Music History-Chapter 1

Baxter

David

Chapter 1
Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome

Prelude
The history of western European culture begins with ancient
Greece and Rome.
Evidence of this connection can be seen today in the
design of civic buildings, in thoughts about platonic love,
and in discussions of the Oedipus complex.
Western music also has links that go back more than three
thousand years.
Little is known about the music of ancient Greece.
About forty-five songs and hymns have survived.
Written and iconographical evidence suggests that music
in ancient Greece has much in common with Western
music.
Cultivated people were educated in music.
Music in the early Christian Church assimilated
aspects of Greek music theory.
In the early Christian era, diverse musical practices
gradually gave way to the dominance of Roman liturgy and
the repertoire known as Gregorian chant.

Ancient Greece
Greek gods and demigods were musical practitioners.

Musical Qualities
Most of the surviving musical works are from relatively late
periods.
Music was primarily monophonic.
Instruments may have embellished the melody while it was being
sung, producing a texture called heterophony.

Musical Qualities
Greek music was almost entirely improvised.
Music and poetry were nearly synonymous.
Plato believed that song consisted of speech, rhythm, and
harmony.
Lyric poetry was to be sung with a lyre.
The word tragedy incorporates a Greek noun meaning the
art of singing.
Several Greek words for poetic types, such as hymn, are
musical terms.

Melody and rhythm were linked to the sound and meter of

Greek poetry.
Ethos-The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power
of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and
even morals.
Epitaph of Seikilos
Epitaph of Seikilos is a brief song inscribed on a tombstone from
the first century C.E.
The epitaph urges readers to be lighthearted while also
acknowledging death.
The musical rhythm follows the text.
The melody is diatonic; the range is an octave.
Melody was accompanied by a single instrument that would
follow, but sometimes slightly embellish, the melody
Greek influence on the Middle Ages
There are no direct links between the musical repertory of the
Greeks and that of the Middle Ages.
However, Greek philosophy and theory had a strong impact.

Music and Ethos

Greek writers believed that music could affect ethos, ones
ethical character.
Musics mathematical laws permeated the visible and
invisible world, including the human soul.
The parts of the human soul could be restored to a healthy
balance (harmony) by the correct type of music.

Music and Ethos

Aristotles Politics theorizes on how music affects behavior.
Since music imitates certain passions, it can arouse those
passions as well.
Habitual listening to certain types of music can shape a
persons character.

Music and education

Plato felt that music was important for education.
He urged a balance between music and gymnastics.
He recommended two modes (Dorian and Phrygian)
because they fostered the passions of temperance and
courage.
He discouraged other modes, too many notes, complex
scales, and the mixing of incompatible genres.
Aristotle felt that music could be used for amusement and
intellectual enjoyment as well as for education.

Music theory

Pythagoras recognized the numerical relationships of musical

intervals.
The ratio 2:1 results in an octave, 3:2 a fifth, and 4:3 a
fourth.
Numbers were thought to be the key to the universe.
Contemporary of Daniel
Studied for 12 years in Babylon
Music theory

Harmonics
Harmonics was the study of matters concerning pitch by
theorists such as Aristoxenus and Cleonides.
These studies laid the foundation for the concepts of notes,
intervals, scales, and modes.
Some intervals, such as the fourth, fifth, and octave, were
recognized as consonant.
Intervals could be combined into scales.
Scales were built on tetrachords (four notes spanning a
fourth).
Theorists recognized three types of tetrachords, each with
a broad range of expression: diatonic, chromatic, and
enharmonic.

Harmonia
Harmonia was the concept of the unification of parts into an
orderly whole.
Mathematical laws were the underpinnings of musical
intervals and the movements of heavenly bodies alike.
From Platos time until the beginning of modern astronomy,
philosophers believed in a harmony of the spheres:
unheard music created by the movement of planets and
other heavenly bodies.
ROMAN MUSIC,
200 B.C.E 500 C.E.

Roman Music
Rome assimilated Greek culture after conquering Greece in 146
B.C.E.
As in Greece, lyric poetry was often sung.
Music played an important part in public ceremonies,
religious rites, military events, theatrical performances,
private entertainment, and education.
At its peak in the first and second centuries C.E., Rome produced
famous virtuosos, large musical ensembles, and grand music
festivals and competitions.
The Roman economy declined in the third and fourth centuries.

Expensive musical productions declined.

Music from Rome at this time had little influence on later
musical developments in Europe.

The early christian church: Musical Thought

After the decline of the Roman Empire, the Christian Church
became the main unifying force of culture in Europe.
Attitudes towards music
Church leaders thought music could inspire divine thoughts and
influence character.
The idea that music might be enjoyed was generally disdained.
St. Augustine expressed concern about musics ability to arouse
strong feelings in his Confessions.
Music theory
Martianus Capellas treatise The Marriage of Mercury and
Philology (early fifth century) describes the seven liberal arts.
The trivium of the verbal arts
The quadrivium of the mathematical disciplines, which
includes music
Music theory
Boethius (ca. 480ca. 524) was the most revered authority on
music in the Middle Ages.
De institutione musica (The Fundamentals of Music) was
influential for the next thousand years.
The work is compiled from a number of Greek sources.
For Boethius, music was a science of numbers
The early christian church: musical practice
Early practices
The Church avoided connections to pagan rituals.
Musical qualities from Greece and other nearby cultures
were incorporated.
Church leaders disapproved of public spectacles and music for
intimate social occasions.
For over a thousand years, the tradition of Christian music was
one of unaccompanied singing.
Influences
Christianity sprang from Jewish roots and assimilated several of
its traditions.
Chanting of Scripture
Singing of psalms

The monasteries and churches of Syria contributed to the

development of psalm singing and to the use of strophic
devotional songs.
Influences
The Church of Byzantium (later Constantinople and now
Istanbul), the source for present-day Orthodox churches,
influenced Western chant.
Classification of repertory into eight modes
Several hymns were borrowed by the West.

Fifth and sixth centuries

Inhabitants of Italy, France, and Germany developed a repertory
of sacred melodies with Latin texts, called chants.
Variances in regional styles are called dialects.
At first, independent churches produced several distinct dialects.
Gallican: Gaul (today France)
Beneventan: southern Italy
Old Roman: Rome
Visigothic or Mozarabic: Spain
Ambrosian: Milan
Fifth and sixth centuries
Most dialects disappeared or were absorbed into a uniform
practice dominated by Rome.
Gregorian chant was preserved primarily due to the efforts of
ninth-century Frankish monks and nuns.
They learned to sing the melodies by heart.
They laboriously noted the texts and melodies into
manuscripts that were housed in monastic libraries.