analogous to our Major and Minor modes, or to the mediaeval Tones. On
the contrary, the course of the discussion has led us to recognise
distinctions of this kind in more than one instance. The doctrine
against which the argument has been mainly directed is not that
ancient scales were of more than one species or 'mode' (as it is now
called), but that difference of species was the basis of the ancient
Greek Modes. This will become clear if we bring together all the
indications which we have observed of scales differing from each
other in species, that is, in the _order_ of the intervals in the
octave. In doing so it will be especially important to be guided by
the principle which we laid down at the outset, of arranging our
materials according to chronology, and judging of each piece of
evidence strictly with reference to the period to which it belongs.
It is only thus that we can hope to gain a conception of Greek music
as the living and changing thing that we know it must have been.
1. The principal scale of Greek music is undoubtedly of the
Hypo-dorian or common species. This is sufficiently proved by the
facts (1) that two octaves of this species (_a-a_) constitute the
scale known as the Greater Perfect System, and (2) that the central
_a_ of this system, called the Mesê, is said to have been the
key-note, or at least to have had the kind of importance in the scale
which we connect with the key-note (Arist. _Probl._ xix. 20). This
mode, it is obvious, is based on the scale which is the descending
scale of the modern Minor mode. It may therefore be identified with
the Minor, except that it does not admit the leading note.
It should be observed that this mode is to be recognised not merely
in the Perfect System but equally in the primitive octave, of the
form _e - e_, out of which the Perfect System grew. The important
point is the tonic character of the Mesê (_a_), and this, as it
happens, rests upon the testimony of an author who knows the
primitive octave only. The fact that that octave is of the so-called
Dorian species does not alter the _mode_ (as we are now using that
term), but only the compass of the notes employed.
The Hypo-dorian octave is seen in two of the scales of the cithara
given by Ptolemy (p. 85), viz. those called [Greek: tritai] and
[Greek: tropoi], and the Dorian octave (_e - e_) in two scales,
[Greek: parupatai] and [Greek: ludia]. It is very possible (as was
observed in commenting on them) that the two latter scales were in
the key of _a_, and therefore Hypo-dorian in respect of mode. The
Hypo-dorian mode is also exemplified by three at least of the
instrumental passages given by the _Anonymus_ (_supra_, p. 89).
2. The earliest trace of a difference of species appears to be found
in the passage on the subject of the Mixo-lydian mode quoted above
(p. 24) from Plutarch's _Dialogue on Music_. In that mode, according
to Plutarch, it was discovered by a certain Lamprocles of Athens that
the Disjunctive Tone was the highest interval, that is to say, that
the octave in reality consisted of two conjunct tetrachords and a
tone:
[Music: Mesê Disj. Tone]
As the note which is the meeting-point of the two tetrachords is
doubtless the key-note, we shall not be wrong in making it the Mesê,
and thus finding the octave in question in the Perfect System and in
the oldest part of it, viz. the tetrachords Mesôn and Synêmmenôn,
with the Nêtê Diezeugmenôn. How then did this octave come to be
recognised by Lamprocles as distinctively Mixo-lydian? We cannot tell
with certainty, because we do not know what the Mixo-lydian scale was
before his treatment of it. Probably, however, the answer is to be
sought in the relation in respect of pitch between the Dorian and
Mixo-lydian keys. These, as we have seen (p. 23), were the keys
chiefly employed in tragedy, and the Mixo-lydian was a Fourth higher
than the other. Now when a scale consisting of white notes is
transposed to a key a Fourth higher, it becomes a scale with one
[Symbol: Flat]. In ancient language, the tetrachord Synêmmenôn
(_a-b[Symbol: Flat]-c-d_) takes the place of the tetrachord
Diezeugmenôn. In some such way as this the octave of this form may
have come to be associated in a special way with the use of the
Mixo-lydian key.
However this may be, the change from the tetrachord Diezeugmenôn to
the tetrachord Synêmmenôn, or the reverse, is a change of mode in the
modern sense, for it is what the ancients classified as a change of
System ([Greek: metabolê kata systêma])[1]. Nor is it hard to
determine the two 'modes' concerned, if we may trust to the authority
of the Aristotelian _Problems_ (_l. c._) and regard the Mesê as
always the key-note. For if _a_ is kept as the key-note, the octave
_a-a_ with one [Symbol: b] is the so-called Dorian (_e - e_ on the
white notes). In this way we arrive at the somewhat confusing result
that the ancient Dorian species (_e - e_ but with _a_ as key-note)
yields the Hypo-dorian or modern Minor mode: while the Dorian mode of
modern scientific theory[2] has its ancient prototype in the
Mixo-lydian species, viz. the octave first brought to light by
Lamprocles. The difficulty of course arises from the species of the
Octave being classified according to their compass, without reference
to the tonic character of the Mesê.
The Dorian mode is amply represented in the extant remains of Greek
music. It is the mode of the two compositions of Dionysius, the Hymn
to Calliope and the Hymn to Apollo (p. 88), perhaps also of Mr.
Ramsay's musical inscription (p. 90). It would have been satisfactory
if we could have found it in the much more important fragment of the
_Orestes_. Such indications as that fragment presents seem to me to
point to the Dorian mode (Mixo-lydian of Lamprocles).
3. The scales of the cithara furnish one example of the Phrygian
species (_d-d_), and one of the Hypo-phrygian (_g-g_): but we have no
means of determining which note of the scale is to be treated as the
key-note.
[Footnote 1: Ps. Eucl. _Introd._ p. 20 Meib. [Greek: kata systêma de
hotan ek synaphês eis diazeuxin ê anapalin metabolê ginêtai]. Anonym.
§ 65 [Greek: systêmatikai de] (sc. [Greek: metabolai]) [Greek:
hopotan ek diazeuxeôs eis synaphên ê empalin metelthê to melos].]
[Footnote 2: As represented primarily by the analysis of Helmholtz,
_Die Tonempfindungen_, p. 467, ed. 1863.]
In the Hymn to Nemesis, however, in spite of the incomplete form in
which it has reached us, there is a sufficiently clear example of the
Hypo-phrygian mode. It has been suggested as possible that the melody
of Mr. Ramsay's inscription is also Hypo-phrygian, and if so the
evidence for the mode would be carried back to the first century.
The Hypo-phrygian is the nearest approach made by any specimen of
Greek music to the modern Major mode,--the Lydian or _c_-species not
being found even among the scales of the cithara as given by Ptolemy.
It is therefore of peculiar interest for musical history, and we look
with eagerness for any indication which would allow us to connect it
with the classical period of Greek art. One or two sayings of
Aristotle have been thought to bear upon this issue.
The most interesting is a passage in the _Politics_ (iv. 3, cp. p.
13), where Aristotle is speaking of the multiplicity of forms of
government, and showing how a great number of varieties may
nevertheless be brought under a few classes or types. He illustrates
the point from the musical Modes, observing that all constitutions
may be regarded as either oligarchical (government by a minority) or
democratical (government by the majority), just as in the opinion of
some musicians ([Greek: hôs phasi tines]) all modes are essentially
either Dorian or Phrygian. What, then, is the basis of this grouping
of certain modes together as Dorian, while the rest are Phrygian in
character? According to Westphal it is a form of the opposition
between the true Hellenic music, represented by Dorian, and the
foreign music, the Phrygian and Lydian, with their varieties.
Moreover, it is in his view virtually the same distinction as that
which obtains in modern music between the Minor and the Major
scales[1]. This account of the matter, however, is not supported by
the context of the passage. Aristotle draws out the comparison
between forms of government and musical modes in such a way as to
make it plain that in the case of the modes the distinction was one
of pitch ([Greek: tas suntonôteras ... tas d' aneimenas kai
malakas]). The Dorian was the best, because the highest, of the lower
keys,--the others being Hypo-dorian (in the earlier sense,
immediately below Dorian), and Hypo-phrygian--while Phrygian was the
first of the higher series which took in Lydian and Mixo-lydian. The
division would be aided, or may even have been suggested, by the
circumstance that it nearly coincided with the favourite contrast of
Hellenic and 'barbarous' modes[2]. There is another passage, however,
which can hardly be reconciled with a classification according to
pitch alone. In the chapters dealing with the ethical character of
music Aristotle dwells (as will be remembered) upon the exciting and
orgiastic character of the Phrygian mode, and notices its especial
fitness for the dithyramb. This fitness or affinity, he says, was so
marked that a poet who tried to compose a dithyramb in another mode
found himself passing unawares into the Phrygian (_Pol._ viii. 7). It
is natural to understand this of the use of certain sequences of
intervals, or of cadences, such as are characteristic of a 'mode' in
the modern sense of the word, rather than of a change of key. If this
is so we may venture the further hypothesis that the Phrygian music,
in some at least of its forms, was distinguished not only by pitch,
but also by the more or less conscious use of scales which differed
in type from the scale of the Greek standard system.
[Footnote 1: _Harmonik und Melopöie_, p. 356 (ed. 1863): 'Die älteste
griechische Tonart ist demnach eine Molltonart.... Aus Kleinasien
wurden zunächst zwei Durtonarten nach Griechenland eingeführt, die
lydische und phrygische.' In the 1886 edition of the same book (p.
189) Westphal discovers a similar classification of modes implied in
the words of Plato, _Rep._ p. 400 a [Greek: tri' atta estin eidê ex
hôn hai baseis plekontai, hôsper en tois phthongois tettara hothen
hai pasai harmoniai]. But Plato is evidently referring to some matter
of common knowledge. The three forms or elements of which all rhythms
are made up are of course the ratios 1: 1, 2: 1 and 3: 2, which yield
the three kinds of rhythm, dactylic, iambic and cretic (answering to
common, triple, and quintuple time). Surely the four elements of all
musical scales of which Plato speaks are not four kinds of scale
(_Harmonien-Klassen_), but the four ratios which give the primary
musical intervals--viz. the ratios 2: 1, 3: 2, 4: 3 and 9: 8, which
give the Octave, Fifth, Fourth and Tone.]
[Footnote 2: If Hypo-phrygian is the same as the older Ionian (p.
11), the coincidence is complete for the time of Aristotle. Plato
treats the claim of Ionian to rank among the Hellenic modes as
somewhat doubtful (_Laches_, p. 188).]
It may be urged that this hypothesis is inconsistent with our
interpretation of the passage of the _Problems_ about the tonic
character of the Mesê. If _a_ is key-note, it was argued, the mode is
that of the _a_-species (Hypo-dorian, our Minor), or at most--by
admitting the tetrachord Synêmmenôn--it includes the _e_-species
(Dorian of Helmholtz). The answer may be that the statement of the
_Problems_ is not of this absolute kind. It is not the statement of a
technical writer, laying down definite rules, but is a general
observation, or at best a canon of taste. We are not told how the
predominance of the Mesê is shown in the form of the melody. Moreover
this predominance is not said to be exercised in music generally, but
in all _good_ music ([Greek: panta gar ta chrêsta melê pollakis tê
mesê chrêtai]). This may mean either that tonality in Greek music was
of an imperfect kind, a question of style and taste rather than of
fixed rule, or that they occasionally employed modes of a less
approved stamp, unrecognised in the earlier musical theory. § 36.
_Conclusion._
The considerations set forth in the last chapter seem to show that if
difference of mode or species cannot be entirely denied of the
classical period of Greek music, it occupied a subordinate and almost
unrecognised place.
The main elements of the art were, (1) difference of _genus_,--the
sub-divisions of the tetrachord which Aristoxenus and Ptolemy alike
recognise, though with important discrepancies in detail; (2)
difference of pitch or _key_; and (3) _rhythm_. Passing over the
last, as not belonging to the subject of _Harmonics_, we may now say
that genus and key are the only grounds of distinction which are
evidently of practical importance. No others were associated with the
early history of the art, with particular composers or periods, with
particular instruments, or with the ethos of music. This, however, is
only true in the fullest sense of Greek music before the time of
Ptolemy. The main object of Ptolemy's reform of the keys was to
provide a new set of scales, each characterised by a particular
succession of intervals, while the pitch was left to take care of
itself. And it is clear, especially from the specimens which Ptolemy
gives of the scales in use in his time, that he was only endeavouring
to systematise what already existed, and bring theory into harmony
with the developments of practice. We must suppose, therefore, that
the musical feeling which sought variety in differences of key came
to have less influence on the practical art, and that musicians began
to discover, or to appreciate more than they had done, the use of
different 'modes' or forms of the octave scale. Along with this
change we have to note the comparative disuse of the Enharmonic and
Chromatic divisions of the tetrachord. The Enharmonic, according to
Ptolemy, had ceased to be employed. Of the three varieties of
Chromatic given by Aristoxenus only one remains on Ptolemy's list,
and that the one which in the scheme of Aristoxenus involved no
interval less than a semitone. And although Ptolemy distinguished at
least three varieties of Diatonic, it is worth notice that only one
of these was admitted in the tuning of the lyre,--the others being
confined to the more elaborate cithara. In Ptolemy's time, therefore,
music was rapidly approaching the stage in which all its forms are
based upon a single scale--the natural diatonic scale of modern
Europe.
In the light of these facts it must occur to us that Westphal's
theory of seven modes or species of the Octave is really open to an
_a priori_ objection as decisive in its nature as any of the
testimony which has been brought against it. Is it possible, we may
ask, that a system of modes analogous to the ecclesiastical Tones can
have subsisted along with a system of scales such as the genera and
'colours' of early Greek music? The reply may be that Ptolemy himself
combines the two systems. He supposes five divisions of the
tetrachord, and seven modes based upon so many species of the
Octave--in all thirty-five different scales (or seventy, if we bring
in the distinction of octaves [Greek: apo nêtês] and [Greek: apo
mesês]). But when we come to the scales actually used on the chief
Greek instrument, the cithara, the number falls at once to six.
Evidently the others, or most of them, only existed on paper, as the
mathematical results of certain assumptions which Ptolemy had made.
And if this can be said of Ptolemy's theory, what would be the value
of a similar scheme combining the modes with the Enharmonic and the
different varieties of the Chromatic genus? The truth is, surely,
that such a scheme tries to unite elements which belong to different
times, which in fact are the fundamental ideas of different stages of
art.
The most striking characteristic of Greek music, especially in its
earlier periods, is the multiplicity and delicacy of the intervals
into which the scale was divided. A sort of frame-work was formed by
the division of the octave into tetrachords, completed by the
so-called disjunctive tone; and so far all Greek music was alike. But
within the tetrachord the reign of diversity was unchecked. Not only
were there recognised divisions containing intervals of a fourth, a
third, and even three-eighths of a tone, but we gather from several
things said by Aristoxenus that the number of possible divisions was
regarded as theoretically unlimited. Thus he tells us that there was
a constant tendency to flatten the 'moveable' notes of the Chromatic
genus, and thus diminish the small intervals, for the sake of
'sweetness' or in order to obtain a plaintive tone[1];--that the
Lichanos of a tetrachord may in theory be any note between the
Enharmonic Lichanos (_f_ in the scale _e-e*-f-a_) and the Diatonic
(_g_ in the scale _e-f-g-a_)[2];--and that the magnitude of the
smaller intervals and division of the tetrachord generally belongs to
the indefinite or indeterminate element in music[3]. Moreover, in
spite of the disuse of several of the older scales, much of this
holds good for the time of Ptolemy. The modern diatonic scale is
fully recognised by him, but only as one of several different
divisions. And the division which he treats as the ordinary or
standard form of the octave is not the modern diatonic scale, but one
of the so-called 'soft' or flattened varieties. It is clear that in
the best periods of Greek music these refinements of melody, which
modern musicians find scarcely conceivable, were far from being
accidental or subordinate features. Rather, they were as much bound
up with the fundamental nature of that music as complex harmony is
with the music of modern Europe.
[Footnote 1: Aristox. _Harm._ p. 23 Meib. [Greek: hoi men gar tê nun
katechousê melopoiia ounêtheis monon ontes eiktôs tên ditonon
lichanon] (_f_ in the scale _e-a_) [Greek: exorizousi; suntonôterais
gar chrôntai schedon hoi pleistoi tôn nun. toutou d' aition to
boulesthai glukainein aei. sêmeion de hoti toutou stochazontai,
malista men gar kai pleiston chronon en tô chrômati diatribousin.
hotan d' aphikôntai pote eis tên harmonian engus tou chromatos
prosagousi, sunepismômenou tou êthous.]]
[Footnote 2: Ibid. p. 26 [Greek: noêteon gar apeirous ton arithmon
tas lichanous. hou gar an stêsês tên phônên apodedeigmenon lichanô
topou lichanos estai; diakenon de ouden esti tou lichanoeidous topou,
oude toiouton hôste mê dechisthai lichanon]. And p. 48 [Greek: epeidê
per ho tês lichanou topos eis apeirous temnetai tomas].]
[Footnote 3: Aristox. _Harm._ p. 69 Meib. [Greek: kata men oun ta
megethê tôn diastêmatôn kai tas tôn phthongôn taseis apeira pôs
phainetai einai ta peri to melos, kata de tas dynameis kai kata ta
eidê kai kata tas theseis peperasmena te kai tetagmena.]]
The mediaeval modes or Tones, on the other hand, are essentially
based on the diatonic scale,--the scale that knows only of tones and
semitones. To suppose that they held in the earliest Greek music the
prominent place which we find assigned to the ancient Modes or
[Greek: harmoniai] is to suppose that the art of music was developed
in Greece in two different directions, under the influence of
different and almost opposite ideas. Yet nothing is more remarkable
in all departments of Greek art than the strictness with which it
confines itself within the limits given once for all in the leading
types, and the consequent harmony and consistency of all the forms
which it takes in the course of its growth.
The dependence of artistic forms in their manifold developments upon
a central governing idea or principle has never been more luminously
stated than by the illustrious physicist Helmholtz, in the thirteenth
chapter of his _Tonempfindungen_. I venture to think that in applying
that truth to the facts of Greek music he was materially hindered by
the accepted theory of the Greek modes. The scales which he analyses
under that name were certainly the basis of all music in the Middle
Ages, and are much more intelligible as such than in relation to the
primitive Greek forms of the art[1].
[Footnote 1: The ecclesiastical Modes received their final shape in
the _Dodecachordon_ of Glareanus (Bâle, 1547). They are substantially
the Greek modes of Westphal's theory, although the Greek names which
Glareanus adopted seem to have been chosen at haphazard. But the
ecclesiastical Modes, as Helmholtz points out, were developed under
the influence of polyphonic music from the earlier stages represented
by the Ambrosian and Gregorian scales. It would be a singular chance
if they were also, as Greek modes, the source from which the
Ambrosian and Gregorian scales were themselves derived.
Some further hints on this part of the subject may possibly be
derived from the musical scales in use among nations that have not
attained to any form of harmony, such as the Arabians, the Indians,
or the Chinese. A valuable collection of these scales is given by Mr.
A. J. Ellis at the end of his translation of Helmholtz (Appendix XX.
Sect. K, _Non-harmonic Scales_). Among the most interesting for our
purpose are the eight mediaeval Arabian scales given on the authority
of Professor Land (nos. 54-61). The first three of these--called
'Ochaq, Nawa and Boas[=i]li--follow the Pythagorean intonation, and
answer respectively to the Hypo-phrygian, Phrygian, and Mixo-lydian
species of the octave. The next two--Rast and Zenkouleh--are also
Hypo-phrygian in species, but the Third and Sixth are flatter by
about an eighth of a tone (the Pythagorean comma). In Zenkouleh the
Fifth also is similarly flattened. The last two scales--Hhosa[=i]ni
and Hhidjazi--are Phrygian: but the Second and Fifth, and in the case
of Hhidjazi also the Sixth, are flatter by the interval of a comma.
The remaining scale, called Rahawi, does not fall under any species,
since the semitones are between the Third and Fourth, and again
between the Fifth and Sixth. It will be seen that in general
character--though by no means in details--this series of scales bears
a considerable resemblance to the 'scales of the cithara' as given by
Ptolemy (_supra_, p. 85). In both cases the several scales are
distinguished from each other partly by the order of the intervals
(_species_), partly by the intonation, or magnitude of the intervals
employed (_genus_). This latter element is conspicuously absent from
the ecclesiastical Modes.]
§ 37. _Epilogue--Speech and Song._
Several indications combine to make it probable that singing and
speaking were not so widely separated from each other in Greek as in
the modern languages with which we are most familiar.