Dorian mode of modern scientific theory[2] has its ancient prototype in the Mixo-lydian species, viz. the octave first brought to light by Lamprocles. The difficulty of course arises from the species of the Octave being cla.s.sified according to their compa.s.s, without reference to the tonic character of the Mese.

The Dorian mode is amply represented in the extant remains of Greek music. It is the mode of the two compositions of Dionysius, the Hymn to Calliope and the Hymn to Apollo (p. 88), perhaps also of Mr.

Ramsay's musical inscription (p. 90). It would have been satisfactory if we could have found it in the much more important fragment of the _Orestes_. Such indications as that fragment presents seem to me to point to the Dorian mode (Mixo-lydian of Lamprocles).

3. The scales of the cithara furnish one example of the Phrygian species (_d-d_), and one of the Hypo-phrygian (_g-g_): but we have no means of determining which note of the scale is to be treated as the key-note.

[Footnote 1: Ps. Eucl. _Introd._ p. 20 Meib. [Greek: kata systema de hotan ek synaphes eis diazeuxin e anapalin metabole ginetai]. Anonym.

-- 65 [Greek: systematikai de] (sc. [Greek: metabolai]) [Greek: hopotan ek diazeuxeos eis synaphen e empalin metelthe to melos].]

[Footnote 2: As represented primarily by the a.n.a.lysis of Helmholtz, _Die Tonempfindungen_, p. 467, ed. 1863.]

In the Hymn to Nemesis, however, in spite of the incomplete form in which it has reached us, there is a sufficiently clear example of the Hypo-phrygian mode. It has been suggested as possible that the melody of Mr. Ramsay's inscription is also Hypo-phrygian, and if so the evidence for the mode would be carried back to the first century.

The Hypo-phrygian is the nearest approach made by any specimen of Greek music to the modern Major mode,--the Lydian or _c_-species not being found even among the scales of the cithara as given by Ptolemy.

It is therefore of peculiar interest for musical history, and we look with eagerness for any indication which would allow us to connect it with the cla.s.sical period of Greek art. One or two sayings of Aristotle have been thought to bear upon this issue.

The most interesting is a pa.s.sage in the _Politics_ (iv. 3, cp. p.

13), where Aristotle is speaking of the multiplicity of forms of government, and showing how a great number of varieties may nevertheless be brought under a few cla.s.ses or types. He ill.u.s.trates the point from the musical Modes, observing that all const.i.tutions may be regarded as either oligarchical (government by a minority) or democratical (government by the majority), just as in the opinion of some musicians ([Greek: hos phasi tines]) all modes are essentially either Dorian or Phrygian. What, then, is the basis of this grouping of certain modes together as Dorian, while the rest are Phrygian in character? According to Westphal it is a form of the opposition between the true h.e.l.lenic music, represented by Dorian, and the foreign music, the Phrygian and Lydian, with their varieties.

Moreover, it is in his view virtually the same distinction as that which obtains in modern music between the Minor and the Major scales[1]. This account of the matter, however, is not supported by the context of the pa.s.sage. Aristotle draws out the comparison between forms of government and musical modes in such a way as to make it plain that in the case of the modes the distinction was one of pitch ([Greek: tas suntonoteras ... tas d' aneimenas kai malakas]). The Dorian was the best, because the highest, of the lower keys,--the others being Hypo-dorian (in the earlier sense, immediately below Dorian), and Hypo-phrygian--while Phrygian was the first of the higher series which took in Lydian and Mixo-lydian. The division would be aided, or may even have been suggested, by the circ.u.mstance that it nearly coincided with the favourite contrast of h.e.l.lenic and 'barbarous' modes[2]. There is another pa.s.sage, however, which can hardly be reconciled with a cla.s.sification according to pitch alone. In the chapters dealing with the ethical character of music Aristotle dwells (as will be remembered) upon the exciting and orgiastic character of the Phrygian mode, and notices its especial fitness for the dithyramb. This fitness or affinity, he says, was so marked that a poet who tried to compose a dithyramb in another mode found himself pa.s.sing unawares into the Phrygian (_Pol._ viii. 7). It is natural to understand this of the use of certain sequences of intervals, or of cadences, such as are characteristic of a 'mode' in the modern sense of the word, rather than of a change of key. If this is so we may venture the further hypothesis that the Phrygian music, in some at least of its forms, was distinguished not only by pitch, but also by the more or less conscious use of scales which differed in type from the scale of the Greek standard system.

[Footnote 1: _Harmonik und Melopoie_, p. 356 (ed. 1863): 'Die alteste griechische Tonart ist demnach eine Molltonart.... Aus Kleinasien wurden zunachst zwei Durtonarten nach Griechenland eingefuhrt, die lydische und phrygische.' In the 1886 edition of the same book (p.

189) Westphal discovers a similar cla.s.sification of modes implied in the words of Plato, _Rep._ p. 400 a [Greek: tri' atta estin eide ex hon hai baseis plekontai, hosper en tois phthongois tettara hothen hai pasai harmoniai]. But Plato is evidently referring to some matter of common knowledge. The three forms or elements of which all rhythms are made up are of course the ratios 1: 1, 2: 1 and 3: 2, which yield the three kinds of rhythm, dactylic, iambic and cretic (answering to common, triple, and quintuple time). Surely the four elements of all musical scales of which Plato speaks are not four kinds of scale (_Harmonien-Kla.s.sen_), but the four ratios which give the primary musical intervals--viz. the ratios 2: 1, 3: 2, 4: 3 and 9: 8, which give the Octave, Fifth, Fourth and Tone.]

[Footnote 2: If Hypo-phrygian is the same as the older Ionian (p.

11), the coincidence is complete for the time of Aristotle. Plato treats the claim of Ionian to rank among the h.e.l.lenic modes as somewhat doubtful (_Laches_, p. 188).]

It may be urged that this hypothesis is inconsistent with our interpretation of the pa.s.sage of the _Problems_ about the tonic character of the Mese. If _a_ is key-note, it was argued, the mode is that of the _a_-species (Hypo-dorian, our Minor), or at most--by admitting the tetrachord Synemmenon--it includes the _e_-species (Dorian of Helmholtz). The answer may be that the statement of the _Problems_ is not of this absolute kind. It is not the statement of a technical writer, laying down definite rules, but is a general observation, or at best a canon of taste. We are not told how the predominance of the Mese is shown in the form of the melody. Moreover this predominance is not said to be exercised in music generally, but in all _good_ music ([Greek: panta gar ta chresta mele pollakis te mese chretai]). This may mean either that tonality in Greek music was of an imperfect kind, a question of style and taste rather than of fixed rule, or that they occasionally employed modes of a less approved stamp, unrecognised in the earlier musical theory. -- 36.

_Conclusion._