109801
A QENERAL HISTORY OF; -MUSIC
First Published
Volume 1 - - < 1776 Volume 2 * - - 1782 Volumes 3 & 4 - 1789
Second edition of Volume 1 * - - 1789 Volume 2 - < > 1782?
CHARLES BURNEY Mus: Doci: OXON. F • R • s .
A
GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
From the Earliest Ages to the
Present Period
(1789)
by
CHARLES BURNEY
Mus.D., F.R.S.
VOLUME THE FIRST WITH CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES
by
FRANK MERCER
New Yorlc HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
INTRODUCTION
IN preparing this edition of Burney's " General History of Music," my aim has been to make the work more valuable to the general reader; that is, the class of reader for whom the " History " was intended. I have not attempted to bring it " up to date " in the sense of any tampering with the text, or softening or altering the opinions held by the author. Too many critics praise or censure Burney 's work (and, indeed, all Histories) in accordance with the treatment, sympathetic or otherwise, meted out to their own particular period. Burney's History is not a period History — it is a General History, and it is an intensely personal one. I do not intend to embark upon a defence of Burney's opinions; they were his own, and they cannot be dismissed lightly; but I must draw attention to one thing that is frequently overlooked by many, and that is the necessity of appreciating the 18th century meaning of words such as barbarous and licentious, etc. The age of Burney was an age of frank speaking, and one must not ignore this fact when reading works of that period. Burney often uses words which have, since his day, received a more special meaning, and if this is kept in mind many of his so-called " savage and harsh strictures " will not appear unfair.
In the present edition, Bumey's text and notes (with the original spelling) have been given in full and unaltered with the following exceptions :
(1) The transcription of the musical tract by Tunsted in the second book has been punctuated correctly.
(2) A more correct version of Cutell's tract in Book 2 has been substituted.
(3) The titles of the early English Psalters have been given in more detail.
All the dates and corrections enclosed in square brackets [ ] are additions for which I am responsible. •
The work has been re-indexed, and I trust that the new index will be found more useful than the original one.
The musical examples are also complete with the exception of a very dull example of a degree exercise, which will be -found in Vol. Ill, p. 351, of the original edition. One or two examples of the difficulties to be found in Virginal music have been curtailed, but eaough remains to show the nature of the difficulty. Jja Up musical examples, Burney employs almost every variety * I think that the only one I have not discovered is the o
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
violin clef. The unusual ones have been altered to modern usage, but I have retained the tenor and alto C clefs.
The question of the examples of Tudor music has given me considerable trouble. Burney not only alters that peculiar feature of the technique of the period, the so-called false relation or augmented octave, but in some cases his scansion of the words has made him change a semibreve into a dotted minim and a crotchet. All cases of wrong notes have been altered, but in the majority of cases I have allowed his arrangement of the words to stand.
For the sake of convenience Burney 's volumes are called Books, so that Book 1 is Burney' s Volume I, etc. When volume is mentioned it refers to the present edition.
My own notes are indicated by asterisks, and in selecting those inserted, from the large number I had prepared, I have been influenced by what might be most useful to the non-specialist.
If I endeavoured to thank publicly all those who have given information and help in the preparation of this edition, my intro- duction would be extended to an inordinate length, but I must give my thanks to Dr. Percy Scholes for sending me a proof copy of his valuable book, " The Puritans and Music "; to Miss Burney, of Wandsworth, for permission to copy and include letters from her collection of Burney MSS; to Richard Border, Esq., for the letter from Burney to Lady Banks; to Raymond Conrad, Esq., for information about the Troubadours; to the officials at the British Museum and the Music Library of the University of London; to G. Ceci for permission to photograph his copy of " A musical evening at Dr. Burney' s "; to the Education Department of the Columbia Graphophone Company, Ltd., for the loan of records: and, above all, to my wife, without whose constant help my work in connection with the publication could not have been accomplished,
1935. FRANK MERCER.
Abbreviations Used in the Editor's Notes
The usual abbreviations in connection with dates. Please note the c letter before a date refers to one date only. Thus, for example, in c. 1500-57 the circa refers to 1500, and not to 1557. If both dates should be uncertain, the following would be used: c. 1500-5. 57.
Add. MSS .................... Additional manuscript.
Bib. Nat ........................ Bibliotheque National Paris.
B. &H ....................... Breitkopf & Hartel.
B.M ........................... British Museum.
Davey ......................... History of English Music (1921).
D.T.O ........... . ...... ..... Denkmaler der Tonkunst in Osterreich.
D.D.T. ........ ................ Denkmaler der Deutscher Tonkunst.
E.M.S .................. ....... English Madrigal School.
Grove's ........................ Grove's Dictionary of Music & Musicians (ard editioa unless
otherwise stated).
Harl .......................... Harlean Manuscripts.
L.M.M.F ....... ...... . . . . ...... Les Maitres Musiciens de la Renaissance (H. Expert) Fttncafo*,
O.E.E. ....... . .......... ...... Old English Edition (Arkwright).
OX.H.M. ... ..... .............. Oxford History of Music (latest edition unless otherwise stated).
Proske. MJ> ................. Musica Divina.
Q.L. ... ............. . ......... Eitner. Quellen-Lexikon.
Torchi. A.M.I. .. .............. L'Arte Musicale in Italia.
V.V.N.M. ..................... Vereeniging voor Nederlandsche Muztekgeschiedenis.
CONTENTS
BOOK I.
Page
DEDICATION 9
PREFACE 11
DEFINITIONS 21
DISSERTATION ON THE Music OF THE ANCIENTS
Section I. Of the Notation or Tablature of Ancient Music, including its Scales, Intervals, Systems, and Diagrams ... ... 23
Section II. Of the three Genera: Diatonic,
Chromatic, and Enharmonic ... .... 40
Section III. Of the Modes 53
Section IV. Of Mutations 64
Section V. Of Melopoeia 67
Section VI. Of Rhythm 71
Section VII. Of the Practice of Melopoeia ... 87 Section VIII. Whether the Ancients had
Counterpoint or Music in Parts 105
Section IX. Of Dramatic Music ... ... 133
Section X. Of the Effects Attributed to the Music of the Ancients
THE HISTORY OF EGYPTIAN Music ...
THE HISTORY OF HEBREW Music
THE HISTORY OF GREEK Music
Chapter L Of Music in Greece during the Residence of Pagan Divinities, of the first
order, upon Earth -•••
Chapter II. Of the Terrestial, or Demi-Gods ... 247 Chapter III. Concerning the Music of Heroes
and Heroic Times ... ... ••• •'•• 254
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
Page THE HISTORY OF GREEK Music (Continued)
Chapter IV. Of the State of Music in Greece, from the time of Homer, till it was subdued by the Romans, including the Musical Contests at the Public Games 286
Chapter V. Of Ancient Musical Sects, and
Theories of Sound 342
Chapter VI. Of the Scolia, or Songs, of the
Ancient Greeks 359
THE HISTORY OF THE Music OF THE ROMANS ... 366 A LIST AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES TO BOOK I 383
REFLECTIONS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF SOME PARTICULAR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF ANTIQUITY 399
BOOK II.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF Music
Chapter I. Of the Introduction of Music into the Church, and of its progress there previous to the Time of Guido 409
Chapter II. Of the Invention of Counterpoint, and State of Music, from the Time of Guido, to the Formation of the Time-table ... 457
Chapter III. Of the Formation of the Time- table, and State of Music from that Discovery till about the middle of the fourteenth century ... ... 524
Chapter IV. Of the Origin of Modern Languages, to which written Melody and Harmony were first applied; and general state of Music till the Invention of Printing, about the year 1450 ... 559
Chapter V. Of the State of Music, from the Invention of Printing till the Middle of the XVIth Century: including its Cultivation in the Masses, Motets and Secular Songs of that Period ... ... 703
TO THE QUEEN
[CHARLOTTE]
MADAM,
THE condescension with which your Majesty has been pleased to permit your name to stand before the following History, may justly reconcile the author to his favourite study, and convince him, that whatever may be said by the professors of severer wisdom, the hours which he has bestowed upon Music have been neither dishonourably, nor unprofitably spent.
THE science of musical sounds, though it may have been depreciated, as appealing only to the ear, and affording nothing more than a momentary and fugitive delight, may be with justice considered as the art that unites corporal with intellectual pleasure, by a species "of enjoyment which gratifies sense, without weakening reason; and which, therefore, the Great may cultivate without debasement, and the Good enjoy without depravation.
THOSE who have most diligently contemplated the state of man, have found it beset with vexations, which can neither be repelled by splendour, nor eluded by obscurity; to the necessity of combating these intrusions of discontent, the ministers of pleasure were indebted for that kind reception, which they have perhaps too indiscriminately obtained. Pleasure and innocence ought never to be separated; yet we seldom find them otherwise than at variance, except when Music brings them together.
To those who know that Music is among your Majesty's recreations, it is not necessary to display its purity, or assert its dignity. May it long amuse your leisure, not as a relief from evil, but as an augmentation of good; not as a diversion from care, but
TO THE QUEEN
as a variation of felicity. Such, Madam, is my sincerest wish, in which I can, however, boast no peculiarity of reverence or zeal; for the virtues of your Majesty are universally confessed; and however the inhabitants of the British empire may differ in their opinions upon other questions, they afl behold your excellences with the same eye, and, celebrate them with the same voice; and to that name which one nation is echoing to another, nothing can be added by the respectful admiration, and humble gratitude of,
MADAM,
your Majesty's, most obedient
and most devoted Servant,
CHARLES BURNEY,
PREFACE
THE feeble beginnings of whatever afterwards becomes great or eminent, are interesting to mankind. To artists, therefore, and to real lovers of art, nothing relative to the object of their employment or pleasure is indifferent.
Sir Francis Bacon recommends histories of art upon the principle of utility, as well as amusement ; and collecting into one view the progress of an art seems likely to enlarge the knowledge, and stimulate the emulation of artists, who may, by this means, be taken out of the beaten track of habit and common practice, to which their ideas are usually confined.
The love of lengthened tones and modulated sounds, different from those of speech, and regulated by a stated measure, seems a passion implanted in human nature throughout the globe ; for we hear of no people, however wild and savage in other particulars, who have not music of some kind or other, with which we may suppose them to be greatly delighted, by their constant use of it upon occasions the most opposite : in the temple, and the theatre ; at funerals, and at weddings ; to give dignity and solemnity to festivals, and to excite mirth, chearfulness, and activity, in the frolicsome dance. Music, indeed, like vegetation, flourishes differently in different climates ; and in proportion to the culture and encouragement it receives ; yet, to love such music as our ears are accustomed to, is an instinct so generally subsisting in our nature, that it appears less wonderful it should have been in the highest estimation at all times, and in every place, than that it should hitherto never have had its progressive improvements and revolutions deduced through a regular history, by any English writer.
Indeed, though time has spared us a few ancient histories of empires, republics, and individuals, yet no models of a History, either of Music, or of any other art or science, are come down to us, out of the many that antiquity produced. Plutarch's Dialogue on Music approaches the nearest to history ; but, though it abounds with particulars relative to the subject, it is so short and defective, that it rather excites than gratifies curiosity.
Some of the writings of Aristotle and Aristoxenus that are lost, though they were not express histories of music, would, nevertheless, had they been preserved, have satisfied our doubts concerning several parts of ancient music, which are now left to conjecture.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
" Aristotle, the disciple of Plato," says Plutarch, " regarded melody as something noble, great, and divine." Now, as this passage is not to be found in the remaining works of Aristotle, it is imagined that Plutarch took it either from his Treatise on Music (a), or the second book of his Poetics, where he treated of the Flute and Cithara, both which works are lost. And yet Kircher, [1602-80] in his Musurgia (&),* speaking of the ancient writers on Music, whose works he had consulted among the manuscripts in the Jesuit's College Library at Rome, names Aristotle;** but I sought in vain for the Treatise which he had written expressly on Music, nor could I find there any work by that philosopher relative to the subject, except his Acoustics (c).
Almost all the ancient philosophers, especially the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Peripatetics, wrote treatises on Music, which are now lost. Meursius, in his notes on Aristoxenus, enumerates, among others, the following ancient writers on music, of whom we have nothing left but the name : Agenor, of Mytilene, mentioned by Aristoxenus (d), from whom sprung a sect of musicians called Agenorians ; as from Eratocles, the Eratocleans ; from Epigonus, the Epigonians, and from Damon, who taught Socrates music, the Damonians (e).
But of all the ancient musical writers, the name of no one is come down to us, of whose works I was in greater want than those of the younger Dionysius Halicamassensis, who flourished, .according to Suidas, under the emperor Adrian, and who wrote twenty-six books of the History of Musicians, in which he celebrated not only the great performers on the Flute and Cithara, but those who had risen to eminence by every species of poetry. He was, likewise, author of five books, written in defence of Music, and chiefly in refutation of what is alledged against it in Plato's Republic. Aristides Quintilianus (/) has, also, endeavoured to soften the severity of some animadversions against Music in the writings of Cicero (g) J but though time has spared the defence of this author, yet it does not indemnify us for the loss of that which Dionysius junior left behind him ; as testimonies are still remaining of his having been a much more able writer than Arist. Quintilianus (ft).
But though all the musical histories of the ancients are lost, yet almost every country ki Europe that has cultivated the polite arts, has, since the revival of learning, produced a history of Music, , except our own, Italy can boast of two works under that title ;
(a) 'YTT«P Movcrwe^. (b) Tom. *. p. 545. (c) Hepi <weov<rwv. (rf) lib. w. pt 36.
(t) The list of Greek writers on the subject of Music, whose works axe lost, amount*, in Fabriciua to near thirty.
(f)P.69,*tseq. (g) 1» Politic.
(It) Vide FabHrium, Bib. Grac. lib. iii. p. zo.
* The most famous of the many works of this versatile writer is the Mu*wrp* Vnivtrsafa 5nu Ars Ma-gna Consom Et Dissont fa vols., Rome, 1650), which contains much valuable informa- tion. The second volume deals with Greek music but is untrustworthy in many respects,
** Made many references to music In his writings. These have been collected and published ?7, XP^I808 (^««*»* Smptores Grow, iBgs). Aristotle was bom 384 B.C. and died 32* B.C., It is held by some authorities that the Problemata Sect. 19. which is of ten mentioned in this volume dates from the first or second century A.D. and was probably written at Alexandria.
12
one written in the latter end of the last century by Bontempi (*), and that of Padre Martini, in this (k). France has likewise two, one by Bone* $> and one by M. de Blainville (/ft)] and Germany has not only produced two histories of Music in its own language, by Caspar Printz (*), ai>4 Hi fearpurg (0) ; but one in Latin, lately published in two volumes, 4to. by the prince abbot of St. Blasius (p ). Unluckily, those of P. Martini,* and M. Marpurg, are not yet finished ; and that of the learned abbot only concerns church music ; so that though much has been done, much is still left for diligence to do (f ) ; and however I may respect the learning, and admire the industry and abilities of some of these writers, yet I saw the wants of English musical readers through such a different medium, that I have seldom imitated their arrangements, and never servilely copied their opinions. pJiftffed materials lie open to us all ; and as I spared no expense or pains either in acquiring or consulting 'them, the merely citing the same passages from them, cannot convict me of plagiarism. With respect likewise to manuscript information, and inedited materials from foreign countries, few modem writers have perhaps expended more money and time, undergone greater fatigue, or more impaired their health in the search of them, than myself.
And /«t; though all will readily allow, in general, that perfection is not to be expected in the works of man; it is evident that, in particular cases, little tenderness is shewn to imperfection in the most difficult and laborious undertakings.
If I might presume to hope,, however, for any unusual indulgence from the public with respect to this work, it must be from the peculiarity of my circumstances during the time it was in hand; for it may with the utmost truth be said, that it was composed in moments stolen from sleep, from reflection, and from an occupa- tion which required all my attention, during more than twelve ours a day, for a great part of the year.
(*) Historia Musica. In Perugia, fol. 1695.
(*) Storia detta Musica, 4to. In Bologna, x757, and 1770, and [1781].
(I) ffistoire de la Musique, et de ses Effets. z Tom. xamo. Par. 17x5, and Amst. 1726.
(m) Histoire generate, critique et philologique de la Musique. a Paris. 1767.
(n) ftitftoriffcfjc Eescfjreitafl tor Efcleit &mfl«tmfc IftUngfainflt, in |to> gcftrufct, ju
h
.1690.
' (o) Ifctitfoclje einWtunjj in Hi* ffiwcfjfcljte utrt fUforjmCjt U« altm tin* twutti
^to. -Berlin. 1759.
(p) De Cantu et Musica Sacra a prima Ecclesia eetate usque ad presens tempus. Typis San. •Blasianis. 1774.
(a) The history of Music by M. Bonet is written upon a very narrow plan j for the second volume contains nothing more than exclusive eulogiums of Luffi, and illiberal censures of every species of Italian music. And though the work of M. de Blainville is nominally a General History of Music, yet, notwithstanding the splendid promises in the title, the whole historical, critical, and (philological parts of this work, are comprised inless than half a thin quarto ; therestof the volume being fifled with a treatise on composition. The Musical Dictionary of M. Rousseau, without promising any thing more than an explanation of terms peculiar to the theory and practice of Music, affords not only more amusementrbut more historical information relative to the art, than perhaps any book of the size that is extant.
* An important figure in the musical life of the eighteenth century. He was bom at Bologna in i7o6 and died in 1784.. Apart from his compositions he was a prolific writer on musical matters. The third volume of his history was published in 1781 and this proved to be the last, as he died before he could complete the fourth. Martini had an enormous library which Burney estimated to contain about 17,000 volumes.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
If it be asked, why I entered on so arduous a task, knowing the disadvantages I must labour under, my answer is, that it was neither with a view to rival others, nor to expose the defects of former attempts, but merely to fill up, as well as I was able, a chasm in English literature. I knew that a history of Music was wanted by my countrymen, and was utterly ignorant that any one else had undertaken to supply it; yet, to confess the truth, I did, at first imagine, though I have been long convinced of my mistake, that, with many years practice and experience in musical matters, some reading, and the possession of a great number of books on the subject, I should have been able to compile such a history as was wanted, at my leisure hours, without great labour or expence.
But, after I had embarked, the further I sailed, the greater seemed my distance from the port: doubts of my own abilities, and respect for the public, abated my confidence; my ideas of what would be required at my "hands were enlarged beyond my powers of fulfilling them, especially in the narrow limits of two volumes, and in the little time I had allowed myself, which was made still less by sickness.
A work like this, in which it is necessary to give authorities for every fact that is asserted, advances infinitely slower, with all the diligence that can be bestowed upon it, than one of mere imagina- tion, or one consisting of recent circumstances, within the knowledge and memory of the writer. The difference in point of time and labour is as great as in building a house with scarce materials produced in remote regions of the world, or with bricks made upon the spot, and timber from a neighbouring wood; and I have frequently spent more time in ascertaining a date, or seeking a short, and, in itself, a trivial passage, than would have been requisite to fill many pages with conjecture and declamation.
However, after reading, or at least consulting, an almost innumerable quantity of old and scarce books on the subject, of which the duiness and pedantry were almost petrific, and among which, where I hoped to find the most information, I found but little, and where I expected but little, I was seldom disappointed; at length, wearied and disgusted at the small success of my researches, I shut my books, and began to examine myself as to my musical principles; hoping that the good I had met with in the course of my reading was by this time digested, and incorporated in my own ideas; and that the many years I had spent in practice, theory, and meditation, might entitle me to some freedom of thought, unshackled by the trammels of authority.
Concerning the music of the Greeks and Romans, about which the learned talk so much, it is impossible to speak with certainty; however, the chief part of what I have to say with respect to its theory and practice, is thrown into a Preliminary Dissertation, in order that the narrative might not be interrupted by discussions -concerning dark and disputable points, which will be generally uninteresting even to musical readers; and in which it is very
PREFACE
doubtful, whether I shall be able either to amuse or satisfy the learned.
It is, indeed, with great and almost hopeless diffidence, that I enter upon this part of my work; as I can hardly animate myself with the expectation of succeeding in enquiries which have foiled the most learned men of the two or three last centuries. But it has been remarked by Tartini, in speaking of ancient music, that doubt, difficulty, and obscurity, should not be imputed to the author, but to the subject, since they are in its very essence : for what, besides conjecture, is now left us, concerning things so transient as sound, and so evanescent as taste?
The land of conjecture, however, is so extensive and unappro- priated, that every new cultivator has a right to break up fresh ground, or to seize upon any spot that has long lain fallow, without the sanction of a grant from anyone who may arrogate to himself the sovereignty of the whole, or of any neglected part of it. But though no one has an exclusive right to these imaginary regions, yet the public has a just power of censuring the methods of improvement adopted by any new inhabitant, and of condemn- ing such productions as may be deemed unfit for use.
The opinions of mankind seldom agree, concerning the most common and obvious things; and consequently will be still less likely to coincide about others, that are reducible to no standard of truth or excellence, but are subject to the lawless controul of every individual who shall think fit to condemn them, either with, or without understanding them.
Dr. Johnson has well said, that " those who think they have done much, see but little to do;" and with respect to ancient music, I believe those who have taken the greatest pains to investigate the subject, are least satisfied with the success of their labours.
What the ancient music really was, it is not easy to determine; the whole is now become a matter of faith; but of this we are certain, that it was something with which mankind was extremely delighted: for not only the poets, but the historians and philosophers of the best ages of Greece and Rome, are as diffuse in its praises, as of those arts concerning which sufficient remains are come down to us, to evince the truth of their panegyrics. And so great was the sensibility of the ancient Greeks, and so accentuated and refined their language, that they seem to have been, in both respects, to the rest of the world, what the modern Italians are at present; for of these last, the language itself is music, and their ears are so polished and accustomed to sweet sounds, that they are rendered fastidious judges of melody, both by habit and education.
But as to the superior or inferior degree of excellence in the ancient music, compared with the modern, it is now as impossible tc determine, as it is to hear both sides.
15
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
Indeed it is so entirely lost, that the study of it is become as unprofitable as learning a dead language, in which there are no books ; and yet this study has given rise to so much pedantry, and to such an ambition in modern musical authors, to be thought well versed in the writings of the ancients upon music, that their treatises are rendered both disgusting and unintelligible by it. Words only are come down to us without things. We have so few remains of ancient Music by which to illustrate its rules, that we cannot, as in Painting, Poetry, Sculpture, or Architecture, judge of it, or profit by examples ; and to several of these terms which are crammed into our books, we are utterly unable to affix any precise or useful meaning. To write, therefore, in favour of ancient music now, is like the emperor Julian's defending paganism, when mankind had given it up as indefensible, and had attached themselves to another religion.
However, it is, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance for modern music that the ancient is lost, as it might not have suited the genius of our language, and might have tied us down to precedent ; as the writers of modem Latin never dare hazard a single thought or expression without classical authority.
The subject itself of ancient music is so dark, and writers concerning it are so discordant in their opinions, that every intelligent reader who finds how little there is to be known, has reason to lament that there still remains so much to be said. Indeed, I should have been glad to have waived all discussion about it : for, to say the truth, the study of ancient music is now become the business of an Antiquary more than of a Musician, But in every history of music extant, in other languages, the practice had been so constant for the author to make a display of what he knew, and what he did not know concerning ancient music, that it seemed absolutely necessary for me to say something about it, if it were only to prove, that if I have not been more successful in my enquiries than my predecessors, I have not been less diligent* And it appeared likewise necessary, before I attempted a history of ancient Greek music, to endeavour to investigate its properties, or at least to tell the little I knew of it, and ingenuously to confess my ignorance and doubts about the rest.
Indeed it was once my intention to begin my history with the invention of the present musical scale and counterpoint ; for
" What can we reason, but from what we know? "
But it was impossible to read a great number of books upon the subject, without meeting with conjectures, and it was not easy to peruse these, without forming others of my own. If those which I have hazarded should throw any light upon the subject, it will enable my readers to travel through the dark maze of enquiry with more facility, and consequently less disgust ; and if I fail in my researches, and leave both the subject and them where I found them, as the expectation which I encourage is but small, so it is hoped will be their disappointment. For with respect to all I
16
PREFACE
have to say, I must confess that the Spanish motto, adopted by Francis ie Vayer, is wholly applicable.
De las cosas mas seguras La mas seguras es dudar (r).
In wading through innumerable volumes, with promising titles, and submitting to the drudgery of all such reading as was never read, I frequently found that those who were most diffuse upon the subject, knew least of the matter ; and that technical jargon, and unintelligible pedantry so loaded each page, that not an eligible thought could be found, in exploring thousands of them. Indeed my researches were sometimes so unsuccessful, that I seemed to resemble a wretch in the street, raking the kennels for an old rusty nail. However, the ardour of enquiry was now and then revived by congenial ideas, and by gleams of light emitted from penetration and intelligence ; and these will be gratefully acknowledged, whenever they afford assistance.
There are already more profound books on the subject of ancient, as well as modem Music, than have ever been read ; it was time to try to treat it in such a manner as was likely to engage the attention of those that are unable, or unwilling, to read treatises written, for the most part, by persons who were more ambitious of appearing learned themselves, than of making others so. Indeed, I have long since found it necessary to read with caution the splendid assertions of writers concerning music, tiU I was convinced of their knowledge of the subject ; for I have frequently detected ancients as well as moderns, whose fame sets them almost above censure, of utter ignorance in this particular, while they have thought it necessary to talk about it. Apuleius, Pausanias, and Athenaeus, among the ancients, were certainly musicians ; but it is not so evident that Cicero, Horace, and others, who have interspersed many passages concerning Music in their works, understood the subject any more than our Addison, Pope, and Swift. Among these, the two first have written odes on St. Cecilia's day, in which they manifest the entire separation of Music and Poetry, and shew the possibility of writing well on what is neither felt nor understood. For Pope, who received not the least pleasure from Music himself, by the help of his friends, was enabled to describe its power with all the rapture and sublimity of a great genius, music-mad. This appears not only in his Ode of St. Cecilia, but in speaking of Handel, in the Dunciad.
Music and its admirers were ever contemned by him and Swift ; but, having neither taste nor judgment in this art, they were surely unqualified to censure it. Few conquerors ever aimed at universal monarchy, compared with the number of authors who have wished to be thought possessed of universal knowledge ; and yet these great writers, who discover, in what is within their competence, a vigour of mind, and elevation of genius, which inclines mankind to regard them as beings of a superior order, whenever they hope by the power
(r) The most secure of all secure things, is to doubt. Voi,. i. 2 17
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
of thinking to supply the place of knowledge, discover an imbecillity , which degrades them into common characters.
I will not, however, over-rate musical sensations so far as to say, with the poet, that the man who cannot enjoy them " is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils " ; there being, perhaps, among mankind, as many persons of bad hearts that are possessed of a love and genius for music, as there are of good, that have neither talents nor feeling for it : but I will venture to say, that it has been admired and cultivated by great and eminent persons at all times and in every country, where arts have been cherished ; and though there may be no particular connection between correctness of ear, and rectitude of mind, yet, without the least hyperbole it may be said, that, cceteris paribus, the man who is capable of being affected by sweet sounds, is a being more perfectly organized, than he who is insensible to, or offended by them.
But, as the Constable in Much ado about Nothing says, " these are gifts which God gives/' and lovers of music should be content with their own superior happiness, and not take offence at others for enjoying less pleasure than themselves. However, it is no uncommon thing for the rich to treat the poor with as much insolence, as if it were a crime not to be born to a great estate; yet, on the other hand, to be proud of beggary and want, is too ridiculous for censure.
With respect to the present work, there may, perhaps, be many readers who wish and expect to find in it a deep and well digested treatise on the theory and practice of music: whilst others, less eager after such information, wifl be seeking for mere amusement in the narrative. I wish it had been in my plan and power fully to satisfy either party; but a history is neither a body of laws, nor a novel. I have blended together theory and practice, facts and explanations, incidents, causes, consequences, conjectures, and confessions of ignorance, just as the subject produced them. Many new materials concerning the art of Music in the remote times of which this volume treats, can hardly be expected. The collecting into one point the most interesting circumstances relative to its practice and professors; its connection with religion; with war; with the stage ; with public festivals, and private amusements, have principally employed me: and as the historian of a great and powerful empire marks its limits and resources; its acquisitions and losses; its enemies and allies; I have endeavoured to point out the boundaries of music, and its influence on our passions; its early subservience to poetry, its setting up a separate interest, and afterwards aiming at independence; the heroes who have fought its battles, and the victories they have obtained.
If the titles of my chapters should appear too general and miscellaneous, and the divisions and sections of my work too few; if method and minute exactness in the distribution of its several subjects and parts should seem wanting; the whole is, perhaps, the more likely to be read for these deficiences; for a history, of
18
PREFACE
which the contents are symmetrically digested, separated by chapters, and sub-divided into sections, may be easily consulted, but is no more likely to be read throughout, than a dictionary.
My subject has been so often deformed by unskilful writers, that many readers, even among those who love and understand music, are afraid of it. My wish, therefore, is not to be approached with awe and reverence for my depth and erudition, but to bring on a familiar acquaintance with them, by talking in common language of what has hitherto worn the face of gloom and mystery, and been too much " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;" and though the mixing biographical anecdotes, in order to engage attention, may by some be condemned, as below the dignity of science, yet I would rather be pronounced trivial than tiresome; for Music being, at best, but an amusement, its history merits not, in reading, the labour of intense application, which should be reserved for more grave and Important concerns.
I have never, from a vain display of erudition, loaded my page with Greek; on the contrary, unless some disputable point seemed to render it necessary, or the passage was both remarkable and short, I have industriously avoided it, by referring my learned readers to the original text. The modesty of citation may, however, be carried to excess; for quotations of remarkable passages are very amusing and satisfactory to learned readers, and often prevent suspicions of misrepresentation. There is no pedantry in a margin; and the ancients are perhaps never so entertaining as in the fragment way of quotation. As I pretend not to such a profound and critical knowledge in the Greek language as to depend entirely upon myself, in obscure and contested passages, I have, when such occurred, generally had recourse to the labours of the best translators and commentators, or the counsel of a learned friend. And here, in order to satisfy the sentiments of friendship, as well as those of gratitude, I must publicly acknowledge my obligations to the zeal, intelligence, taste, and erudition of the reverend Mr. Twining ; a gentleman whose least merit is being perfectly acquainted with every branch of theoretical and practical music.
As ancient Greek Music had its technical terms, as well as the modern Italian, with which many excellent scholars and translators from that language, for want of an acquaintance with Music, and Greek musical writers, have been utter strangers, I may venture to observe that I have tried, and I hope not always without success, to trace these terms in ancient authors, in order to discover their original acceptation.
It would be a false, and perhaps offensive modesty, if I were here to trouble the reader with apologies for the length and frequency of quotations from the Iliad and Odyssey, and other ancient poets besides Homer; as it will be shewn, that history has no other materials to work upon in times of high antiquity, than those poems, T$ji?k fraye always been regarded as historical; prose
19
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
compositions having been utterly unknown in Greece for 300 years after most of them were written (s).
I have never had recourse to conjecture, when facts were to be found. In the historical and biographical parts, I have asserted nothing without vouchers; and I have made the ancients tell their own story as often as was possible, without disputing with them the knowledge of their own history, as many moderns have done; for I cannot help supposing them to have been full as well acquainted with their own affairs 2,000 years ago, as we are at present. An ancient Greek might, with almost equal propriety, have pretended to foretell what we should bef at the distance of 2,000 years, as we determine now what they then were.
Indeed it was my intention, when I first entered upon this work, to trace the genealogy of Music in a right line, without either meddling with the collateral branches of the family, or violating the reverence of antiquity. I wished and determined to proportion my labour to my powers, and I was unawares seduced into a course of reading and conjecture, upon matters beyond the reach of human ken, by the chief subject of my enquiries being so extensively diffused through all the regions of literature, and all the ages of the world. I found ancient Music so intimately connected with Poetry, Mythology, Government, Manners, and Science in general, that wholly to separate it from them, seemed to me like talcing a single figure out of a group, in an historical picture; or a single character out of a drama, of which the propriety depends upon the dialogue and the incidents. If, therefore, a number of figures appear in the back-ground, I hope they will give relief, and somewhat keep off the dryness and fatigue which a single subject in a long work, or a single figure, if often repeated, though in different points of view, is apt to produce.
(5) Cadmus Milesius. whom antiquity allowed to have been the inventor of history in prose, flourished, according to Sir Isaac Newton, 550 years B.C. and Herodotus, the oldest Greeic historian whose writings are preserved, died 484 years before the same sera'.
DEFINITIONS
Ancient writers upon science usually began with definitions ; and as it is possible that this work may fall into the hands of persons wholly unacquainted with the elements of Music, a few preliminary explanations of such difficulties as are most likely to occur to them, may somewhat facilitate the perusal of the technical parts of my enquiries.
Music is an innocent luxury, unnecessary, indeed, to our existence, but a great improvement and gratification of the sense of hearing. It consists, at present, of Melody, Time, Consonance, and Dissonance.
By Melody is implied a series of sounds more fixed, and generally more lengthened, than those of common speech; arranged with grace, and, with respect to Time, of proportional lengths, such as the mind can easily measure, and the voice express. These so^mds are regulated by a scale, consisting of tones and semitones; but admit a variety of arrangement as unbounded as imagination.
Consonance is derived from a coincidence of two or more sounds, which being heard together, by their agreement and union, afford to ears capable of judging and feeling, a delight of a most grateful kind. The combination and succession of Concords or Sounds in Consonance, constitute Harmony; as the selection and texture of Single Sounds produce Melody.
Dissonance is the want of that agreeable union between two or more sounds, which constitutes Consonance: in musical composition it is occasioned by the suspension or^ anticipation of some sound before, or after, it becomes a Concord. It is the Dolce piccante of Music, and operates on the ear as a poignant sauce on the palate; it is a zest, without which the auditory sense would be as much cloyed as the appetite, if it had nothing to feed on but sweets.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
Of musical tones the most grateful to the ear are such as are produced by the vocal organ. And, next to singing, the most pleasing kinds are those which approach the nearest to vocal ; such as can be sustained, swelled, and diminished, at pleasure. Of these, the first in rank are such as the most excellent performers produce from the Violin, Flute, and Hautbois. If it were to be asked what instrument is capable of affording the greatest effects? I should answer, the Organ ; which can not only imitate a number of other instruments, but is so comprehensive as to possess the power of a numerous orchestra. It ist however, very remote from perfection, as it wants expression, and a more perfect intonation.
With respect to excellence of Style and Composition, it may perhaps be said that to practised ears the most pleasing Music is such as has the merit of novelty, added to refinement, and ingenious contrivance ; and to the ignorant, such as is most familiar and common.
Other terms used in Modern Music, as well as those peculiar to the Ancient, are generally defined, the first time they occur, in the course of the work.
22
DISSERTATION
ON THE MUSIC OF
THE ANCIENTS
Section I
Of the Notation or Tdblature of Ancient
Music, including its Scales, Intervals,
Systems and Diagrams
THE music of the ancients, according to Euclid, Alypius,* and Martianus Capella,** was divided into seven constituent parts : these were Sounds, Intervals , Systems^, Genera, Modes, Mutations, and Melop&ia, or the composition of melody. To these divisions, which comprehended only what was denominated Harmonics, or the Science of Music, strictly so called, were added five other requisites, no less essential for a musician to know, than the preceding seven: and these were, Rhythm, or the regulation of cadences in all kinds of movement; Metre, or the measure of verses ; Organic, or the instrumental art ; Hypocritic, or gesture ; and Poetic, or the composition of verses. And still to these divisions, Aristides Quintilianus, and some other musical writers, add Odicuwi, or the Art of Singing; which, indeed, seems of more importance to Music, than either the Organic or Hypocritic art. In order to communicate to, my readers all the information I am able, upon so dark and difficult a subject, I shall consider the music of the ancient Greeks under such heads only as absolutely concern Music, according to our acceptation of the word ; for it is plain that several
* Probably flourished about 300 B.C. at Alexandria* His Introduction to Music which was reprinted by Meibomius in 1652 contains very valuable information on the subject of Greek musical notation. It is, however, only a part of the original work, the remainder having been lost.
** Born at Carthage, probably in the fifth century A.D. He wrote a work in nine volumes, of which the seventh contains an essay on music. Kopp, of Frankfort, published the text in 2836.
33
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
of its ancient divisions more immediately belonged to Poetry. Indeed these two arts were at first so intimately connected, and so dependant on each other, that rules for poetry were, in general, rules for music; and the properties and effects of both were so much confounded together, that it is extremely difficult to disentangle them.
Leaving therefore, for the present, all other distinctions, divisions, and subdivisions, with which ancient musical treatises abound, I shall proceed to fulfil the title of this section.
In the study of Modern Music, the first objects of enquiry are the names by which the several sounds in the scale are expressed ; and, if we regard music as a language, the Scale or Gammut may be called its Alphabet.
Plutarch says, that it is not sufficient for a musician to know what kind of music should be set to any particular poem ; he should likewise know how to write it down in all the Genera (6), that is to say, in the Diatonic or natural scale, consisting of tones and semitones as at present ; in the Chromatic, in which the scale was divided into semitones, and minor thirds ; and in the Enharmonic genus, moving by quarter tones, and major thirds, as will be explained hereafter.
It does not appear from history, that the Egyptians, Phoenicians.. Hebrews, or any ancient people, who cultivated the arts, except the Greeks and Romans, had musical characters; and these had no other symbols of sound than the letters of their alphabet, which likewise served them for arithmetical numbers and chronological dates.
As the notation of the Greeks was imagined in the infancy of the art of music, when the flute had but few holes, and the lyre but few strings, the simplicity of expressing the octave of any sound by the same sign, as in modern music, was not thought of; the most ancient and constant boundary of musical tones having been the Diatesseron, or fourth, the extremes of which interval were fixed, though the intermediate sounds were mutable : and in the manner of tuning these consisted the difference of intervals in the several genera (c).
The Greek scale, in the time of Aristoxenus, the oldest writer upon music, whose works are come down to us (d), extended to two octaves, and was called Systema perfectumf maximum immutatum; the great, the perfect, the immutable system; because its extremities formed a perfect consonance, including all the simple, double, direct, and inverted concords, with all the particular systems; and it was the opinion of the ancients that this disdiapason, or double octave, was the greatest interval which could be received in melody.
This whole system was composed of five tetrachords, or different series of four sounds, and one note added at the bottom of the scale to complete the double octave; whence the string which pro-
(b) De Musica. (c) See Sect. II.
(4) He flourished three hundred and forty years before Christ.
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
duced this sound was called aQooAapfiavopevos, Proslambanomenos, or note subjoined to the scale ; for though this was constantly the lowest sound in all the modes, it was not included in the tetrachords (0).
All these sounds had different denominations in the system, like our Gammut, A re, B mi, C fa ut, &c., besides two different characters, one vocal, and the other instrumental, appropriated to each sound in the several modes and genera, for the purpose of writing down melodies.
That the fourth was a favourite and important interval in the music of the ancients, is plain from the great system of two octaves having been composed of five of these tetrachords, in the same manner as the scale of Guido is of different hexachords.
The first tetrachord is called by the Greek musicians Hypaton, or principal; the sounds of which are denominated:
1 . Hypate hypaton, principal of principals;
2. Parypate hypaton, next the principal;
3. Lichanos hypaton, or index of principals ; from its having been played with the index or fore-finger. This third sound of the first tetrachord in the Diatonic genus, was likewise called Hypaton Diatonos.
4. Hypate meson, or principal of the middle or mean tetrachord ; for this sound not only served as the last or highest note of the first tetrachord, but as the first or lowest of the second; whence these two tetrachords were called conjoint, or connected. These four denominations of the sounds in the first tetrachord may be compared with the terms B mi, C fa ut, D sol re, and E la mi,
in the Guido scale ; or with the sounds
The sounds of the Meson, or middle tetrachord, were placed in the following order:
Hypate Meson, or principal of the mean tetrachord ;
Parypate Meson, next to the middle principal;
Lichanos Meson;
Mese, or middle, as this sound completes the second tetrachord, and is the centre of the whole system. The sounds of this tetrachord correspond with those which in the base of the scale of Guido, are called E la mi, F fa ut, G sol re ut, and A la mi re, which are
equivalent to
The Mese in ancient music was of equal importance with the key note in modern music: being an octave above ^the Proslambanomenos, which was the lowest sound of the ancient modes, and a kind of key note to them all.
(e) How this great system, from three 01 jour sounds only, was extended to a double octave, and by>rhom, will be related in the course of the history.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
Euclid calls Mese the sound by which all other sounds are regulated. And Aristotle, in his XXXVIth problem, sect. 19, says that all the tones of a scale are accommodated, or tuned, to the Mese. The same author likewise tells us, problem XX. that all melody, whether it moves above or below the Mese, has a natural tendency to that sound.
The third tetrachord,* beginning by the last note of the second, was thence called Synemmenon, the united, or conjunct tetrachord; the sounds of which proceed in the following order:
Mese ;
Trite Synemmenon, or third string of this tetrachord from the top ;
Paranete Synemmenon, penultima of this tetrachord ;
Nete Synemmenon, last of the Synemmenon tetrachord ; the four sounds of which correspond with those in the centre of our gammut, that are called A la mi re, B fa, C sol fa ut, and D la sol re,
The fourth tetrachord, ascending, is called Diezeugmenon, disjunct, or separated, as it begins at B natural, which is not a note in common with any one in the other tetrachords. But though this system of four sounds is only an octave higher than that of tile first tetrachord, and though the next is but a replicate of the second, I shall present them to the reader, as the several sounds of which they are composed have in the Greek music different denominations.
The first sound of the second octave, or series of eight sounds in the ancient great system, is Mese, and the first of the fourth tetrachord begins with the note.
Paramese, near the Mese, or middle sound ; the next is called Trite Diezeugmenon, or third string of this tetrachord from the top : then follows the Paranete Diezeugmenon ; and lastly, the
/) After ascending regularly thus far, up to D, by three conjoint tetrachords, the fourth tetra- chord in the great system is begun by descending a minor third to B natural, the octave above the first sound of the lowest tetrachord. Something of this dodging kind is to be found in the scale of Guide, divided into hexachords : tor, after ascending six notes regularly in the durum hexachord, it is necessary to descend a major third, if we would begin the natural hexachord ; and when the natural hexachord fe completed, if we would begin at the Molle, it can only be done by a leap of a third below. This will best appear by an example in notes :
Durum Hexachord Natural Hexachord Molle Hexachord
Ut ie mi ta sol la. Ut re mi fa sol la. Ut re mi fa sol la.
It appears from the Greek tetrachords, as well as from this example, that neither the ancients nor the early modems admitted the sharp seventh of a key into their scales.
* The system of tetrachords described by Burney was known as the " Perfect Immutable System," and is the combination of the " Greater Perfect " and the " Lesser Perfect " systems. The Greater System consisted of the four tetrachords, Hypaton, Meson, Diezeugmenon and Hyper i bolaion, in which the Meson and Diezeugmenon' tetracnords were disjunct. The Lesser System comprised the three tetrachords, Hypaton, Meson and Synemmenon ; the Meson and Synemmenon tetrachords being conjunct. As the mterva Jbetween the two lowest notes of a tetrachord had to be a semitone, the second note of Tetrachordon Synemmenon (Trite Synemmenon) had to be flattened*
26
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
Nete Diezeugmenon, or final soun.d of this tetrachord, which includes the sounds B mi, C sol fa ut, D la sol re, and E la mi, in
the middle of the Guido scale, or
The last sound of the fourth tetrachord is the first of the fifth, which is called the Hyperbolceon, or supreme tetrachord ; the sounds of which ascend in the following order:
Nete Diezeugmenon, last of the diezeugmenon tetrachord;
Trite Hyperbolceon, third string of the hyperbolseon tetrachord ;
Paranete Hyperbolceon, penultima of the supreme tetrachord;
Nete Hyperbolceon, last of the supreme, or highest tetrachord, and of the great system, or diagram.
This last tetrachord being added to the scale long after its first formation, was called Hyperbolceon, from its sounds being more acute than the rest, and beyond the common bounds of the scale ; in the same manner, as, with us, the notes above D in the treble are said to be in alt. This tetrachord includes the sounds E la mi, F fa
ut, G sol re ut, and A la mi re, or
Iff an
The ancients used likewise four different monosyllables ending with different vowels, by way of solmisation, for the exercise of the voice in singing; like our mi, fa, sol, la. These were, for the first note of each tetrachord, ra, for the second rf, for the third r5> and for the fourth, if it .did not serve as the first of the adjoining and relative tetrachord, rl ; but if it began a new tetrachord, it was called by the first name, ra.
The repetition of these monosyllables is a further proof that the fourth in the ancient music served as a boundary to a system of four sounds, in the same manner as a hexachord did in the Guido scale, and as an octave does for eight sounds in the more modern practice.
Any interval between the terms of which one or more sounds intervened, was by the ancients called a System : EG, for example, constituted a system of a third minor ; EA, of a fourth ; EB, of a fifth, &c.
These smaller systems were of different species ; thus there were three kinds of tetrachords, that differed in melody by the position of the semitone, which was sometimes at the beginning, sometimes at the end, and sometimes in the middle : as in the following example, where the black notes are semitones, an.d the white, tones.**
-e-tt-gr
* The tetrachords and scales formedjfrom them were considered as descending sequences of notes, but the idea of a tonic or final as we understand it was probably introduced at a much later date
Tetrachord, Similar variations were
37
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
As the Greeks used all the four and twenty letters of their alphabet for musical characters, or symbols of sound ; and as their most extensive system or scale did not exceed two octaves, or fifteen sounds, it should seem as if their simple alphabet was more than sufficient to express them ; for their music being at first only a notation of their poetry, the rhythm, or air, must have been determined by the metre of the verses, without the assistance of signs of proportion peculiar to music. But supposing it was necessary for them to have different characters to express the different feet of the verse, it is certain that vocal music was in no want of them; and instrumental being chiefly vocal music played by instruments, had likewise no need of them, when the words were written, or the player knew them by heart.
However, in order to multiply these characters, the letters of their alphabet were sometimes written in capitals, and sometimes small ; some were entire, some mutilated, some doubled, and some lengthened ; and besides these distinctions in the form of the letters, they had others of situation, sometimes turning them to the right, sometimes to the left ; sometimes inverting, and sometimes placing them horizontally ; for instance, the letter Gamma, by these expedients, served to express seven different sounds : F L 1 H H M- |j. Some of the letters were also barred, or accented, in order to change their symbolical import; and these still not sufficing, they made the common grave and acute accents serve as specific musical notes.
It is a matter that has been long disputed among the learned, whether Accents were originally Musical Characters, or marks of Prosody. It is in vain to set about determining a question concerning which the proofs on both sides are so numerous (g). But as music had characters different from accents so early as the time of Terpander, to whom the invention is given by the Oxford Marbles,* which place this event about six hundred and seventy years before
(g) See Gaily and Spelman against accents, and Primatt and Forsterin defence of tliem. Mr. West is firmly of opinion *' that accents were originally imtsical notes, set over words to direct the several tones and inflexions of the voice, requisite to give the whole sentence its proper harmony and cadence." Find. vol. ii. And the abb6 du Bos, who frequently by a peremptory decision cuts the knot of such difficulties as he is unable to untie, asserts, without sufficient proof, that as poets originally set their own verses, they placed for this purpose a figure, or accent, over each syllable. So that, according to this writer, we are at present, not only in possession of the poetry of Homer, Pindar, Anacreon, and Sappho, but their music.— Why then do we complain of the total loss of Greek music ? See Reflex. Critique, c. iii. p. 85.
* A collection of works of art made by Thomas Howard, the second Earl of Arundel (c. 1585- 1646). The marbles and a considerable number of statues were donated to Oxford University in 1667 and are usually known as the Arundel Marbles. One of the chief items of the collection is the famous Parian Chronicle, a marble slab said to have been carved about 263 B.C. in the island of Paros. The slab records events in Greek history from 1582 B.C. to 354 B.C.
The following extract from Evelyn's Diary (Sept. 19, 1667} is of interest :— " To London, with Mr. Henry Howard, of Norfolk, of whom I obtained the gift of his Arunddian Marbles, those celebrated and famous inscriptions Greek and Latin, gathered with so much cost and industry from Greece, by his illustrious grandfather, the magnificent Earl of Arundel, my noble friend whilst he lived. When I saw these precious monuments miserably neglected, and scattered up and down about the garden, and other parts of Arundel House, and how exceedingly the corrosive air of London impaired them, I procured him to bestow them on the University of Oxford. This he was pleased to grant me; and gave me the key of the gallery, with leave to mark all those stones, urns, altars, &c., and whatever I found had inscriptions on them, that were not statues. This I did; and getting them removed and piled together, with those which were encrusted in the garden walls, I sent immediately letters to the Vice-Chancellor of what I had procured, and that if they esteemed it a service to the University (of which I had been a member), they should take order for their transportation."
28
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
Christ ; and as accents for prosody are likewise proved to be of high antiquity, it seems as if there could have been no necessity for the ancients to use one for the other.
But it has already been remarked that the letters of the alphabet, though turned, distorted, and mutilated, so many different ways, were insufficient to express the sounds of all the modes in the three genera ; so that recourse was had to accents, as the scale became more^ extended, in order to augment the number of characters. And Alypius, in the enumeration of the notes in the enharmonic genus, tells us, that Trite Synemmenon is represented by Beta and the acute accent ; and Paranete Synemmenon enarmonios by Alpha, and the grave accent (h).
This is a proof that the accents were known at the time of Alypius, and were then used chiefly for prosody, not music, for which they were only called in occasionally. Indeed they are mentioned as accentual marks by writers of much higher antiquity than Alypius ; for not only Cicero and Plutarch, but Aristotle and Plato, speak of them as merely regarding the elevation and depression of the voice in speech. However, in the early Greek and Roman missals, as will be shewn hereafter, the musical characters used in Canto Fermo, seem to have been only lengthened accents.
These various modifications of letters and accents in the Greek notation composed in all one hundred and twenty different characters, which were still considerably multiplied in practice ; for each of these characters serving many purposes in the vocal as well as instrumental tablature or gammut, and being changed and varied according to the different modes 'and genera, as the names of our notes are changed by different clefs and keys, the one hundred and twenty Greek characters produced one thousand six hundred and twenty notes (t) !
Two rows of these characters were usually placed over the words of a lyric poem ; the upper row serving for the voice, and the lower for instruments.
If we had not the testimony of aH the Greek writers who have mentioned these characters, for their use and destination, it would be natural to suppose that the double row of different letters placed over each other, and above the words of a poem, were intended to express different parts, with respect to harmony ; as with us, in modern music, the treble notes are written over the base, and the first treble over the second ; but Alypius, who is extremely minute in his instructions concerning the use of these characters, in all these modes, tells us, in express terms, that the upper line of the
(h) Bijra KOA o£eta, B' : — a\<£a *ai jSapeta, A\ Alyp. Edit. Meibom, p. 56.
(*) Not contented with using all the letters of the alphabet, in every possible situation, as symbols of sound, the Greeks mutilated and distorted them io order to augment their number ; just as the ancient JEgyptians,in their animal idolatry and religious ceremonies, " besides the adoration of almost every thing existing, worshipped a thousand chimeras of their own creation, some with human bodies, and- the head or feet of beasts : others with brutal bodies, and the head or feet of men ; while others again were a fantasticaTcompound of fthe severaTparts of beasts, birds, and reptiles, terrestrial and aquatic." Div, keg . vok W- P» 178.
29
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
notes is for the words, and the lower for the lyre (fe). And he afterwards proves them to have been unisons to each other, both by his definitions, and by placing them opposite to the same sound in all the scales.
In this author, the notes of the great system of the Lydian mode in the diatonic genus, are ranged in the following order:
7 1 R $ C P M lOrUZ E 13 CD Ji M' I HrLFCoTT<:VNZfcJLlZr?/.T['<J' (/)
And these he defines in such a manner as leaves no room to doubt
of the identity of their signification.
7 H Proslambanomenos, an imperfect Zeta, and a Tau placed horizontally.
1 F Hypate Hypaton an averted Gamma, and a Gamma direct.
R L Parypate Hypaton, an imperfect Beta, and a Gamma inverted.
$ F Hypaton Diatonos, a Phi, and a Digamma.
C C Hypate Meson, Sigma and Sigma.
P O Parypate Meson, Rho, and Sigma inverted.
M T Meson Diotonos, Mu, and a lengthened Pi.
I < Mese, Iota, and a horizontal Lambda.
6 V Trite Synemmenon, Theta, and an inverted Lambda.
F N Synemmenon Diatonos, Gamma and Nu.
C? Z Nete Synemmenon, an inverted Omega and a Zeta.
Z t Paramese, Zeta, and Pi placed horizontally.
E j Trite Diezeugmenon, Epsilon, and an inverted Pi.
0 Z Diezeugmenon Diatonos, as Nete Synemmenon, which was the same string in the lyre.
& iy 2\fete Diezeugmenon, horizontal Phi, and a small Eta lengthened.
j^ / Trite hyperbolceon, an inverted Upsilon, and an imperfect
M'T HyperbolcBon Diatonos, Mu, and a lengthened Pi,
accented. I <!' Nete Hyperbolceon, Iota, and an accented Lambda, placed
horizontally.
It is from the indefatigable labour of that learned Meibomius,* in his Commentaries upon the ancient Greek Musicians, particularly
(ft) Sijfxeta TO fiw aw, rrj? Ae£ea><?' TO. fie icaro TTJS Kpovo-ews. Introd. Mus. Edit. Meibom. p. 2. We are told, not only by Alypius, but by Gaudentius, p. 23, that of the two rows of letters used for musical characters, the upper is for the words, that is, to be sung, and the under to be played.
(Z) It is somewhat strange that the notes for the voice in ancient music, should be placed above those for the lyre, and consequently further from the words. Meibomius, in his preface, has, however, given a curious reason for this custom, from a fragment of Bacchius, senior : " The upper line of notes is for the poem, the lower for the lyre j because the mouth, which alone gives utterance to the words, is placed by nature above the hands, which produce tones from the instrument."
* Marcus Meibom (Meibomius) of Upsala and Utrecht, published tracts and translations of many Greek and Roman books on music. There does not seem to be any English translation ot the Antiques musicae auctares septem graece et Mine (1625). He died in 1711. There have been reprints of his work including one by Karl von Jais issued in 1895. Meibom's works include the treatises of Aristoxenus. Euclid (Cleonides), Alypius, Nichomachus, Gaudentius, Bacchius senior, and Aristides Quintilianus.
30
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
Alypius, that we are able to decypher these characters ; which, before his time, had been so altered, corrupted, disfigured, and confounded, by the ignorance or negligence of the transcribers of ancient manuscripts, that they were rendered wholly unintelligible.
In examining the three diagrams of Alypius, where the notation of all the fifteen modes in each genus is given, I have frequently tried to find some rule for the use of different kinds of letters, or reason for the confusion in which they appear in the scale. I thought it would have furnished something of 201 historical deduction, if I could have discovered that the simple letters of the alphabet were used in a regular series, to express the sounds ascending or descending, in any one mode of the several genera. For it was natural to suppose, that in the first use of the alphabet for notes as well as numbers, the order would have been regular ; and if such a regularity could have been found, in any mode of the three genera, it might have been presumed that such mode was the first to which the alphabetic characters had been applied.
Indeed something like regularity appears, in passing the eye obliquely upwards from Mese to Nete hyperbolaeon, in all the genera, particularly in the enharmonic diagram, where the letters proceed by quarter tones, as is generally the case, but with many exceptions : I tried in vain to find the rule for these exceptions. All the notes in the horizontal range of the several diagrams, are at the same pitch; but they are frequently expressed by different characters, for which I have been a.ble to assign no solid reason. And, on the contrary, notes of a different pitch are sometimes expressed by the same character, for which I am equally unable to account. The letters and scale go on in a direct series of quarter- tones for some time ; but afterwards, a letter is, unaccountably, either omitted or repeated, which interrupts all regularity. I rather suspect, however, that these perplexities may arise from the modes being a semitone above each other. Ptolemy, lib. II. cap. 2 speaks of the inconvenience of this arrangement of modes, owing to the necessity of altering in some of them the tuning of all the strings. I suspect likewise, that where the same note, in the same horizontal line, is expressed by different characters, it was to suit the lyre ; and that the two different sounds were expressed with the same mark, to suit the fingers.
After a long and painful meditation upon these diagrams, all that I am able to discover like regularity and constancy in them, is in the following particulars :
1. In all the three genera the simple alphabet is used for the upper octave of the Disdiapason, beginning with A at the semitone above Nete hyperbolc&on, and always ending with Omega in Mese. From thence downwards the second alphabet is used (m) consisting of the disguised, and mutilated letters, but in the same regular order of the alphabet, beginning always from Mese, and ending with the divided Phi & a, in proslambanomenos of the Hypodorian mode.
(w) Vide Meibom, in Prarf .
31
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
The order of the letters in these several instances is broken and interrupted, but no where, that I have been able to discover, reversed or promiscuous. Then from the semitone above Nete hyperbolceon upwards, to dd, the octave of Nete synemmenon, six other characters are used, and these are still the six last letters of the alphabet in a different dress: if these are traced downwards from x ^> to QZ' tliey wiu ke found as regular as the former letters.
To complete the three octaves and one tone, in giving all the fifteen modes intire, there still remain thirteen characters more, which are repeated from the first alphabet of simple letters, except the y at the top : after that character, they descend regularly from AV to OK', distinguished only by an accent. The plain alphabet therefore is used down to Mese, and the disguised alphabet from mese to proslambanomenos. Six new disguised letters, however, appear from the octave above Trite synemmenon, up to the octave above Nete synemmenon : and thirteen old ones, with the addition only of a virgula, from that sound up to the double octave above Paramese.
2. In the enharmonic and chromatic genera the characters are exactly the same, and in the same perpendicular order, in all the modes ; only the chromatic Lichani, the distinguishing strings of each genus, are marked, as Meibomius observes, with a dash, to distinguish them from the enharmonic Lichani (n).
3. In all the three diagrams the strings, except the Lichani, have the same characters : this will appear in examining any of the modes ascending or descending perpendicularly, and missing the red characters, which are the Lichani ; for the order of the rest, which are black, will be found exactly the same in all the genera. Thus much seems fixed and constant in all the diagrams of Alypius, as published by Meibomius, and upon which these remarks are intended as a commentary.
With respect to the multiplicity of characters, it is natural to suppose that the Greeks began their notation when their compass was small: as that was extended, they, were forced by degrees to augment the number of their musical characters. And when this method of notation by the letters of the alphabet was once established, nothing was more obvious than to repeat the same letters, which admitted of such easy variation, by position, mutilation, and accents. The order of instrumental notes is much more wild and unaccountable than that of the vocal, to which these remarks have been hitherto confined.*
I am fearful of swelling my book too much with these conjectural explications, though there is scarce a single circumstance relative to ancient music which does not require them. However, amidst so much doubt and obscurity, two points seem clearly demonstrable :
(n) The third string ascending, of each of the two lowest tetrachords, is called Lichanos.
* A complete list of the signs used in Greek musical notation will bo found on page 6 of the introductory volume to the Oxford History of Music (1939) and also in the article " Monochord " in Grove's Dictionary (vol. Ill, p. 498).
32
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
first, that the enharmonic genus moving in dieses, or quarter-tones, is the most regular in its notation ; which encourages a belief that this genus, however unnatural and difficult to us, must have been not only very ancient, but the first that was expressed in writing ; and consequently, at some one period of time, must have been in the most general use (o). Secondly, that it must have been usual to read the general scales, or diagrams, backwards, descending, from acute to grave ; which, as all the ancient modes were in what we should call minor keys, must have been more agreeable to the ear than ascending, for want of a sharp-seventh. This, however, does not imply that the tetrachords were always read in that order; for these being much more ancient than the alphabetic notation, had been long tuned and regulated from grave to acute.
The neglect of these distinctions will introduce a universal scepticism concerning every part of ancient music. But provided the intervals are determined, it is of as small consequence whether the scale is read from the top to the bottom, or the bottom to the top, as whether a child is taught to repeat the modern gammut from G in the treble, or G in the base.
The scales of Aristoxenus, Euclid, and Alypius, begin at Proslambanomenos, it is true; but though this note is first named in the descriptions and definitions of the sounds of the several systems, and consequently stands highest in the page where it is mentioned, yet it does not follow that it was the most acute sound in the scale, or that it was produced by the shortest string in the ancient lyre (p). But so disputable is every thing that concerns Greek music, that it has even been doubted whether this leading note was the highest or lowest of the scale.
Galilei, Zarlino, Bontempi, Tevo, M. Rousseau, Dr. Brown, and others have asserted, that the terms high and low, had different acceptations among the ancients, from those in which they are understood by the moderns, without guarding, as they ought to have done, against such consequences, with respect to the situation of the scale, as it was natural for the reader to draw from that assertion.
Dr. Pepusch* asserts roundly, and without the least modification of doubt, or even condescending to alledge a single reason or proof in defence of his opinion, that "it was usual among the Greeks to consider a descending as well as an ascending scale ; the former proceeding from acute to grave, precisely by the same intervals as the latter did from grave to acute. The first sound of each was the Proslambanomenos (q)."
(o) See Sect II.
(p) If a verbal description of the modern gammut were given in writing, without notes, it would have the same appearance : r ut, A re, B mi, C fa ut, D sol re, E la mi, F fa ut, G sol re ut, A la mi re, B f a B mi, C sol fa ut, &c.
(q) Phil. Trans. No. cccclxxxi. p. 226, and Martyn's Abridg. Vol. X. Part i, p. «6i
m * 1667-1752. Specialized in the study of Greek musical theory. He settled in London in 1700, and became a well-known and popular composer for the stage. He is best remembered to-day by the work he did for "The Beggar's Opera " and " Polly."
Vox,, i. 3 33
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
No instances of these inverted scales are to be found, however, in Aristoxenus, Euclid, or any of the oldest and best writers. Boethius, Bryennius, and some other of the more modern compilers, have, indeed, puzzled the cause by ambiguous expressions, which seem to bear such construction (r) ; and Dr. Pepusch, the oracle of his time, who equalled at least that of Delphos by the darkness of his decrees, readily jumped to any conclusion that would involve a musical question in mysterious and artificial difficulty.
It seems as if all this perplexity and confusion had arisen from the want of precision in the musical nomenclature of the Greeks. The prepositions vno, sub, vase, super, an<i the adjectives VXCLTOG, summus, and VIJTOS, imus, have manifestly* been applied to sounds more to express their situation in the lyre and diagrams, than the length of the strings, or the gravity and acuteness of their tones.
Dr. Wallis,* in his Appendix to Ptolemy's Harmonics (s), explains this difficulty in the following manner.
"The Greeks called Hypate, supreme, though it is the lowest sound or string of the tetrachord ; and Nete, last, or lowest, though the most acute. (This Henry Stephens acknowledges at the word vvjrij, which he defines ultimam seu imam : and paranete, ima proximam) : therefore those who first ma.de use of these names, applied them differently from us, calling grave, high, and acute, low. And thus Nicomachus, p. 6, calls Saturn the highest of the planets, Hypate] and the moon, the lowest, with respect to us, Nete. Boethius, likewise, in his Treatise on Music, places, in all his diagrams, the low sounds at the top, and the high ones at the bottom. But, he concludes, that we must not attend to the original import of these words, summus and imus, but understand Hypate and Nete as first and last, or principal and extreme, as Aristides Quintilianus has done, p. 10."
In the first, or Mercurian lyre, the longest string, which produced the lowest sound, from being placed highest in the instrument, as is the case with the modern harp, was called Hypate, the highest sound, and Nete, for the same reason, was afterwards, upon the extension of the scale, called lowest, though the most acute. Trite, the third string from the top of the two last tetrachords, had its name, as in our violins, by comparison with the smallest strings. From a passage in Aristides Quintilianus (t) it seems as if the Greeks, in naming and numbering the notes of their scale, made it a rule always to go towards Mese, and end with it, as being the regulator of the other notes, and situated in the medium of the voice. This is confirmed by the problem of Aristotle already cited, and this confirms what has been already observed of the order of the alphabetic notation, in which Mese is always expressed by
(r) Meibom, in Gaudent, p. 33, et Wallis in Bryennio, p. 364, et seq.
(s) P. 159. FoL Ed. (t) P. n, at the top.
* Published the texts of Ptolemy, Porphyry's Commentary and Bryennius, between 1657-1699.
34
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
Omega. It seems, therefore, as if the Greeks ascended the lower octave of the disdiapason, and descended the upper one ; otherwise it is not easy to see why the strings of the upper octave should have names referring, as they evidently do, to a descending series, and in order opposite to those of the lower octave (u).
IlaQa, in the compound names of the notes, evidently means next in order; Parypate, in the lower octave, then is ascent ; Paranete, in the upper octave, plainly descent. The same is implied in Trite. But the term Neie, last, looks very like ascent again — And darkness was upon the face of the deep ! — These contradictions may account in some degree for the great perplexity about the scale ; they are curious, however, and as well worth observing, perhaps, as any matters of this kind.
I have, indeed, from the seemingly aukward and uncouth melody produced by the Greek scales ascending, been sometimes inclined to think that if they were reversed with respect to intervals, it would be much more agreeable to our ears, and explain away many difficulties; but soon found that it would leave others stifl more insuperable behind : put Proslambanomenos out of the question, as a note that might be added indifferently to the top or bottom of the scale, and compare the intervals of our diatonic scale in C natural descending, with that of the Greek in the Hypodorian mode ascending, and the intervals will be found to be the same.
This hypothesis might have been defended by many passages in the Greek writers ; yet stubborn facts would have arisen against it, by which, in the end, it would be totally overthrown.
The perplexity concerning the scale is a subject that required more time and meditation than I was able to bestow upon it ; however, I was very unwilling to leave it, till I had discovered by some indisputable rule, how to determine the question, as the few fragments left of Greek music, by a mistake in this particular, would be as much injured as a poem, by reading it backwards.
At length, an infallible rule presented itself to me,, in the works of the great Euclid, who has been regarded for so many ages as the legislator of mathematicians, and whose writings have been their code. In his section of the Canon (x), p. 37, Edit. Meibom. he represents Proslambanomenos by the whole string: so that, if any thing concerning ancient music can be made certain, it is, that this whole string represented the lowest sound in the Greek scale, which, in the Hyperdorian mode, was equivalent to the
(u) See Meibomius's note upon Arist. Quintil. p. n, which seems solid.
(*) By Canon must here be understood a single string, which being intersected by moveable bridges, serves as a rule or law, for determining musical intervals, and the exact proportion of sound to sound.
35
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
note A
Half the string, Mese, its octave, a,
Third part, Nete diezeugmenon, fifth of the octave, e,
And the fourth part of the string, Nete hyperbolaon, the double octave, aa,
which include all the concords that the ancients admitted. Eight ninths of the string are allotted to the sound Hypate Bareia Gravis, which is B in the base, one tone higher than Proslambanomenos, or A.
This section, therefore, of the line, representing the sound A, must put an end to every doubt concerning the order of the scale, which may have arisen from the inverted application of the words high and low, constantly occurring in all the more ancient and authentic Greek writers on music.
And now having done with the scale, let us return to the tablature.
The multiplicity of notes in ancient Greek music must certainly have made it a very long and laborious study, even at a time when the art itself was in reality very simple. Hence it is not surprising to find that Plato (y), though he was unwilling that youth should bestow too much time upon music, allowed them to sacrifice three years to it, merely in learning the elements ; and thought that he had reduced this study to its shortest period : but at the end of this time, a student could hardly be capable of naming all the notes, and of singing an air at sight, as we call it, in all keys and in all the genera, accompanying himself at the same time upon the lyre ; much less could it be expected that he should be correct in every species of rhythm ; that he should be master of taste and expression; or be able to compose a melody himself to a new lyric poem.
It was much more difficult to sing from the tablature, than to follow a voice or instrument, as it is far more perplexing to read the Chinese language than to speak it, on account of the great multiplicity of characters. However, if we could find Greek music now,* we should be able to read it, contrary to the general opinion, which is, that the ancient notation is utterly lost. But though we can perhaps decypher it as exactly as the Greeks themselves could
(y) De Legib. lib. viL
* Only a few examples of Greek music have come down to us :—
(1) Scraps of music to the Orestes of Euripides (lines 338-343). The fragment is generally considered as being a contemporary score.
(2) An inscription on a column discovered at Tralles by W. H. Ramsay, and known as the Epitaph of Seikolos. The date of this fragment is uncertain.
(3) Three hymns by Mesomedes, of which transcriptions by Burney are given in Section 7
(4) Some parts of hymns found whilst excavating the site of Delphi. The probable date of the first of •these is late second century B.C., and of the second circa xs8 B.C.
(5) A few exercises for instruments now deposited at Berlin.
36
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
have done, yet to divide it into phrases, to accentuate, and to give it the original and true expression, are things, at present, impossible, and ever will remain so. For it is with the music of every country as with the language ; to read it with the eye, and to give it utterance, are different things ; and we can arrive at no greater certainty about the expression of a dead music, than the pronunciation of a dead language.
" It is astonishing, however," says M. Burette (z), " that the ancient Greeks, with all their genius, and in the course of so many ages as music was cultivated by them, never invented a shorter and more commodious way of expressing sounds in writing, than by sixteen hundred and twenty notes; nor ever thought of simplifying their tablature, by making the same characters serve both for voices and instruments. It will perhaps be said that this distinction of tablature still subsists with us, for the lute, and for some other instruments ; but this distinction is almost abolished (a)." And yet, notwithstanding the great simplicity of our tablature, compared with that, of the ancients, it must be owned that the modern characters are so numerous and difficult to understand, and retain in the memory, that a student in music has the voice and ear formed long before the eye is able to read them. And it may be affirmed, that the attention to the rules of music is more difficult than the execution.
It would be therefore curious to calculate the difficulties of ancient and modern music separately, that by a comparative view we might be enabled to determine which had the greater number.
With respect to those of notation, their being so much more numerous in the ancient music than the modern, is, perhaps, more imaginary than real.
For though the ancients had one hundred and twenty .different characters for sound only, without including time, which characters, by changes in the modes and genera, were multiplied to sixteen hundred and twenty ; yet, if we compare these changes with such as are produced by our seven clefs, in which each note is subject to the accidents of flats and sharps, the memory will appear to be little less burthened by modern than by ancient musical notation.
Our compass is indeed much more extensive than that of the Greeks ; but if we confine it to three octaves only, which was the extent of the whole range of modes in the great system of the ancients,* we shall have seven changes for each of the twenty-two natural sounds, which amount in all to one hundred and fifty-four, without the accidents of flats and sharps ; and these being nearly
(*) Mem. de Litter, torn. v. p. 182.
(a) M. Burette has presented to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Letttes at Paris, a great number of well written memoirs upon almost every part ox ancient music. When the enquiries of this learned academician seem successful, and satisfy my mind by the solution of difficulties, I shall freely avail myself of his diligence and erudition ; at other times, I shall either attempt to explain these difficulties myself, or shall frankly confess my ignorance and inability to furnish my readers with any satisfactory information concerning
* The full extent of the Greek musical system was ultimately three and one third octaves, The number of signs employed therefore was 140—70 for vocal and 70 for instrumental use.
37
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
The Perfect System of the Moderns compared with the Qreat and Qeneral System of the Ancients
|
Greek appellatives |
Notation of the sounds in the Hypo- donan mode |
An- cient Solmi* sation |
Modern solmi- sation, attri- buted to Guido |
Roman letters of which the capitals were first used by StGregory |
Clefs |
Greek names to the sounds of the second octave. |
|||||||||
|
M' n |
M T! |
TO |
la |
ee |
|||||||||||
|
JL \ |
JL A. |
ra |
TW |
la |
sol |
dd |
dd |
||||||||
|
* A |
* A |
TU> |
T^ |
sol B fa |
fa mi |
cc |
cc |
||||||||
|
B / |
U |
T^ |
ra |
bb |
tlB |
||||||||||
|
r N |
re |
la |
mi |
re |
aa |
Nete hyperbolaeon |
|||||||||
|
H > |
ro> |
sol |
re |
ut |
fir |
1 |
Paranete Hyperb. or Hyp. diat. |
||||||||
|
A X, |
ri? |
fa |
ut |
f |
Trite hyp. |
||||||||||
|
M Tt |
TO, |
la |
mi |
e |
Nete diezeug. |
||||||||||
|
Nete Synemmenon |
P C |
IT 0 |
TO. |
TO) |
la |
sol |
re |
d |
d |
Paranete diez. or Diez. diat. |
|||||
|
Synem. diat. |
T 1 |
Y IL |
TW |
T^ |
sol tt fa |
fa |
ut |
c |
c |
f |
Trite diez. |
||||
|
Trite Synem. |
* 9 |
* 1 |
Tij |
ra |
mi |
b |
ti |
Paramese. |
|||||||
|
MESS |
O X" |
T« |
la |
mi |
re |
a |
|||||||||
|
Meson diat. or Lichanos Meson |
^ H |
TO) |
sol |
re |
ut |
G |
|||||||||
|
Parypate Meson |
/T\ W |
rn |
fa |
ut |
F |
9r |
|||||||||
|
Hypate Meson |
* |
ra. |
la |
mi |
E |
||||||||||
|
Hyp. diatonos, or Lichanos Hyp. |
A |
TCO |
sol |
re |
D |
||||||||||
|
Paryp. hypaton |
b 6) |
T^ |
fa |
ut |
C |
||||||||||
|
Hypate hypaton |
1 |
ra |
mi |
B |
|||||||||||
|
PmslqrnT>anoTrM»nQ3 |
•§• |
re |
re |
A |
|||||||||||
|
O G |
TO) |
ut |
r |
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
double that number, the whole will amount to about four hundred and fifty-five different representations of the semitones contained in three octaves, without enumerating either extreme sharps, or double flats.
Let us, after this, consider the difference of intonation occasioned by temperament, between the keys of C natural and C sharp with seven sharps; of D natural with two sharps, and of D flat with five flats; differences which are certainly distinctions and difficulties in our notation, as C # and D|? are not only different sounds upon perfect instruments, but expressed by different characters in our tablature. Let us likewise consider the different situation of the sounds in all our twenty-four keys ; taking into the account, at the same time, the great numbers of our different characters for the duration of these sounds; and the simplicity of modern notation will not appear so much superior to the ancient as has been imagined.
But music is a modern art with us, as it is only a few centuries since the present system is supposed to have been invented ; whereas ancient music flourished and was cultivated some thousand years before that period. It is therefore by no means surprising, that ours has not yet acquired every possible convenience of notation. However, notwithstanding the defects of modern music in some particulars, I may venture to affirm that it has arrived at a very great degree of perfection ; and I appeal for the truth of this assertion to the daily experience of persons of good taste and refined ears.
In order to furnish my readers with a comparative view of the ancient and modern musical systems, I shall here insert a general diagram of both, constructed by the learned Meibomius, in his notes upon Euclid.
Section II
Of the three Qenera: Diatonic, Chromatic, and Enharmonic
IN modern music the Genera are but two: Diatonic and Chromatic These consist in the manner of arranging the tones and semitones of which melody is composed (a).
In ancient music, not only the tone was divided into two, as with us, but the semitone by a Diesis or Quarter-tone. These three kinds of interval, the tone, semitone, and Diesis, constituted the difference of the three genera.
It has been already observed that the fourth was the constant boundary of sounds in the music of the ancients ; and that its extremes, or highest and lowest sounds, were stantes, immobiles, or fixed. As the octave in modern music admits of no change, but is tuned as perfect as possible, so the fourth in ancient music was never allowed to deviate from perfection. The different genera therefore were characterized by the changes that were made in the two middle sounds of the tetrachord, which were styled mobiles, mutable. So that a Genus is defined by Euclid, the division and disposition of the tetrachord with respect to the intervals of the four sounds of which it is composed ; and Pappus Alexandrinus says, that the Genera consisted only in different divisions of the tetrachord.
In the Diatonic Genus, the melody proceeded by a semitone,
and two tones, as B C D E | 71 „ »^^j ', and it was from the
succession of two tones, that this genus acquired the name of Diatonic. As the term is derived from dia, by, and rovo$, tone ; that is, passing from one tone to another ; which in the Greek music was never done but in the diatonic genus.
The Chromatic proceeded by two successive semitones, and a
hemiditone, or minor third, as B C C 4 E J1 A «'ti?j^3oj|
o-*-^-*---^
This modulation holding the middle place between the diatonic and enharmonic, has been supposed by Martianus Capella and
(a) When no more than two semitones occur in the course of an octave, the melody mav nrooerlv be styled genuine Diatonic. *^
Indeed the Chromatic in use at present can hardly be compared with that of the ancients • for with them every accidental flat or sharp which led to a new mode or key.would have been called a change of Genus. With us, however, a mere change of modulation, though it occasions a change of key, is not a change of genus ; for while the sounds made use of in harmony and melody can be referred to any one fc<y, the Dtatomc genus is supposed to be preserved : it is only a regular succession of two or more semitones, ascending or descending, that constitutes modern Chromatic.
4°
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
Bryennius, to derive its name from xewpa, colour ; for as the gradations between black and white are called colours, so this genus being placed between the diatonic and enharmonic, is called Chromatic. M. Rousseau tells us, in his Dictionary, that this genus used to be written in coloured notes, but without giving any authority in support of this opinion.
The Enharmonic tetrachord proceeded by two quarter tones,
and a major third, B Bx C E* _J* n ^ ^ ^=&% This genus
is often called by Aristoxenus, and others, simply aqpovia, harmonia, that is, well arranged and ordered.
Each of the three genera had some sounds in its scale that were peculiar and characteristic, and some that were in common with the other two. For instance, B C E F A B|? and d, were used in all the three genera, whereas D G were peculiar to the diatonic, C# and F# to the chromatic, and Bx Ex and Ax to ttie enharmonic. A complete scale of each genus in modem notes will explain this matter better than words.
^ Isttet. 2fndtet ^ — 3rd tqt^ 4th tet 5th tet
t-7«S
Diaton.
Chrom.
Enhar.
Proslam. J "ST*"**
Hence it appears that the regular diatonic scale consisted, like the modern, of tones and semitones ; the chromatic, of semitones and minor thirds ; and the enharmonic, of quarter-tones and major thirds ; distinctions which seem to have been long religiously observed in Greece ; as the lyre was allowed but four strings to each tetrachord, and flutes were bored in a particular manner for each genus, in which no provision was made for producing the tones peculiar to the other two. However, in Euclid's time [323-238 B.C.] we find that a mixed genus, as he calls it, had been admitted into practice. This author, the clearest and most satisfactory, as far as he goes, of all the ancients who have treated of music, has given us the following extraordinary scale of sounds used in the mixed genus.
Proslam - Mc*f
?'
By which it appears that six strings are wanting to fill up the Diatessaron, or interval of a fourth, which, in any one of the three pure and uncompounded genera, ha.d occasion but for four ; and the octaves from proslambanomenos to mese, which in the pure
* The sign X is used to indicate the raising of the pitch of a note by a quarter tone.
4*
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
diatonic, chromatic, or enharmonic, had but eight strings, in the mixed genus must have been supplied with twelve. ^ So that a remark made by Perrault (&) concerning the superiority of the modern scale over the ancient, in having a greater number of sounds in the compass of a fourth, is not so much in our favour as it at first appears ; the number of notes being equal in both : with this difference, that the ancients had no G sharp, or E flat, and the moderns have no Diesis, or interval of a quarter-tone, between B C, E F, or A and B^.
Aristoxenus tells us that the division and bounds of the genera were not accurately fixed till his time ; and Aristides Quintilianus speaks of several genera, or species of intervals, which were of the highest antiquity ; yet so wild and irregular, that after the art of music was brought to a greater degree of perfection, and the laws of the three principal genera were settled, they had been totally disused by the best musicians. The same author asserts, that it is of these barbarous divisions of the scale, or old Harmonies, as they were called, and not the common modes of the same names, that Plato speaks in his Republic, where he admits some of them, and rejects others.
The ancients attributed peculiar effects to each genus, and speak of many characteristic distinctions of genera, which now appear to be wholly fanciful and imaginary. These, if they ever had existence, were, perhaps, destroyed by modern harmony. Aristides Quintilianus,* p. Ill, tells us, that
The diatonic is manly, and austere;
The chromatic sweet, and pathetic ; and
The enharmonic animating, and mild.
Vitruvius, speaking of the enharmonic, says, that it is in a particular manner grave and majestic (c).
And Plutarch, in his first Essay against Colotes the Epicurean, asks, "Why does the chromatic genus melt and dissolve, and the enharmonic brace the nerves, and compose the mind, after being disturbed?" . __
Aristides Quintilianus, in another place (d), says of the genera", that the diatonic is the most natural, because all who have ears, though uninstructed in music, are capable of singing it.
The chromatic is more (e) artificial, for it can be sung only by such as are adepts in music.
(&) Essais Physiques, torn. ii.
(c) Cantus ejus maximl grawm, et egregiam habet auctoritaiem.
Perhaps the idea of a major-key, which the enharmonic ditone must impress upon the ear, may have contributed to the notion of music in that genus being animating ; but how it could be at the same time \ grave and soothing, animating and mild, is not easy to conceive. This genus was never known to the Romans, having been lost before they attempted the polite arts.
(d} P. 19. Edit. Meibom.
B («) A learned, friend has proposed a natural and easy correction of the text in this passage, which as it stands in Meibomius, is scarce intelligible. It consists only in a transposition of the termination of the two last characteristic adjectives.
* Aristides flourished probably in tbe ad or sd canturie A.D. Meibomius reprinted the work referred to. Groves (vol. i, p. Ha) gives him as living about A.D. 150.
42
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
The enharmonic is the most refined and difficult of all, and has been received and practised only by the greatest artists.
The ancients have related such wonders of this long-lost, and long-lamented genus, that a particular discussion seems necessary here concerning its existence and properties. There is nothing so difficult to the conception of modern musicians, as that pleasing effects should ever have been produced by intervals, which they themselves are unable to form, and to which, if they could form and introduce them into melody, no harmony could be given, that would be agreeable to the ear, or the rules of counterpoint.
And there are so many inconsistencies, in the accounts of ancient authors concerning this kind of music, that nothing but an hypothesis can reconcile them to probability. With the permission, therefore, of my readers, I shall venture to throw together my conjectures upon this subject in that form ; assuring them, at the same time, that it is the only hypothesis which I intend to hazard in the course of this work.
Old Enharmonic
From several passages in ancient authors who have written upon music, it appears that there were two kinds of enharmonic melodies in use among the Greeks ; in the most ancient of which we do not find that the Diesis or Quarter-tone, ever had admission. This I shall distinguish, in the course of the following essay, by the title of Old Enharmonic. The other, in which the semitone was divided, and which seems to have been a refinement upon this, I shall call New Enharmonic.
"The number of "four strings, from which the tetrachord derived its name," says M. Rousseau (a), " was so far from being essential, that we find tetrachords in ancient music which had only three. Such for some time, were the enharmonic tetrachords/' He mentions the same circumstance in speaking of the invention of the enharmonic genus by Olympus (6).
Now, as the only source of these assertions seems to be a passage in Plutarch's Dialogue on Music, which is really curious, I shall here insert as faithful a translation of it as possible.
"Olympus, as Aristoxenus informs us (c), is thought by musicians to have invented the enharmonic genus : for before his time, all was diatonic and chromatic. He is supposed to have hit upon the invention in some such way as this: while he was preluding in the diatonic genus, it is imagined that passing frequently in his melody from Paramese, and from Mese to Parhypate Meson, skipping over the Lichanos, he observed the beauty of the effect : to xaMoe rov jj&ovs, effect, manner, or expression, and forming then the whole system (of the octachord or
(a) Diet, de Mus. Art. TETRACHORDE. (ft)' Art ENHARMONIQUE,
(c) In a work that is not extant.
43
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
heptachord, as I understand it) according to this analogy (d), and being struck with it, he adopted and composed in it, in the Dorian mode, without touching any string peculiar to the diatonic, to the chromatic, or indeed to the enharmonic ; and such were his enharmonic melodies. For the first of these they reckon to have been the nome or melody called Spondean ; in which melody none of the divisions of the tetrachord (i.e., the genera) show their peculiar characters (e). . . . For the close enharmonic evaepovtov xvxvov, now in use (/), seems not to have been invented by this musician ; as any one may easily be convinced, that attends to a performer on the flute, who plays in the old-fashioned style: for such players chuse to make the semitone an uncompounded interval. Such then were the original enharmonic melodies ; but, afterwards, the semitone was divided, in the Lydian, and Phrygian modes. Thus it appears that Olympus improved the art, by introducing a manner that was new and unknown to former musicians, and was the great leader and author of the genuine and beautiful Greek music (g)."
M. Burette, who has published the whole Dialogue of Plutarch, with a translation, and an ample commentary, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, seems unable to account for Olympus touching no sotmd peculiar to any one of the three genera : however, nothing in the Dialogue is clearer than that Plutarch means to say that the three notes used by. Olympus in each tetrachord were common to all the genera: he neither intro- duced Lichanos diatonos, which is peculiar to the diatonic; nor Lichanos chromaticos; nor even, says Plutarch, the sound now essential to the enharmonic; that is, neither D natural, C sharp, nor the enharmonic BX.
But M. Burette confounds the old enharmonic with the new. He will have the spondean melody to have been in the Phrygian mode mentioned by Aristides Quintilianus, p. 21 ; though in that the Diesis is admitted ; and Plutarch says expressly that this old melody did not admit any characteristics of the genera. And all this he does merely to explain an unintelligible parenthesis, which
(d) That is, missing the third sound, ascending, in every tetrachord which he used. What land oi melody would be produced from such a mutilated scale, will be shewn further on.
(e) This is, plainly, enharmonic, without the quarter-tone. — Here a long unintelligible parenthesis is omitted.
(/) That is, with the Diesis, or true enharmonic quarter-tone.
(g) ^QXvjiwros fie, (o>ff 'AptoTTO&j'os firj&iv) vTroXa/u-jSaverat WTTO TWI/ /zoi/o"i/«i>i/ TOV (Wpjuoi/tov, vs eupeT/js yeyevijcrflat, ra yap vpo e/cetpov TrcwTa, fitaTOpa /eat xp<oju,ansca T/I/. vnroi'oovcrt fie r»jf
'
.
evpecrtp Tot aimjv riva ywecrOai, at/acrrpe^o/teroi' TOV 'OXv/ATroj/ «V T&> fitaToi'<;>, /cat fita/3tj8a£oiTa TO juieXo? aroXXa/as eVt n\v Siarovov rrapyTra-nj*', TOT* /mev arro -njy Trapa/xeaTj?, Tore fie cwro 717? M«<r»/s, jcat irapajSaii/oira n]v Starovov Xt.xa.vov /cara/xadetv TO /caAAo? TOV •qiov?, /cat ovno TO IK TTJ? ai/aXoyiaj CTWCOTTJKO? crv<mjjaa 6o.vfJ.o.cra.vra. icai arrofic^a/xcwv, tV TOVT<P iron-it/ cm TOV Aw/nov rovov. OVT« yap TWV TOV fiiaTOi'ov tfita»/ ovTe Ttov TOV XPa)/xaT°5l ttirreorflai, aXXa ovfi« TWI/ TTJ? eu'at S'aura) TO. irpwTa T<OI/ ei/ap/xovtwv Tot avra. TiOc'atrt yap TOVTW irpwrov rov
*
, <» ovfic/xta TWV ficaipweoi/ TO t^top e/A^aw/«t. ** * ************ TO yap e^rats /u-ejrat? cvappovLov TTUKJ/OV, oJ vw xPWTcu, ov fio/cei TOV irotijTOv ni/at. pafitop fi'eort -, eai/ TI, apxacKw^ TW'OJ avXowTo? a/cov<nj. dcrvi/deTOv yap jSovXeTai cti/at, /cat TO cv Tat? jatTOVov. Ta jAei/'ovv wpwTa TWV ei/ap/utovtwv, TOtavTa. vorepoi/ fie TO ^/uitTOt/to^ fitvjpetfrj, ^? Avfitot?^ icat ev TOI? *pvytot5. 4>a«/eTat 8'OXv/Airo5 av^eras ftovo'twji', T<J> ayewjToi' Tt, icat ayroov/uevoy wo TWJ/ enirpoo-Oev eto*ayayeii/, »cai apx^yos yei/e<r0at T»J5 'EXXTjvt/a/c icai
44
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
is better omitted, unless some sense could be given to it that would not militate with the rest of the text, which is clear and intelligible without it.
M. Burette must be allowed the merit of great diligence and learning ; but he does not seem always to have been possessed of an equal share of sagacity, or with courage sufficient to confess himself unable to explain inexplicable passages in his author. He never ^ sees a difficulty ; he explains all. Hence, amidst great erudition, and knowledge of antiquity, there are a thousand unin- telligible explanations in his notes upon Plutarch. En ecrivant, said Fontenelle, jai toujours tache de m9 entendre. — An admirable rule ! which every writer ought to adopt.
Thus much is said, not with a view to depreciate the merit of M. Burette, to whom almost all late writers on music have had great obligations, and whose labours have been of singular service to myself, among the rest ; but to shew how few authors are to be always followed implicitly, or read without precaution.
The passage of Plutarch relative to Old Enharmonic is rendered fairly, and as near literally as possible. It must be remembered that the Dorian mode, in which Olympus is said to have composed his melodies, answers to our key of D natural. Now, in the tetra- chords of this mode, if we omit every third sound, we shall have the following melody, whether Olympus had two conjunct, or two disjunct tetrachords for his system.
Conj.
Prosl. only wanting to complete the octave. Mese or Key note.
Disj.
Both these scales contain only the intervals to be found in the following octave.
Now this is exactly the old Scots scale in the minor key ; a circumstance which must strike every one who reads the passage of Plutarch, that is at all acquainted with the intervals of the Greek scale, and with Scots music.
The abb6 Roussier, in the second article of his Memoire sur la Musique des Anciens, speaks of an old Chinese scale of six notes,* mentioned by Rameau. It is preserved in numbers ; and, according
* The old Chinese scale was pentatonic and the various notes bore queer names : Emberor. Prime Minister, Subject People, State Affairs, and Picture of the Universe. A sixth note was added about iioo B.C., but later the five note scale was re-adopted. Apart from this the Chinese had a secondary system of 12 divisions of the octave ,which was used to allow the pentatonic scale to be accommodated to various pitches.
45
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
to Rameau's interpretation, who applies the numbers to ascending fifths, they produce the very identical Scots scale, adding only a note to complete the octave, C, D, E, G, A, cc. The abb6 contends that Rameau is wrong ; and indeed the argument he uses against him concerning lengths and vibrations, Sect. XXI. does seem plausible ; but the abb£ had the interest of a system to biass him in determining this matter, which Rameau had not. It must be confessed, at least, that Rameau's interpretation forms the more probable and natural scale: because, like the Scots, and the Old Enharmonic, it leaves out the fourth and seventh of the key. The only specimen of Chinese music which M. Rousseau has given in his Dictionary, from Du Halde, seems to confirm Rameau's scale : for except in one passage, at the beginning of the third bar, where F natural comes in so aukwardly, as to raise a suspicion that it has been inserted by a mistake of the engraver, the fourth and seventh of the key are scrupulously missed throughout ; and nothing can be more Scottish than the whole cast of the air.
All the specimens that I have been able to collect of Chinese melody, several of which will be given among the examples of national music in the second book, are of this cast. Indeed they must be so, in compliance with the construction of their instruments, in which there are no semitones. One of these I saw when I was last at Paris : it was in the possession of the abb6 Arnaud of the French Academy, and was a kind of Sticcado, consisting of bars of wood of different lengths, as sonorous as if they had been of metal : these were placed across a hollow vessel resembling the hulk of a ship. The compass was two octaves, and the intervals were arranged in the following order:
Now no music can be composed from such a scale that will not remind us of the melody of Scotland, which will hereafter be proved of a much higher antiquity than has generally been imagined.
With respect to the music of China, Dr. Lind, an excellent judge of the subject, and philosophically curious about every thing that relates to it, after residing a considerable time in that country, assured me that all the melodies he had heard there bore a strong resemblance to the old Scots tunes. And Dr. Russel has favoured me with twelve Chinese airs, that were brought from China by his brother, the late Claude Russel, Esq., of the Bengal council ; all which confirm what has been said of the want of semitones in the Chinese scale, and of the strong resemblance between these airs, and those of Scotland, by the omission of the 4th and 7th of the key. These airs are all in common time, and have words to them.
I must add that since the publication of the first edition of this volume, I have received answers to some musical queries which I sent to Canton, in China. These were translated into French and Italian, and transmitted to Pekin, and into a province remote from
.4*
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
that capital. One of these queries concerned the Chinese Musical Scale, which an Italian missionary, who has resided at Pekin more than thirty years, and is a good musician, affirms to be without Semitones (h).
But to return to the old enharmonic of Olympus. What degree of authority is to be allowed to the passage in Plutarch concerning the manner of its invention, I will not pretend to determine. No other author whatever, that I have been able to consult, tells this story ; though many besides Aristoxenus, from whom Plutarch quotes the account, have attributed to Olympus the invention of the enharmonic genus. But if there had been two sorts of enharmonic, an ancient and a modern, it may seem somewhat strange that not one of the many authors who treat of the genera, should say a word to this purpose. We may observe, however, that it came more in the way of an historical than a technical treatise ; and this Dialogue of Plutarch is the only historical tract upon music that is come down to us (i). Indeed the account is not given in such terms as would make us suppose it merely the hypothesis of an individual ; but rather an old traditional opinion current among all the musicians.
But the Lichanos, or third sound from the bottom of a tetra- chord, seems not to have been the only one which the old Grecian harpers and pipers were fond of missing in their melodies. Plutarch observes (k), that in what he calls the onovfetax®, onovfoia£ovrt , they abstained from the use of Trite, or third sound from
the top of a tetrachord, skipping over which, ascending, they used to ff diafiifla&iv TO peAoe/' i.e., " carry the melody over to
Paranete." ^ or
I must just observe that the octave produced by missing the third note downwards in two tetrachords, as the second was missed in the enharmonic of Olympus, gives exactly the Chinese scale of the abb6 Roussier (/), and that of the instrument in the possession of the abb6 Arnaud.
Now what is TQOJCOS onovdsiafav, the spondean mode or manner? It looks as if it was the same thing as the spondean melody, that is, the libation tune of Olympus, one of those which were still extant in Plutarch's time ; for he says, "the Greeks now use them upon festivals."
Plutarch talks likewise of the old masters omitting Nete, the highest sound of a tetrachord ; not through ignorance, says he, for they used both that and Trite in their instrumental music ; but in their vocal melody, "it would have been a disgrace to a musician
(h) La Cinesi ntlla loro Musica non hanno Semituoni.
Lristoxenus, which Plutarch quotes as h Lit torn. x. p. 309.
(k) Ib. 136. (I) Vide p. 24, of the Mem.
(*) The book of Aristoxenus, which Plutarch quotes as his authority, was, according to M. Burette historical. Mem. de Lit. torn. x. p. 309.
47
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
to have used the Nete"\ perhaps from the impropriety of straining the voice in the execution of a note that was too high for its natural compass, Nete being the last and highest note of the scale in all the modes.
The perplexity occasioned by the change of names according to the gradual extension of the system, and the uncertainty what system is really here understood, whether heptachord or octachord, disjunct or conjunct, throws undoubtedly a thick fog over all this account in Plutarch's Dialogue. However, I still think it by far the most curious passage about the ancient music that I have ever met with : as it is the only one that tends to anything like a description of what old Greek melody was. All the rules for it in Aristoxenus furnish not a single idea. The accounts of the genera do indeed give us an idea of the intervals in each ; yet it is an idea that we know not what to do with. But when we hear of constantly skipping notes in a diatonic scale, we really do acquire some idea, however general.
There is nothing that gives a stronger character, or tf&os, as the Greeks called it, to a melody, than the constant or usual omission of particular notes in the scale. Suppose it uncertain from this passage what notes were missed ; yet the general fact, that these old musicians, composers of the ancient genuine Greek music, which Plato, Aristotle, and all the writers speak of as so excellent and superior to the more modern, did delight to break the diatonic progression, to diaftif!a£ewf or stride over certain notes in the melody, seems pretty clear: and this surely renders it highly probable, that the cast of the old national Greek airs was much like that of the old Scots music. If they had melodies where the Lichanos was omitted, they must have been very like ; but even the Trite omitted gives still
a strong Scottish tincture to an air aT Tf ^ J j || • for if
we suppose the key note to be G instead of E ; a major key instead of a minor, this omission gives precisely the Scots scale. And I believe, in general, that the omission of any notes in the scale, producing skips of thirds, will have much the same effect on the ear.
The Chinese scale, take it which way we will, is certainly very Scottish. It is not my intention to insinuate by this that the one nation had its music from the other, or that either was obliged to ancient Greece for its melody ; though there is a strong resemblance in all three. The similarity, however, at least proves them all to b( more natural than they at first seem to be, as well as more ancient, The Chinese are extremely tenacious of old customs, and equally enemies to innovation with the ancient -Egyptians, which favours the idea of the high antiquity of this simple music ; and as there is reason to believe it very like that of the most ancient Greek melodies, it is not difficult to suppose it to be a species of music that is natural
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
to a people of simple manners during the infancy of civilization and arts among them. In this and in other perplexing points, it is , my sincere wish to leave the mind of my reader something, at least, like an idea to fasten upon ; and what conveys the fullest conviction to my own mind, I shall, in general, adhere to, witMbut unhinging all belief, by quoting a crowd of heterogeneous opinions upon the same subject. Besides, if I wished to give all the chaos of com- mentatorship, I could not, for want of room.
I shall therefore proceed to speak of the more artful and
Modern Enharmonic
The account already given of the invention of Olympus seems not only to furnish some idea of the old Greek melody, but helps, I think, to make the true enharmonic with the Diesis, somewhat less inconceivable than it would be without this idea of its origin.
If we take the enharmonic tetrachord ^^^^g| by
itself, it appears wholly strange and unaccountable; not only from the divided semitone, but from the skip of a Ditone, which the melody was confined to in its progress, after the two Dieses in ascending, or before them, in descending. ML Burette accounts for this rule, from the limited number of strings: "The tetrachord had but four strings," says he; "three of these were occupied by the semitone and its division : it was therefore matter of necessity to skip to the upper note of the tetrachord, a stable sound, which could not be dispensed with." This may, of necessity, have been the case during the early ages of music in Greece ; but afterwards the custom must have been continued through choice, and in compliance with venerable and established melodies used in religious ceremonies, which admitted of no change for many ages. And it is easy to conceive that after a nation has been long accustomed to the omission of certain sounds in their melodies, they will not soon be reconciled to the use of them. This is the case in the music of Scotland, where no ancient tune is thought to be genuine, unless certain sounds are omitted.
But the reason assigned by M. Burette for the omission of certain sounds in the chromatic and enharmonic genera, for want of a sufficient number of strings in the Lyre, is invalidated by a passage in Aristoxenus, p. 28, where he lays down the same rule for the voice, and where the lyre is out of the question, as he is expressly considering the natural vocal succession. Indeed the voice and lyre were alternately subservient to each other. In very early times the lyre seems to have governed the voice, and to have regulated its intervals and compass by the small number of strings with which it was furnished ; though, afterwards, the extent of the voice long bounded the scale of instruments by which it was accompanied.
Voi,. i. 4 49
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
The story of Olympus, however, accounts reasonably for the continuance of wide intervals in the enharmonic genus ; the. first scale of which being, according to Plutarch, this :
. y ° • g Mf,m Aj| was certainly a natural and pleasing
melody, though of an antique and melancholy cast. Now according to this relation, which I firmly think I believe, for - I'uom suole Dar facile credenza a quel che vuole,
the Diesis was, at first, inserted into melodies of this kind, as a sort of accidental grace, though in later times it became essential to the genus (a). Even at the period when Plutarch wrote his Dialogue, we find there were old-fashioned players on the flute, who omitted the division of the semitone, in playing music that was still reckoned enharmonic; the observation would otherwise have no meaning.
How this quarter-tone could be managed so as to be rendered pleasing, still remains a mystery ; yet the difficulty of splitting a semitone into two equal parts, or even dividing it into more minute intervals, is less, perhaps, than has been imagined. When it is practised by a capital singer, or a good performer on the violin, or hautbois, at a pause, how wide it seems!*
When the Diesis is thus considered as a grace, or a note of taste, it renders the genus not only conceivable, but practicable; for
~*
then the natural outline ^7~*g»^^ [[ of the Old Enharmonic
still remains in full force upon the ear.
But there are other difficulties concerning the enharmonic, which this account, in a great measure, clears up. Plutarch expressly says, p. 162, that among the old artists the enharmonic was solely, or almost solely, in use, and that "they gave themselves no trouble about diatonic or chromatic/' And Aristoxenus says the same : his expression is, that "they had no idea of them." M. Burette would confine this preference to theorists and writers on the subject ; but nothing can be clearer than that there was an age when the enharmonic, some kind of enharmonic, at least, was practically preferred to the other genera; and it is more than probable that this age was the early time of music in Greece, when the art was confessedly in its most simple state ; when music was, according to
(a) The musical reader must recollect the origin of several fashionable licences and innovations n modem music, which, though used and tolerated at first only as notes of taste and embellishment* are now become essential to good melody.
* The difficulty of managing the quarter-tone is not so great as Burney imagines. It must be remembered that he was writing with all the dogmatism of an eighteenth century musician. It is possible that in the future music will develop by means of using quarter and even other fractions of a tone. Already music has been written by Haba (influenced by the use of small intervals in Moravian folk music) employing scales with 24, 18, 36 and 72 degrees to the octave. For interesting informa- tion about various scale systems see Carl Engel's Music of the most Ancient Nations sad Parry's The An of Music (chapter II).
Fabio Colonna of Bologna (c. 1567-1650) invented a stringed instrument naming it the Pentaconta chordon, which divided the octave in 17 parts.
50
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
all the descriptions of Plato, Plutarch, and others, solemn, majestic, and used for no other than solemn and majestic purposes.
Plutarch expressly says, that the ancients were attached to the enharmonic, dia ospvoryra, that is, on ''account of its gravity/' The whole drift of his Dialogue is to apologize for the old musicians, the very practisers of the enharmonic, upon the score of its simplicity, and to shew that it proceeded not from ignorance, but from choice.
The chromatic, agreeably to this idea, is every where spoken of as a more refined and new-fangled thing. Plutarch, p. 140, mentions a number of old musicians, who purposely abstained from the chromatic, as if it was a wicked modern innovation. It is mentioned as such in the curious decree of the Spartans against Timotheus; nay, it is even said, in the copy of that decree, at the end of the Oxford Aratus, that "he substituted his chromatic instead of their enharmonic"; though some translators have omitted these words, perhaps because they could not conceive how the enharmonic could possibly be more simple music. A passage in Aristoxenus, p. 23, seems to admit the same construction ; where, speaking of the innovators of his time, and their tuning the enharmonic, which was then expiring, like the chromatic, he says, the reason was, that they always wanted to ylvxawstv, that is, to put more sugar in their music.
How can we reconcile all this with the common genealogy of the genera, 1. Diatonic, 2. Chromatic, 3. Enharmonic? Or with the general idea of the Enharmonic being the last and almost impractic- able refinement of the art?
But if, as 'the account of Plutarch says, the simple melody of Olympus was called Enharmonic, it is at least very natural to suspect that all this may be meant of that enharmonic, which was certainly more simple than the Chromatic, and even than the strict Diatonic, by conjoint degrees ; as the fourth and seventh, the two notes of the scale that are of the most difficult intonation, were not admitted into its melodies. The fourth is so aukward an interval, that it is not only difficult to sound it correctly upon wind instru- ments, but such as I have observed few natural unguided singers are able to sing in tune. The same may be said of the seventh, which in descending, the ear rather requires to be sharp : it seems only for the sake of the sixth that it is sometimes made flat in minor-keys ; on which account Rameau considers it merely as a passing-note, serving only to lead more smoothly to the sixth, and which should not, properly, be taken account of in the fundamental base.
This suspicion, which is all I shall venture to call it, naturally therefore presents itself: not that I would willingly lean harder upon it than it will bear. All the writers agree that the diatonic and chromatic existed before the enharmonic ; but by the expressions they use, and by talking of cpvcis, nature (6), they seem to mean the new and difficult enharmonic, and rather to speak according to what they thought naturally must have been, than upon any
(*) See Apstox. p. 19, asd Pfot. p. 138.
5*
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
historical certainty concerning a matter so remote, even from the oldest writer on music, Aristoxenus.
However, setting this suspicion aside, the account given by Plutarch seems still greatly to help to clear up the mystery; because it shews us, that even after the introduction of the Diesis, the enharmonic, by preserving the old Olympic form of the melody, might still be regarded as more pleasing, natural, and simple, than the other genera: at least than the chromatic, which, though its Diesis, or semitone, be in itself easier to form and to sing than the other, is yet, taking in all circumstances, more unnatural, more distracting to the ear, more complicated as to the fundamental base, which guides the ear of modern musicians, than the enharmonic , the oefivorys, or gravity, of which, and the simplicity implied in it, must have consisted, not in the divided semitone, which some musicians, even in Plutarch's time, we see, omitted, but in the old favourite Scottish melody, which then subsisted: the quarter-tone that had crept into it being probably regarded as an accidental embellishment of the air, which upon the whole was to the ear what Plutarch, p. 136, calls TQi%oQdov xcu anlow ; that is, "three-stringed, and simple'' At least it seems more easy to conceive the execution of the enharmonic possible as mere melody, than the ancient chromatic, where harmony seems wanting to guide the ear, and which has the appearance of being both in a major and minor key
at the same time: (1 T^fT r*f If »| g« fl And none of these
•HT * • i — I «
sounds can easily be reduced to mere notes of taste, all are fundamentally consequential to the harmony, and leave no natural outline of melody for the ear to seize, like the Enharmonic.
Section III Of the Modes
A MODE, in ancient music, was equivalent to a Key, in the modern (a). And Bryennius says in express terms, page 481 (6), that the tones or modes differ from each other in nothing else but the being situated in a higher or lower pitch of the voice or instrument ; which is but saying that the modes differed from each other only by transposition.
Aristoxenus admitted of but thirteen modes, though subsequent musicians allowed of fifteen ; and this is the number of which Alypius has given us a diagram in all the three genera.
These are placed by every musical writer, anterior to Ptolemy, at the distance of half a tone from each other. And as it is generally agreed that the lowest of the Greek modes, which was called Hypodorian, had its proslambanomenos, or lowest sound, in that part of the modern scale which is expressed by A upon the first space in the base, the following table will convey an idea to the musical reader of the comparative situation of the rest.
TABLE of the MODES.
Proslam.
Grave Modes.
Middle and original Modes.
Acute
at
*
Tht-
tiypociorian, Hypoiastian,
or Locrian. Hypoionian,
or grave Hy-
pophrygian.
Hypophry- Hypoa?olian, Hypolydian.. gian. or Grave Hy- polydian
Sste
s
^E
Dorian
Ionian or lastian.
Phrygian. ^Eolian.
Lydian.
Lorian, Hyperiastian, lydian. or Hyperio- nian.
^
Hypeweo- or lian.
Hyperlydian.
It was with reason that Aristoxenus refused admission to the two last of the fifteen modes, which are only octaves of the second and third, as the thirteenth is of the first.
(a) TOPQ?, rpoTTo?, wodvs, mode, tone, and kev, are synonimous terms, both in ancient and
modern music.
(ft) Edit.Wallis.
53
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
A scale of two octaves being allowed to each of these modes, the whole extent and compass of the fifteen was from Proslainba- nomenos, in the Hypodorian mode, to Nete hyperbol&on, in the Hyperlydian, three octaves and a tone, from our A in the base, to
B in the treble
""ft /L
As the keys of C and A natural are representatives of all other keys in modern music, the scales which have been given, page 41, to exemplify the Genera, will shew the intervals of the Hypodorian mode, and serve as types of all other modes admitted into the music of the ancient Greeks.
Pliny tells us that the three first, and original modes were the Phrygian, Dorian, and Lydian; so named after the several countries where they were invented and chiefly used; though Heraclides of Pontus asserts that the JEolian, Dorian, and Ionian, were of the most ancient and general use among the first inhabitants of Greece. However that may have been, it seems probable that the five modes mentioned by these two authors were in use long before the rest, which, in process of time, as the musical scale was extended by new improvements and new instruments, were placed above and below them, and distinguished by the prepositions vxo and vneQ, under and upper.
There is a passage in Aristides Quintilianus, p. 23, which seems to point out something like connection and relation between the five original modes, and those above and below them. He says, after having enumerated the fifteen modes, " By this means, each mode has ^agvr^ra, «at fisooT'rjra, xcu dfvrrjra, its bottom, its middle,
and its top, or its grave, mean, and acute."
This seems to imply that the three modes of DORIAN, Hypodorian, and Hyperdorian, for instance, were considered, in a manner, as one: and as if the two modes belonging to each of the five middle ones, a f ourth above, and a fourth below, were regarded as necessary adjuncts, without which they were not complete.
Pursuing this idea, if we place the five most ancient and original modes in the middle, between the lower and the higher modes of the same name, they will have very much the appearance of our relative keys in modern music.
Fourth below. Principal. Fourth above.
Hypodorian, DORIAN, Hyperdorian
Hypoiastian, IASTIAN Hyperiastian.
[IONIAN] (Hyperphrygian,
Hypophrygian, PHRYGIAN < or
(Hypermixolydian .
Hypoaeolian -SJoLiAN, Hyperaeolian.
Hypolydian, LYDIAN, Hyperlydian.
54
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS These answer to the following keys in present use :
A, D, G.
B, E, A.
C, F, Bb-
ctf, FJ, B.
And amount to the same thing as our fifth above, and fifth below a key. Indeed if the ears of the Greeks were not totally different from ours, these must have been the first and most natural modulations.
It is worth observing, that though the modes in the diagrams of Alypius are placed at the '.distance only of half a tone from each other, yet, in giving the notation of each, he ranks them in the following order, in all the genera.
LYDIAN, Hypolydian, Hyperlydian.
^EOLIAN, Hypoaeolian, Hyperaeolian.
PHRYGIAN, Hypophrygian, Hyperphrygian.
IASTIAN, Hypoiastian, Hyperiastian.
DORIAN, Hypodorian, Hyperdorian.
It is very remarkable that all the ancient modes or keys were minor f which must have given a melancholy cast to their melody in general ; and however strange this may appear, it is as certain as any point concerning ancient music can be, that no provision was made for a major-key in any of the ancient treatises or systems that are come down to us.
But one nation may be prejudiced, by long habit, to a major scale, another to a minor ; as well as to certain skips in their melody, like the Scots ; and to a certain measure, like the Poles.
This is not the place to reason upon the subject ; but taking the fact for granted, it makes the relations of the modes, by fourths, the more natural. For Tartini's observation seems true, that the change into the fourth of a minor key is much more agreeable than into that of a major. Indeed the ancients could scarce have any other change consistently with their rule of modulation, which says, that the transition should be by consonant intervals. Now the octave producing no change, there remains only the fourth or fifth above or below ; for the third was a dissonant interval in their theory.
It is some satisfaction, however, to find the Greek rules for modulation, their change, xara tovov, so nearly correspond with our own. When Ptolemy, page 131 (c] recommends the taking those keys first that are at consonant distances f and tells us that the transition from one tone to another next to it, is disagreeable, it
(c) Cap. 9. lib, ii.
55
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
accords very well with our modern doctrine and practice, and with Rameau's rule for a relative succession of chords. Indeed, there is a passage in Euclid that is still less equivocal: he says, page 21, speaking of modulation, "Transitions are made, some by con- sonant, and some by dissonant intervals ; and of these some are more, and some less, melodious. The most melodious are those in which there is most connection ; where the two modes have most in common: those are less melodious, which have less participation." He goes on to explain in what this communio consists ; the text is obscure ; but I think a meaning is discoverable, which has escaped Meibomius, both in translating, and in commenting, the passage.
Every writer on the subject of music, till the time of Ptolemy,* regarded the fourth as the first concord, and dividing all the fifteen modes into tetrachords, regulated the scale in all the genera, by that interval. But Ptolemy, about the year one hundred and thirty of the Christian sera, and four hundred and fifty years from the time in which Aristoxenus flourished, proposed a new doctrine and reform in the ancient musical system ; in which he reduced the fifteen modes to seven, and made the diapason, or octave, the regulator of his scales, not by abandoning the tetrachords, for he regulated the genera by those intervals in the same manner as his predecessors ; but in his reduction of the modes he kept them within the bounds of the octave, and made their number equal to the species of diapason. The ancient names of Dorian, Hypodorian, Lydian, Hypolydian, Phrygian, Hypophrygian, and Mixolydian, he retained, as well as their relative places or distances from each other ; but it has been misrepresented as his intention to alter the pitch of all the modes, by raising the Proslambanomenos of each a fifth higher. The only ground for this opinion is in the eleventh chapter of his second book, where having occasion to exemplify in some one octave, the manner in which the Meses of his seven modes would occupy all its notes, he chose that octave between e and E, as he says himself, preferably to any other part of the Greek scale, on account of its convenience ; as it was situated in the middle of the scale and voice. But there is not the least reason to conclude that he meant to propose any reform, or to disturb, in this respect, the established doctrine and practice.
Lemma Rossi, Bontempi, and most of the writers who have mentioned the modes of Ptolemy, have supposed them to have
* Celebrated as an astronomer and geographer, A Latin translation of the Harmonica was published by Wallis in 1683. Regarding the introduction of the system attributed to Ptolemy Professor Wooldridge (Oxford History of Mtfstc, 1901, vol. r, p. 15), says : " Certainly the conception of the octave as consisting of seven species did not originate even with Ptolemy ; it had existed long before his time, and had been applied not only to the diatonic but to the enharmonic scale by older writers in whose works, moreover, the names adopted by Ptolemy for the seven species, which were those of the seven oldest keys, are also to be found." He goes on to state that in the present state of our knowledge of Greek music it seems impossible to come to any definite conclusion as to whether the " doctrine of the species " was more than a theoretical proposition at first, and if more than one species was actually in use. Again on page 15 he writes : " The diatonic double octave scale is of course, susceptible of seven different octachordal sections, each of which will display the two semitonic intervals in a new position and will therefore, if the first note of each section be taken as its final or key note, create a new and special scale and a special character of melody in each scale,"
56
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
consisted only in different species of octaves in one key (d). But Dr. Wallis, who has translated into Latin the Harmonics of Ptolemy, and reduced his modes to modern notes, makes them aH consist of transpositions of the Dorian mode, which Ptolemy calls the first, and which Dr. Wallis, after him, has written in the minor key of A natural, placing it in that part of the scale which in practice belonged to the Hypodorian.
Dorian.
z
Hypodor. Phrygian. Hypophryg. 367
Bacchius senior (e) places two of these modes, the Hypolydian and the Lydian, half a tone higher than Dr. Wallis, who seems to have mistaken their places. The Mixolydian Bacchius makes the highest of all, then places the Lydian half a tone below it, the Phrygian a tone below the Lydian, the Dorian a tone below the Phrygian, the Hypolydian half a tone below the Dorian, the Hypo- phrygian a tone lower, and the Hypodorian, the lowest of all, a note below the Hypophrygian.
By the disposition of Ptolemy's modes, it seems as if his design had been to establish a more easy and obvious connection and rela- tion between them, than had hitherto been practised ; for though the modes placed above and below the five principal ones might have been originally intended as their adjuncts, yet from the multiplicity and promiscuous arrangement of the modes at the distance only of a semitone above each other, their intimate rela- tion and union had not been sufficiently attended to. He therefore
(d) Euclid, and Gaudentius after him, have given seven species of octave in one key, which however they call by the names of seven of the modes.
Bypodorian, Meibomius, in his notes on Euclid, p. 59, has given these scales in letters.
(e) Introd Axtis Musicae, Edit Meibom. .p.$M.
57
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
included all his seven modes in the compass of an octave, "making," says Dr. Wallis, "the Dorian the center or mean; after which he placed the Mixolydian a fourth above the Dorian; the Hypolydian a fifth below the Mixolydian ; and the Lydian a fourth higher than the Hypolydian. Then, beginning again at the Dorian, he placed the Hypodorian a fourth below it ; the Phrygian a fifth above the Hypodorian, and the Hypophrygian a fourth below that." But this round-about order of the modes is not that of Ptolemy ; for in his tenth book, chap, ii., the title of which is, How to adjust accurately the Distances of the Modes, he gives his method of taking them by fourths and fifths in the only direct and warrantable way in which they can be taken, according to modern modulation, by beginning at the Mixolydian: D, A, E, B, F# C# G#. Now if each of these modes produced seven species of diapason or octave, the seven modes of Ptolemy would furnish seven times seven, or forty-nine species of octave ; not indeed all of different kinds, but of different pitch in the scale. To each of these modes he. assigned the compass of a disdiapason, or double octave, as was the practice in the ancient modes ; with this difference, that the first and characteristic sound in the fifteen modes was Proslambanomenos, but in those of Ptolemy Mese is made the key note, and the center of the scale ; which may be supposed to extend an octave above, and an octave below the sound given in the table.
Such was the general opinion concerning the modes of Ptolemy, till Sir Francis Haskins Eyles Stiles formed an ingenious hypothesis concerning them, which was read to the Royal Society in 1759, and afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. LI. part ii. for 1760, under this title : An Explanation of the Modes or Tones in the ancient Gracian Music. Sir Francis in this Dissertation endeavours to prove, that the ancients had a double doctrine of the modes, an harmonic and a musical doctrine. By the harmonic doctrine, the modes were all one and the same series of intervals, such as the general system furnishes, only at different pitches ; by the musical, they consisted of so many different arrangements of intervals or species of octave. Sir Francis regarded the harmonic doctrine as only a tuning trick, to produce more readily the different species of octave between the fixed sounds (/).
He explains this in a diagram, taking his pitch, according to Ptolemy, at Hypate Meson, our E in the base, and makes all his mutations between that sound and its octave, Nete Diezeugmenon. And this, according to Sir F. E. Stiles, is the diapason chosen by Ptolemy, cap. 2, lib. ii. for the purpose of exhibiting his divisions of the several species.
DIAGRAM of the Species of Diapason in the seven Modes admitted by Ptolemy, according to the Doctrine of Sir Francis Haskins Eyles Stiles.
(/) His own hypothesis is too complicated and incompressible to be clearly explained here. I must therefore refer the curious reader to the Memoir itself .
58
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
Mese
Mixolydian.
Lydian.
Phrygian
Dorian. Hypolydian
Mese
Mese
Key of
D minor.
B
A
Mese
Hypophrygian. fc^t: Hypodorian. fc^Ez
*»**
Mese
[» * 0
Sir Francis gives quotations from the ancient Greek writers in confirmation of his doctrine, several of which indeed seem favour- able to it ; at least they imply a difference on some occasions from the intervals in the natural or great system: this difference he imagines to be expressed by the term pvtafoki), mutation (g).
He very truly asserts, that no transposition of the same melody into a higher or lower key, can have so powerful an effect as a change in the modulation, or succession of intervals ; and observes, that modern music has but two considerable changes in the same key ; these are from major to minor, and from minor to major. The first seems reserved for pathetic effects: here he instances PurceTs happy change of modulation in his Mad Bess, at the words, "Cold and hungry am I grown (A)."
(;) See Sect IV.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
Sir Francis assigns a greater antiquity to the musical doctrine, than to the harmonic, and refers the effects of the modes in early times to the former. "We find/' says he, "in Plutarch, Pliny, and other writers, the invention of particular modes ascribed to particular musicians ; which may be accounted for, on the sup- position that the modes were so many different species of diapason, since it requires great art and skill to introduce agreeable melodies to which the ear has not been accustomed : but the taking the same melody at a different pitch, is a variety, for which the inventor would hardly have had his name so carefully transmitted to posterity (i)."
Meibomius, however, was certainly of opinion, that the difference in the modes, upon which all their effects depended, consisted only in the tension, or acuteness and gravity of the whole system. And Dr. Wallis saw still less of this doctrine than Meibomius, "though he has rightly," says Sir Francis, "explained the species of diapason, as they lay between Hypate Meson and Nete Diezeugmenon ; but this interpretation he regards as singular in his author, and draws no consequences from it."
The ascertaining the figure of the earth, by measuring a degree near the pole and under the line, introduced a new geography ; in the same manner the hypothesis of Sir Francis Eyles Stiles will overset all former theories and conjectures on the subject of the ancient musical modes, and oblige those whom he convinces of the truth of his doctrine, and who had before reconciled themselves to received opinions on the subject, to confess their errors and ignorance, and to begin the study of ancient music anew.
It is not, however, certain that Ptolemy's doctrine was immediately adopted by all the musicians of his time (&); if it was, their minds must have been more flexible than those of modern professors. For had the most popular composers of modern times, had Alexander Scarlatti, for instance, in Italy, Sebastian Bach, in Germany, or Handel, in England, proposed to their cotemporaries so considerable a change in the established musical system, it is hardly possible to believe that it would have been immediately received into general practice (I).
We know not, indeed, what was the success of Ptolemy's pro- posed reformation during his life; a reformation, it must be owned, that had something Calvinistical in it ; a zeal for tearing (m)', and yet, strange to tell 1 all the traces to be found of it are in the modes of the Romish church, established long after, but which resemble those of Ptolemy in nothing except their number and names. Ptolemy's modes are manifestly transpositions of the scale into
(*) Phfl. Trans. vol. LI. p. 755.
(ft) Bacchius senior, a musical writer, cotemporary -with Ptolemy, is the only Greek author who gives but seven modes.
(I) Martianus Capella, who flourished 300 years aiter Ptolemy, and Cassiodorus, a still younger writer, tell us, that here were fifteen modes • a proof that his reform had not been adopted universally
(m) See Tale of a Tub, Sect. VI. 60
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
different keys* : the ecclesiastic, only different species of octave, in one and the same key.
Upon the whole, the music so much celebrated by the best classical writers, and of which I shall have the most frequent occasions to speak in my history, was of much higher antiquity than the time of Ptolemy, who flourished when arts and sciences, particularly those of Egypt and Greece, were much degenerated.
It is therefore of no great importance to the history and intelligence of ancient music, at its best period, whether this point concerning the species of octave, for which Sir Francis Eyles Stiles contends, be accurately settled, or not ; for, if he is right, ^ it does not clearly appear, what peculiar and astonishing effects could be produced by a sudden change of mode, which it is not in the power of modern music to produce, by a like sudden change of key.
But such miraculous powers have been attributed to the modes in ancient music, that it must be confessed there is nothing so difficult as to imagine they could have been produced by a mere trans- position of the scale to a different pitch, while the intervals remained the same, or even by the effects of modulation. There must have been other characteristic and strong-marked distinctions: as the kind of poetry to which the music was set ; the rhythm or measure; or the nature of certain melodies invented and used by particular nations. Indeed it was from this last circumstance that the denominations of the principal modes were derived, such as the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Ionian, and Molian ; and there may perhaps have been originally something strongly characteristic in the melodies, as well as in the dialects of those countries.
In modern music a change of key, without a change of time, is not sufficient to animate or depress the spirits much : measure must concur as an auxiliary ; and mere modulation, though it has its
* The Aristoxenian system of tonoi was, as we have seen, the same scale taken at any convenient pitch. Aristoxemis was also interested in the seven species of the octave, which was a series of scales approximating to those which may be formed by using the white keys of the pianoforte. It will be seen that the fundamental difference between these scales is in the varying positions of the semitones. In this original system of the seven species of octave the note a was always considered as being the mese, or dominant.
List of the seven species of octave scales :—
Compass B — b was called the MIXOLYDIAN „ 0-c „ „ „ LYDIAN „ D— a „ „ „ PHRYGIAN
E— e „ „ „ DORIAN. „ F— f „ „ „ HYPOLYDIAN „ G — g „ „ „ HYPOPHRYGIAN „ a— a' „ „ „ HYPODORIAN
It will be noticed that these scales differ in quality as well as in pitch.
The system of Ptolemy altered this series in the following manner. To commence with he advocated that mese should be the fourth note of each of the species, and secondly he reduced the seven species to the same pitch by means of transposition.
The solution proposed by Sir Francis HasMns Eyles Stiles was adopted by Chappell in his History of Music, but W. S. Rockstro in Grove's (Vol. 3, Article, Ecclesiastical Modes, p. 476) gives the follow- ing series of scales which differ from those given on p. 59 :—
DORIAN E— e
PHRYGIAN „ with a key signature of 5 sharps
LYDIAN „ „ „ „ „ 3 »
MIXOLYDIAN „ „ „ „ „ i „
HYPOLYDIAN „ „ „ „ „ 2 „
HYPOPHRYGIAN „ „ „ „ „ 4 *»
HYPODORIAN „ „ „ „ „ i flat
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
effects, yet it can boast of none like those said to have been operated by a change from the soft Lydian, or grave Dorian, to the furious Phrygian. I should rather suppose then, that in times of musical refinement among the ancients, when the characteristics of national melody were somewhat effaced, the names of the musical modes had much the same use as our technical terms, grazioso, grave, allegro, con furia : and that in lyric poetry there were particular species of feet and versification allotted to each mode. If that was the case, we might easily suppose that a change of mode would be a change of style and of measure (ri). This seems a very natural idea, and yet it has never been suggested by any of the writers who have treated the subject, and who have been so willing to allow miraculous powers to the Greek modes, except one, Teodato Osio, who, in a very ingenious little tract, published in Milan, 1637, called Uarmonia del nudo parlare, has something like the same idea, which he slightly mentions, however, with a perhaps, per aventura. Speaking of the Mixolydian mode, he says, "I have often thought that it might have resembled the trochaic foot ; as the Phrygian might the Anapest ; the Hypophrygian, the Iambic ; the Hypo- dorian, the Dactyl ; and the Doric gravity might likewise have been expressed by the sluggish spondee (0)."
Indeed the ancients frequently speak of the Phrygian and Lydian modes, in terms which seem to imply different measures. Heraclides of Pontus, in Athenaeus, lib. xiv. p. 614, describing what he calls the three most ancient modes, says "the Dorian is grave and magnificent, neither too diffusive, gay, nor varied ; but severe and vehement. The JEolian is grand and pompous, though sometimes soothing, as it is used for the breaking of horses, and the reception of guests ; and it has likewise an air of simplicity and confidence, suitable to pleasure, love, and good cheer. Lastly, the ancient Ionian is neither brilliant nor effeminate, but rough and austere ; with some degree, however, of elevation, force, and energy. But in these times," continues he, "since the corruption of manners has subverted every thing, the true, original, and specific qualities peculiar to each mode are lost (p)."
Apuleius, in his Florida, tells us that the Lydian measure was appropriated to complaint and songs of sorrow ; the Dorian to martial airs ; and that the Phrygian was consecrated to religious ceremonies ; distinctions which seem to imply time as well as tone. But after all that has been said, it would, perhaps, be more for the honour of the ancients to suppose some of the principles upon which
(n) Morley, and all the old writers upon modem music, before the use of bars, affixed no other meaning to the modes or moods, as they were then called, than that of regulators of time, or measure.
(o) Onde il color misso-Lidio si sara simigliante al piede Trochco ; cost come awisai VAnapesto confarsi col frigio, e forse con ripofrisio il Giambo ; ma con il subdorio si confara il Dattilot ed alia Gravita del JDorio la tardansa dello Spondee sara convenient*. P. 184. See a notation of these feet, Sect. VI.
(p) Heraclides of Pontus was cotemporary with Plato and Aristotle, and the disciple of both. He was a voluminous writer upon music, as well as upon many other subjects ; his works are frequently cited by Plutarch, and, with the Records of Sicyon, and Registers of the Victors at the sacred Games, seem to have been the phjef sources whence he drew the historical part of his Diahgu* on Music.
62
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
their modes were formed, and concerning which such surprising accounts have been given, to be lost, than to endeavour to reduce them all to our present keys and practice of melody. For, with the few liberties that could be taken with poetical numbers, and the little probability there is that counterpoint was known to them, if we do not give the ancients credit for arts of expression and modulation, which have not been clearly explained in the treatises that are come down to us, and which we are now utterly unable to divine, their music will be reduced to such a low degree of perfection, as nothing but blind enthusiasm for every thing ancient can disguise, or deny.
Section IV Of Mutations
THE next subject of enquiry to the Genera and Modes of ancient music, is that of the Mutations, ^rafto^ai, or changes incident to melody ; which, in modern music, we should call, upon some occasions, modulation. However, the terms are not exactly synonymous ; for though to modulate, and to sing, are in ancient authors equivalent, as modulation with them signified merely a change in melody, yet the moderns more frequently apply the term modulation to that kind of change in melody or harmony, which introduces a new key. For modulation may be brought about by changes in harmony, while melody is stationary.
1_I
Key of C a F
F f
r j
eqiv
In the system of solmization established upon the hexachords of Guido, mutations mean such changes only as are occasioned in the names of the notes by accidental flats and sharps.
The ancients however had four several kinds of accidents in their music that were distinguished by the name of mutations. These might have happened in the genus, system, mode, or melopoeia. In the Genus, when the melody passed from one genus to another, from the chromatic, for instance, to the diatonic, or enharmonic, and the contrary. In the System, when the modulation passed from a conjunct to a disjunct tetrachord ; that is, from one that was united to another by some one sound in common
to both : as from this
to one that was
wholly disjunct, and separated from it by the interval of a tone :
a mutation happened in the Mode, when there was a transition in the melody from the Dorian to the Lydian, or Phrygian, and the like ; and lastly, a mutation in the Meloposia implied a change of style; as from a grave to a gay, or from a sober to an impetuous strain. If the mutations were too sudden and unrelative, they destroyed the impression made upon the ear by the former part of the melody, and the pleasure arising from reminiscence. " The
04
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
understanding music/' says Aristoxenus (a), "depends upon sensation and memoiy; for we must not only feel sounds at the instant they strike the organ, but remember those with which it has been struck before, in order to be able to compare them together; for otherwise it will be impossible to follow a melody or modulation with pleasure to the ear, or to form a judgment of its degree of excellence in the mind."
The terms peloe and pelcodias, which Meibomius has rendered by the Latin words, modulatio and cantilena, had no other significa- tion than the change of sounds in singing, or, as we should call it, melody ; and this is clear from a passage in Bacchius senior (6), where, in his Introduction to the Art of Music, by Question and Answer, it. is asked, how many kinds of modulation there are. He answers, four; and these, he says, are rising, falling, repeating the same sound to different words, and remaining upon, or holding out, a musical tone. This is farther explained, Sect V.
Euclid says that mutations may be made into any mode within the compass of an octave, at the .distance even of a semitone (c). This is a latitude of modulation that would greatly offend modern ears, accustomed only to relative changes of key. Ptolemy, however, does not allow of such sudden and extraneous modulations.
There is something like a specimen of Greek modulation in Plutarch's Diaiogue^ (d). If the modes are rightly placed by the moderns, the beginning or first movement of the piece he mentions, was in A; then it passed to E and B, and ended in G (e) and D. This
Lib. i. p. 38 and 30. Edit. Meibom.
(&) P. ii. Edit. Meib.
(c) M. Burette is mistaken in his translation of this precept in Euclid, which he has taken from the version of Meibomius, who has likewise either mistaken, or misprinted the passage. Instead of >7uiroi/ias, half a tone, they have both given Diesis, a quarter of a tone, as an allowable modulation which is not only contrary to the text, but impossible in practice. Vide Euclid, Edit. Meib. p. 20, at the bottom. .
(d) Mem. des Inscrip. torn. x. p. 160.
(e) Handel is the only one that I know of who has hazarded a modulation from B to G with a flat tiiird ; a passage of this kind occurs in the last act of the Oratorio of Athalia, which is so bold and wonderfully happy in expressing the words, that I shall insert it here as a great stroke of the composer, as well as of musical imitation. Athalia is relating a dream which she had had just before the execution of that conspiracy, which put an end to her tyranny and life.
RECITATIVE.
Vor,. i. 5
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
would be tolerable ; but the vopos TQtfisQ^, or three part song, mentioned by Plutarch, p. 124, which, it seems, consisted in singing three strophes successively, the first in the Dorian mode, D, the second in the Phrygian, E, and the third in the Lydian, F sharp, rising a tone each time, would be in the highest degree offensive to modern ears.
And yet, Athenaeus speaks of a similar feat performed by Pytha- goras, the Zacynthian, upon the lyre ; and Pausanias, of one by Pronomus, the Theban, upon a flute, which he had invented for all these three modes. But upon these occasions, what must have become of their rule for preferring transitions by consonant intervals? We must suppose that these unrelative mutations were very old tricks.
And yet we must not condemn them too hastily; for we find the old church composers, in the early .days of counterpoint, neglecting the modern rules of relation, or rather not knowing them, and taking, fearlessly, two, or more perfect chords of the same kind, diatonically, using every note in the scale, except the seventh, as a fundamental base (/).
This is, doubtless, the true secret of ancient church music, and the principal cause of its effect, so widely different from that of modern compositions ; an effect compounded of solemnity, wildness, and melancholy.
(/) Palestrina begins his Stabat Mater, which is still used in the pope's chapel, and printed in the music performed there during Passion week, by three successive common chords, with sharp thirds, to this base A G F, descending, diatonically ; and yet this modulation is so qualified by the disposition of the parts, and tempered by the perfect manner in which it is sung, that though it looks unscientific and licentious upon paper, its effects, of which no idea can be acquired from Keyed instruments, are admirable*
Section V Of M.elopoda
THE rules concerning the different parts of ancient music that have been already described, lead naturally to the subject of Melopoeia, for which they were at first established.
MeAos, melos, consisted of a number of musical sounds of a certain pitch of voice, opposed to noise, or the unfixed and evan- escent tones of common speech.
MsXcodta, melody, was the singing of poetry, to such sounds : and
Mshonoiia, melopoeia, the composition, or arrangement, of such sounds as were fit for song.
These several definitions shew that all melody was originally vocal, and applied to poetry.
Melopoeia had its particular rules, several of which are come down to us, and are still clear and intelligible: such as that an air, or piece of melody, should be composed in some particular Genus, and be chiefly confined to the sounds of some certain Mode. As to the succession, or order of these sounds in the course of the air, that was in general confined to four kinds, which Euclid specifies in his Harmonic Introduction (a). These I shall endeavour to describe with exactness, as they may throw some light upon ancient melody.
Euclid tells us, first, that sounds may move either ascending or descending regularly, as thus:
which was called aycoyy ; secondly, by leaps of greater intervals than a second : thus, which was called
3tloxi], interwoven: thirdly, by repeating the same sound several times, which was called nerrsta, iteration : as in singing these notes
and fourthly, that sounds may be sustained in the same tone, which we call a holding note, and which the Greeks expressed by the word
Thus far seems intelligible ; but I cannot help thinking that the third book of Aristoxenus, which is chiefly employed in laying
(a) P. 22, Edit. Meibom.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
down rules for the immediate succession of sounds in a scale, has been misrepresented, as containing rules for the composition of melody in general.
He says, indeed, p. 66, "that after a semitone the voice can only go two ways up, and two ways down" ; that is, by a tone, or another semitone. This is true in the order of the scale ; but was all melody confined to that order? And is there any doubt whether from a semitone it might not go by a leap to a third, fourth, or fifth, above or below? M. Burette, however, in his notes upon Plutarch, where the enharmonic of Olympus, and the beauty of its melody are mentioned, says, the beauty must lie in the novelty, and the novelty was the Ditone, or major third, "which was never heard in the other Genera." What! was the Diatonic so strictly confined to a progress by conjoint degrees, as never to be permitted to skip a note, in order to ascend or descend by the interval of a third? Nothing can be so strange as this assertion, or so contrary to the passage just quoted from Euclid, which M. Burette has elsewhere translated and adopted (&), and indeed to the definition of the term nloxv), in all subsequent Greek writers upon music, down to Bryennius.*
But M. Burette is not wholly singular, I find, in his opinion upon this subject, as Dr. Brown seems to have had the same idea ; for in his Progress of Poetry, &c, p. 64, he says, that the Greek Diatonic is "utterly incompatible with our Diatonic scale; because there one semitone, and two tones, must succeed each other invariably." Mr. Malcolm is as obscure and unsatisfactory, as usual, upon this subject ; and leaves it, at least, as unintelligible as he found it.
But the denying or doubting of one of the few facts upon which ancient writers have expressed themselves clearly, is joining in the conspiracy with time, which has already rendered the study of Greek music sufficiently hopeless and desperate, to repress the courage of the boldest enquirer.
There were many rules to be observed in moving by leaps, or disjunct degrees, the principal of which was to prefer, in general, consonant to dissonant intervals. It was likewise enjoined not to divide any two semitones into quarter tones, together, or two successive tones into semitones (c), nor were two major thirds to follow each other.
But these, and a great number of other rules laid down by Aristoxenus, with respect to the succession of intervals, were all derived from the genera, the rules for which were rules for melody. The Diatonic genus of the ancients resembled our natural scale in every particular ; and it is allowed by Aristoxenus even that three tones may succeed each other, ascending or descending, which is all that is allowable in our Diatonic, except in minor keys, where
(&) Mem. des Inscrip. torn. v. p. 178.
(c) The prohibition of more than, two ! clear proof that the ancient chromatic
* Circa A.D. 1320. His chief work, Harmonics, was really a digest of tracts by earlier writers.
(c) The prohibition of more than two semitones succeeding each other at a time, rising or falling, is a clear proof that the ancient chromatic was very different from the modern.
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
we ascend to the octave of the key note by a sharp seventh, which the ancients seem never to have admitted.
A further detail or explanation of these rules, would not make the matter much clearer ; however, there are some particulars collected together in the first book of Aristides Quintilianus (d), that seem to merit attention.
He sets off by dividing Melopoeia into three species, taken from the great and general system, which he names after the sounds called Hypate, Mese, and Nete ; that is, lowest, middle, and highest ; and these denominations resembled, with respect to melody, our distinc- tions of base, tenor, and treble.
With regard to modulation in melody, he has the same distinctions as Euclid for the several species, though he differs a little from him in his manner of defining them; but these differences are of small importance to us now ; and indeed the authority of Euclid is so superior to that of Aristides Quintilianus, that nothing which can be cited from him would have weight sufficient to invalidate the testimony of so exact and respectable a writer.
However, the moral distinctions of Melopoeia to be found in Aristides Quintilianus are so curious and fanciful, that I shall insert a few of them here.
He allows of three modes (rgonoi) or styles of Melopoeia; the Dithyrambic, or Bacchanal ; the Nomic, consecrated to Apollo ; and the Tragic; and acquaints us that the first of these modes employed the strings, or sounds, in the middle of the great system; the second, those at top ; and the third, those at the bottom.
These modes had other subaltern modes that were dependent on them ; such as the Erotic, or amorous ; the Comic ; and the Encomiastic, used in panegyrics. All these being thought proper to excite or to calm certain passions, were, by our author, imagined to have had great influence upon the manners, (*;#?/) ; and, with respect to this influence, Melopoeia was divided into three kinds: first, the Systaltic, or that which inspired the soft and tender passions, as well as the plaintive, or, as the term implies, such as affect and penetrate the heart ; secondly, the Diastaltic, or that which was capable of exhilerating, by kindling joy, or inspiring courage, magnanimity, and sublime sentiments : thirdly, the Hesuchastic, which held the mean between the other two, that is, which could restore the mind to a state of tranquility and moderation.
The first kind of Melopoeia suited poetical subjects of love and gallantry, of complaint and lamentation : the second was reserved for tragic and heroic subjects: the third for hymns, panegyrics, and as a vehicle of exhortation and precept (e).
(d) P. 28 and 29. Edit. Meibom.
(e) These imaginations are evidently drawn from the dreams of Pythagoras. lamblicus, in the life of that philosopher, tells us that " he had invented certain musical airs, with which, by a happy mixture of genera, he could, at his pleasure, govern the passions of his scholars, and awaken terror, melancholy, anger, compassion, emulation, fear, and desires of all kinds ; as well as stimulate appetite, pride, caprice, and vehemence ; guiding each affection according to virtue, with suitable melodies, as with so many salutary and healing medicines." And Plutarch, in his Discourse on the Cessation of Oracles, says, that poetry set to music, was once the current language of Greece, and the vehicle of history, philosophy, and of every important subject.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
All these rules concerning the ancient Melopoeia afford only general notions, which, to be rendered dear an.d intelligible, would require particular discussions, as well as illustrations by example ; but the Greek writers on music have absolutely denied us that satisfaction, reserving, perhaps, when they published their works, all such minutia for the lessons which they gave their scholars in private ; for in no one of the seven treatises upon ancient music, collected and published by Meibomius, is a single air, or passage of Greek melody, come down to us ; which is the more extra- ordinary, as there are few treatises upon modern music, without innumerable examples in notes, to illustrate the precepts they contain.
But whatever were the rules for arranging different sounds in such order as would flatter the ear in the most agreeable manner, it is easy to imagine that this regular disposition, and beautiful order of sounds, constituted nothing more than the mere body of melody, which could only be animated and vivified by the assistance of Rhythm, or Measure: and this will be discussed in the next section.
70
Section VI Of Rhythm
A CONTINUED motion in every organized body that is capable of it, is susceptible of some kind of measure. This measure marks the several parts of motion, and enables us to judge of their proportions. It is to point out these proportions that the Greeks, among many other terms, have made use of Qv&poe, Rhythm, which they have applied to different purposes. They have not only expressed by it the kind of cadence, or vibration of the wings, in the flight of birds ; the movement of the feet in the progressive motion of animals ; and the gestures, figures, and steps of dancers; but every species of regular motion, such as is observable in the beating of the pulse, and in respiration. They have even abused the original import of the word so far, as to apply it to things absolutely motionless and inanimate ; such as works in painting and sculpture, in which they have called that symmetry and just propor- tion which reigns in all parts by the name of Rhythm.
But the most common application of this term has been to express the Time or duration of many sounds heard in succession: whether these sounds are musical, and such as are produced by voices and instruments, or without any determinate tone, as in the strokes of a hammer upon an anvil; in the beating of a drum; and in the articulations of the voice in common speech, in repeating poetry, or pronouncing an oration.
But our enquiries here shall be confined to that species of Rhythm, which more particularly concerns melody, and which merits discussion the more, on account of its great importance m music, and of the darkness in which it is usually involved by writers on the subject.
From the strict union of poetry and music among the ancients, which seem to have been almost inseparable, an offence against Time or Rhythm was unpardonable, as it not only destroyed the beauty of the poetry, but sometimes even the meaning of the
words of which it was composed, To nav actQa povoixois 6 $v&posf
say the Greeks ; it was the principal point in their music, without which they regarded melody as wholly unmeaning and lifeless. Hence Plato refused the title of musician to every one who was not perfectly versed in Rhythm, as we should now to a bad Timeist. It is of such importance, that, without it, music can have no power over the human passions. Pythagoras, according to Martianus Capella, used to call Rhythm, in music, the male, and Melos the
.7*
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
female ; and Doni (a) has compared Rhythm with design, in painting, and Melos to colouring. It is certain that an ordinary- melody, in which the time is strongly marked, and the accents are well placed, has more effect than one that is deficient in those particulars, though more refined and uncommon, and set off with all the richness of harmony, and learning of modulation.
Isaac Vossius, in his Dissertation, de Poematum Cantu, et viribus Rhythmi, has attributed to Rhythm all the miraculous powers of ancient music.
As vocal music was chiefly cultivated among the ancient Greeks, the first part of these rhythmical observations shall be confined to lyric poetry.
Aristides Quintilianus defines musical Rhythm ovonjpa ex xeovcov xa-ta tiva ra£w ovyxewsvcov (b). "The assemblage of many parts of time, which preserve a certain proportion to each other"; which, since the use of bars in music, may be called aliquot parts of a measure, or a given portion of time. For the better understanding of this definition, it is necessary to remember that the music in question was constantly sung to verses, the words of which were all composed of long and short syllables; that the short syllable was pronounced as quick again as the long, and the short syllable being regarded as one part or portion of this measure, the long was equal to two : so that, consequently, the sound which was applied to the long syllable, was equal in duration to two such sounds as were sung to short syllables, or, in other words, that one note was equal to two portions of time, and the other to one. It must likewise be remembered that the verses thus sung, were composed of a certain number of feet, formed by these long and short syllables differently combined, and that the Rhythm of the melody was regulated by these feet ; as, whatever was their length, they were always divided into two parts, equal or unequal, the first of which was called &QOIS, elevation, and the second foots, depression (c). In like manner the Rhythm of the melody, corresponding with these feet, was divided into two parts, equal or unequal, the first of which was called the down and up parts of a bar, expressed by beating down the hand or foot, and lifting it up. Thus far concerns vocal Rhythm ; what follows belongs to instrumental.
As the notes of ancient music were constantly written over each syllable of the verses which were to be sung ; as the quantity of each of these syllables was perfectly known to musicians ; and as the duration of each sound was regulated by the syllables; it did not seem necessary that the time should be marked by any par- ticular sign or character. However, for the ease and convenience of the musician, a canon, or rule, was given of the Rhythm at the beginning of a lyric poem. This canon consisted of nothing but the numbers 1 and 2, that is, the Alpha and Beta of the Greek alphabet, disposed according to the order of the breves and longs
(a) Tom. ii. p. 203. (b) Lib. L p. 31. Edit. Meibom.
* ^ ^ ^A &* m P06*1^ seeEas to answer to a bar in music. A time, among the ancients, was a portion of that foot or bar ; as, mth us, a bar is divided into accented and unaccented parts.
72
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
which cpmposed and divided each verse, according to the number of its feet. The Alpha, or unit, marked a breve, because it con- tained only one portion of time ; and the Beta, or binary, marked a long, being equal to two portions. Some of these poetical, or rhythmical canons, are still to be found in the Manual of Hephaestion (d).
Rhythm in Latin was called numerus ; and this term, in process of time, was extended to the melody itself, subjected to certain numbers or rhythms, as appears from this line of Virgil :
Numeros memini, si verba tenerem :
If I knew the words, I could remember the tune well enough. The Romans had signs for rhythm, as well as the Greeks ; and these signs were not only called numerus, but cera, that is, number, or the mark for time. Numeri nota, says Nonius Marcellus. In this sense we find the word used in a verse of Lucilius :
HCBC est ratio? perversa &ra! summa subducta improbe? Do you call that settling accounts'? such a confusion of figures? and the sum falsely cast up?
Though the word &ra was at first only applied by musicians to the time, or measure of the melody, they afterwards made the same use of it as of numerus, to express the tune or melody itself ; and it has been thought that the word Air, or, as the Italians call it, Aria, which includes a certain piece of music of a peculiar rhythm, or cadence, is derived from cera.
Such was the manner in which the ancients marked the measure in their written music ; but to make it still more sensible in the execution, they beat time in several different ways. The most common was by the motion of the foot, which was lifted up and beat down alternately, according to what we call common, or triple time. To regulate the time was generally the office of the music master or director, called PSOOZOQOS and xogvyouos, coryphaeus, because he was placed in the middle of the orchestra, among the musicians, and in an exalted and conspicuous situation, in order to be seen and heard the more easily by the whole band.
The directors of the time were likewise called in Greek nodoxTvno* and fftodoyjoyoi, from the noise of their feet. In Latin they were called pedarii, podarii, and pedicularii, for the same reason. Their feet were generally furnished with wooden or iron sandals, in order to mark the time in a more distinct manner : these implements the Greeks called xQovyte£ia, xQova&a, xQovjcera / and the Latins pedicula scabella, or scabilla, because they resembled little pattens or clogs.
But it was not only with the feet that the ancients beat the time, but with all the fingers of the right hand upon the hollow part of the left ; and he who marked the time or rhythm in this manner, was called manu-ductor. For this purpose they sometimes used oyster-shells, and the shells of other fish, as well as the bones of animals, in beating time, as we .do of castanets, tabors, &c. Both Hesychius, and the scholiast of Aristophanes, furnish passages to
(d) This author lived in the time of the emperor Verus, in the second century. He was a gram- marian of Alexandria. The work alluded to is de re Metrica. Suidas, Jul. Capitolinus.
73
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
confirm this assertion. What a noisy and barbarous music! All rhythm, and no sound. The drums and sistrums of the Idsei Dactyli could not have been more savage.
Many ancient instruments were monotonous, and of little use, but to mark the measure ; such were the cymbalum and sistrum. But it would afford us no very favourable idea of the abilities of modern musicians, if they required so much parade and noise in keeping together. The more time is beaten, says M. Rousseau, the less it is kept ; and, in general, bad music, and bad musicians, stand in most need of such noisy assistance.
^ However, if any thing like the power which ancient music is said to have had over the passions can be credited, it must have derived this power chiefly from the energy and accentuation of the rhythm. Aristides Quintilianus (e) gives a long list of different metres, with their several properties of calming or agitating the mind, according to the nature of the syllables, or feet of the verses, as w^ll as the sentiments which they were intended to express; and as it will afford the reader an opportunity of seeing how much stress was laid on this part of music, and how fanciful and ideal many of the distinctions seem to have been, I shall give the whole passage in English.
"Measure, which begins by a down part of the metrical division, is calm and gentle ; whereas that which begins by an up part, expresses trouble and agitation. Full time, that is, composed of intire feet, is noble in its effect ; and that arising from catalectic verses, deficient in a syllable or note, if it be supplied by a short rest or pause, has more simplicity, but is less noble. Time of equal proportions, is graceful ; and that of odd numbers, or sesquialterate proportion, is more proper to excite commotion (f) Double time is a kind of mean betwixt the graceful and the turbulent. Among the movements of two even notes, if they are short, their effect is lively, impetuous, and proper for military .dances, called Pyrrhics, in which the dancers are armed ; and time, of which the movement is regulated by poetic feet composed of long syllables, is more grave, serious, and fit for hymns which are sung in honour of the gods, at festivals, and in sacrifices: the measure composed of a mixture of long and short notes, participates of the qualities of both these last mentioned."
"Among the duplicate proportions, the Iambic and Trochaic ^ the most vivacity and fire, and are peculiarly proper for '
dancing. Those called 'oe&ioi and owavroi, of which the Arsis answers to two long syllables, are full of dignity. Compound measures are more pathetic than simple ; and such as are confined
(e) Lib. ii. p. 97. Edit Meibom.
(/) The reader should here be informed, that, besides our common and triple time, they had measures of s,.and of 7 qual notes in a bar ; circumstances which must appear very exSaordmarv to modem musicians. By double time, Arist. Quint, means triple time, that £ i w2ch S SSS^art of tae bar was to the up, as 2 to i ; or in which one time of the bar was double to the other . So common time they called 4*4 because the bars admitted a division into two equal parts. In the same manner, the measure of 5 notes in a bar, was called Sesquialter, that is, of a to 3 : and that of 7 notes! ££^<*,OTof3to4,fwmthebaMbefcg<E^^ ana msw; or 7 notes,
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
to one genus, move the passions much less than those which pass from one genus to another (g)."
After giving these characteristics of time, Aristides proceeds to prove their reality and foundation in nature, by drawing a parallel between some particular species of Rhythm, and the gait and actions of man. He pretends, for instance, "that the motion which answers to the Spondaic measure, is a sign of moderation and fortitude ; that Trochaics, or Paeans, indicate a greater .degree of fire and vivacity ; that the Pyrrhic has something low and ignoble in it ; that an irregular velocity implies dissoluteness and disorder ; and finally, that a movement resulting from all these, is wild and extravagant."
With respect to the excellence and effects of ancient music, it is very difficult to steer between the extremes of credulity and scepticism. Such enthusiasts as Aristides Quintilianus, by asserting too much, have thrown a ridicule upon the subject, and inclined us, perhaps, to believe too little. The simplicity of ancient melody, and its slavish dependence upon poetry, may probably have given birth to some of these fancies. But however that may have been, this seems the place in which to give some account of those poetic feet, and Rhythms, upon which the ancients laid so much stress. For, that they thought the knowledge of poetical feet, and even rhetorical, necessary to a musician, is certain from the pains that have been taken, especially by Roman musical writers, to explain them in all the treatises that are come down to us.
A poetical Foot consists of a certain number of syllables, which constitutes a distinct part of a verse, as a Bar does of an air in music. An Hexameter verse consists of six of these feet, a Pentameter of five.
The Spondee, Iambus, Trochee, and Pyrrhic or Periambus, are dissyllabic feet, or of two syllables each.
The Spondee consists of two long syllables (h), as vertunt.
An Iambic foot has one short and one long syllable (i). Oeov, lsya>. potensf amas. ""
The Trochee has one long and one short syllable, as gratus, musa. " "
return.
silent.
(g) The French seem to have had this precept in view in composing their old serious operas, in which the time is for ever changing.
(h) There is no true Spondee in the English language, as every word of two syllables has an accent L the first or second syllable, which renders it longer than the other. The ancient Spondean or . * ^y Olympus i ^ ^' * ~ *' '•-— •
libation air composed by Olympus in the Old Enharmonic, without the quarter tone, was, however, in this measure, consisting of slow even notes, and the foot derived its name from this use of it
(t) Iambic verses were originally used in satire, with which they are often synonymous in ancient authors.
75
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
The Pyrrhic, or Periambus, two short syllables, as mare, pro bus. w °
quiver (k).
The Dactyl, Anap&st, Molossus, Tribrach, Bacchius, Anti- bacchius, Amphibrachys, and Creticus, are Trissyllabics, or of three syllables. To some of these we have no equivalents ; however, the Dactyl, consisting of one long and two short syllables ~uu
is very common in our language, as tenderly,
hastily; and we have verses composed of dactyls as well as the Greeks and Romans:
My j banks they are j furnish'd with | bees, Whose | murmur in- | vltes one to | sleep.
These may be compared with the following celebrated passages in Homer and Virgil, where the sound is manifestly and intention- ally, an echo to the sense. Homer, (Odyssey, book xi) after he has described in labouring Spondees the slow and painful manner in which Sysiphus rolled the stone up-hill, makes use of nimble Dactyls in describing its swift descent:
ejreiTO. jreSovSe /cuXivfiero Aaa; ai/cu8>js.
And Virgil, lib. viid. v 596, describes in pure Dactyls the galloping of the horse :
- It clamor, ei agmtne f'dcfo Quddrupedante putrlm somfa qualit unguld cawpum.
The Anapaest has two short and one long syllable ; as sapiens,
recubans,""~ (I J J|f || Isaac Vossius, de Viribus Rhythmi,
p. 56, has said that the French have no Dactyls, nor the English a perfect Anap&st in their language. Let the French speak for themselves ; but as to our own part of the charge, it is easily confuted by the mere mention of the words recommend and disappoint.
I shall enumerate the rest of the poetic feet of the ancients, merely to shew what resources they had in varying their melody by different combinations of two kinds of notes.
The Molossus has three long syllables, """ The Tribrach, three short, uuu
(k) In our language, though it iTgoverned almostTentirely by Accent, an accented and a long syllable are by no means to be confounded, at least in setting words to music. Mr. Stillinfifleet Principles and Power of Harmony, has given the word level as a Trochaic, that is, a word in which thi first syllable is long, the second short ; but Trochaics in English seem to be such words as silent charming, kindred ; and level, revel, quiver, river, correspond more exactly with the Pyrrhic or Periam- bus of the ancients, being composed of two short syllables.
76
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
;hius, which is the reverse of has one short, and two long syllables,
The Antibacchius, two long and one short,
The Bacchius, which is the reverse of the Dactyl, f «»
°~~ y ^ '
Amphibrachys, one short, one long, and one short, -/f , or one lon between two short a~M .17
or one long between two short, Creticus, one short between two long, ~u~ (a) F II T
The Quadrisyllables are compounded of feet already mentioned.
The Proceleusmaticus is composed of four short ^p ___ syllables, or or two Pyrrhics, wwww ft> T T f T
The Choriambus, two short between two long, or -f p m*^*-* the junction of the Trochaus and Iambus, ~"v~ ft iT I 1 * =1 '
Epitrite ; of this foot there are four species: 1. the Iambus and Spondee ° : 2. the Trochee and Spondee ~°~~: 3. the Spondee and Iambus ~""°~: and 4. the Spondee and Trochee w.
The Paan or Jteow, wMch is the contrary of this last, consists of one long syllable, and three short :
Servius reckons more than a hundred different kinds of verse among the Latins ; and, according to Hephaestion, the number was still more considerable among the Greeks ; consequently their melody might have been varied in as many different ways. There is not, however, the least appearance of the ancients having had . in their vocal music that kind of. measure which we call pointed ; nor did they admit rests in the middle of a verse, though at the end of catalectic, or broken verses, the singer was allowed to make up the deficiency by a silence, equivalent to a rest in modern music; and though they had so great a variety of feet in their poetry, many of those already instanced are unfit for modern melody.
After all the researches which I have been able to make, it must be acknowledged that the subject of ancient music, in general, still remains, and probably ever will remain, involved in much difficulty and uncertainty. It is fortunate, however, for those who wish to view as near as possible this dark angle of antiquity, that the prospect happens to be the clearest just in that part where all its admirers assure us it is best worth examining ; for however ignorant we may be of the Melody of ancient music, the Rhythm, or time of that melody, being regulated entirely, as has been already observed, by the metrical feet, must always be as well known to
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
us as the prosody and construction of the verse ; so that we have nothing to do but to apply to the long and short syllables any two notes, one of which is double the length of the other, in order to know as exactly as if we heard, in what manner any particular kind of metre was set by the ancients with respect to Time and Cadence, that boasted Rhythm, which we are so often told was every thing in their music. It may therefore afford some gratifica- tion to the curiosity of those who have never considered the poetry of the ancients in this point of view, if I produce a few examples, which will, perhaps, help to throw a little light upon the dramatic music of the Greeks, and give some idea of the rhythmical resources of the poet-musician in one of the most interesting provinces of his art.
The first example shall be of the Iambic verse, which chiefly prevails in the Greek tragedies, and in which the dialogue and soliloquy, indeed all but the chorus or ode, were generally written. I shall content myself with applying notes of correspondent lengths to the syllables, and marking the time ; leaving the Melody to the imagination of the reader. Should I presume to supply it, I might expect to be reproached as another Salmoneus for my temerity.
Demensl qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen, &c. (Z).
ist Foot 23 456
P HP r IV r| p
'H-
Ai-irwv tv* 'A | 8175 X"P*k » 1 K** rat 0* «v, | &C. (*w).
These lines are the beginning of the Hecuba of Euripides, and were sung by the ghost of Polydorus (n). The bars in the verse are
(J) Salmoneus was a king of Elis Who mock'd with empty sounds and mimic rays, Heav'ns awful thunder, and the lightning's blaze.
PITT'S Virg. Book vi.
(m) This measure when pure and unmixt, consisted of six Iambic feet, as eques \ sonan \tever\ bera \bit un\ gula.
Such verses, however, seldom occur. The laws of this metre only required that the second^ fourth, and last feet should be Iambics ; in the other places, Spondees, Anapasts, and Dactyls, were admitted. This metre answers to our Alexandrine, or verse of twelve syllables ; but more exactly in the number and kind of feet, than in its cadence, or general effect upon the ear. The pause after the third foot, so essential to a melodious Alexandrine, has no place but by accident, in the Iambic, which runs more swiftly, and has a more prosaic effect. This, undoubtedly, led the ancients to measure it per dipodiam, or by double feet (see HOT. Art. Poet. v. 252, pes citus : unde, &c.) which answer to double bars in modern music. Ariosto wrote some comedies in this Iambic measure. One of his lines will perhaps be as exact a representation of the ancient Iambic as can be produced, in point of cadence.
Per dio son qua \ si in pensier di \ tornarmene.
The following A lexandrine of Spenser may also serve for the same purpose. So in his angry courage fairly pacified.
(n) From the drear mansions of the dead, and gates Of darkness horrible, I come, where reigns Remote from all the Gods, Hell's awful king.
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
only to show how the ancients divided it into three portions of two feet in each : but the bars of Time, the Thesis or beat, must always fall in the middle of the foot: u | ~ f | f*. For the sake of distinguishing the feet more clearly, I have barred them singly ; though it would have been more conformable to the ancient manner of scanning this kind of verse, and probably more expressive of its cadence and effect, to have made but three bars in each line (o). ^ Besides this metre, the dialogue admitted, occasionally, Trochaic verses. They are generally introduced in scenes of hurry and dis- order ; being, as Aristotle has described them, and as their name implies, a voluble and dancing measure (p). A character which the reader will not be inclined to dispute, when he compares the ancient Trochaic with a measure exactly corresponding to it in our own language, but which we have not yet admitted into our tragedy.
nov 'ow ovros, 6? ire^vye \ r'Sv/tov eic So^v gtyo? (q) :
This is a pure Trochaic, and is precisely in the measure of our
Jolly mortals fill yotir glasses, Noble deeds are done by wine.
The whole difference is, that the ancient Trochaics were written in one line : but this is merely to the eye; for they really consist of two verses ; the last syllable of the fourth foot being, I believe, constantly the end of a word.
Mr. West, in his translation of the Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides, has given a whole scene of Trochaics in the correspondent English measure (r). A single line of the original, with his translation, will be a sufficient example of Trochaic Rhythm.
5* HvSti TToXZ rcus | rovfi* *x&v M' ao-/xa— - ros-
From the reach of this contagion | fly 1 I warn you all to fly !
(o) The Iambics of Greek Comedy differ from these only in a little more liberty of construction : those of the Roman, in Plautus and Terence, are so licentious, as often not to differ perceptibly from Prose, even in the judgment of Cicero himself ; propter similitudinem sermonis, sic seepe sunt abjecti, ut nonnunquam vis in his numerus et versus sentixi possit. Orator, cap. 55.
(p) Tpoxepov opx>j<rucwTepav. Arist. Rhet. 3. 4. et Poet. 4.
(a) Eurip. Orest. 1539. Orestes runs upon the stage with a sword in his hand, in pursuit of a Phrygian slave, who had offended *"'"\ crying out, literally, " Where is he who ran away from my sword out of the house ? " These verses are composed of eight feet, wanting one syllable to complete the last Trochee, which, in the following example, is expressed by a crotchet rest, to fill up the time, as was practised by the ancients in setting these deficient verses. See A. Quint, p. 40. concerning these rests, or vacua Tempora. The Trochaic, like the Iambic measure, admitted the mixture of other feet ; but contrary to Iambics, thejfrd, third, and fifth places were in this metre the most sacred. It may be observed, however, of both, that this licence was not such as by any means destroyed the general character and pace of the verse.
(r) He seems, however, to have been mistaken, in supposing that Trochaics were introduced in this scene, " to give an air of solemnity ', &c." Nothing could be more remote from the character of this metre. But it was rather adapted to occasions of urgent business, and anxious preparation, such as are the subject of this scene. Mr. Gray, in his Ode on Poesy, has three times admitted this measure in the three epodes ; in the first epode, where Venus and the Graces are dancing, it is certainly used with great propriety and beauty, after
" Frisking light in frolic measures."
In the other two epodes it was matter of necessity, the subject would hardly have led him to it.
79
A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC
Such were the metres appropriated to the dialogue of the a,ncient tragedy, and such must have been the Rhythms or Times of the music to which they were set.
I shall close these observations with one example more, taken from the choral part of the drama, that part which, as will be shewn in the ninth section, was more particularly musical ; the circle marked out for the musician, where all the magic of his art, with all the wonders of Rhythm, were to be displayed. Of the metre of this part, I shall only observe, in general, that it seems to have admitted of such an unbounded variety in the mixture and arrangement of feet, and to have been fettered by so few restraints, that, to a modern ear, it is frequently not to be distin- guished from a smooth and elegant prose. We can therefore be certain of nothing, concerning the music applied to the ancient chorus, except the relative lengths, of the notes as they are determined by the prosody : in what manner the ancients divided them by beats, I do not even presume to guess ; and I believe it may be proposed to the musical reader as a problem, worthy, for its difficulty, at least, if not for its importance, to exercise his sagacity, how the following specimen should be barred, in order to render it as little tormenting to the ear as possible.
FTrrrrrrrrrr r r
Q ye-ve-at /SpoTtop, 'ws, 'vjads 't — <ra Ka.1 TO
r r r r
Z co — eras 'e — va. — pit? — /<.&
-t* r r r r^^
Tts yap, Tts 'a — vi)p irXe — ov
?v »_ p r r r r p [•=£=
Tas 'ciJ-fiat — ^/io — vl as <j>e pet,
r r r rr ? FT
H TO — trov— TOV *o-^-crov So — ^»cetv
r p r rr P^
Kat S6^-aw^ a— TTOK Xt— i/at; (s)
(s) So#»Aoc. Otftit^. Tyr. v. 1196.
0 hapless state of human race !
How quick the fleeting shadows pass
Of transitory bliss below,
Where all is vanity and woe \-Francklin.
80
DISSERTATION ON THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENTS
The most striking circumstance in all these examples, is the
Eerpetual change of time, occasioned by the mixture of unequal jet (t). To the eye, indeed, the Recitative of the old French opera presents a similar appearance ; but where no strict time is observed, the changes are less perceptible to the ear. No circum- stance relative "to ancient music has been more frequently and triumphantly opposed to the modern, in proof of superiority, than its inviolable adherence to the fixed quantity of syllables (u). It is perhaps equally difficult to disprove this, and to conceive how such a music could be rigorously executed, without throwing both the hearers and performers into convulsions. If, however, this was the case, we need no longer wonder at the noisy expedients, to which the ancients had recourse in beating time ; for I believe the best modern band would find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep exactly together in the execution of a Greek Chorus, though assisted by all the clatter of an ancient Coryph&us.
Upon the whole, perhaps, even the imperfect view which I have here attempted to give of the rhythmical resources of ancient music, may be sufficient to warrant something more than a doubt, whether, after all that Isaac Vossius (x), and many others have said, a •fixed prosody, and the rigorous, unaccommodating length of syllables be any recommendation of a language for music ; that is, whether a music formed and moulded closely upon such a language, must not necessarily be cramped and poor, in comparison of that free, unshackled variety, that independent range of rhythmical phrase, which constitutes so considerable a part of the riches of modern music (y). Let the most inventive composer try to set half a dozen Hexameters, pure Iambics, or any other verses that will fall into regular common or triple time, and he will soon find that no resources of melody are sufficient to disguise or palliate the insipid and tiresome uniformity of the measure ; and as for any thing like expression, we may as well expect to be affected by the mechanical strut of a soldier upon the parade. In other metres, such as those already given in the preceding examples, where feet of different times are intermixed, some variety is indeed acquired ; but it is a misplaced variety, which, without obviating the tiresome effect of a confinement to no more than two lengths of notes, adds to it that of an aukward and uncouth arrangement: the ear is still fatigued with uniformity where it requires change, and distracted by change where it requires uniformity.
(t) See Reflex. Crit. of the abb6 du Bos, torn. iii. § 2. p. 33.
(u) In Versu quidem Theatra iota exdamant, si suit una syllaba brevior aut longior. Gic. Oral, ad Brut. 52.
(x) This author, De Viribus Rhythmi, p. 128, advises the modems, if they would have any music fit to be heard, to dismiss all their barbarous variety of notes, and retain only minims and crotchets. This would, indeed, be inoentis frugibus, gland* vesci I
(y) I am happy to