The Modes of Ancient Greek MusicMonro, D. B. (David Binning)
History
The Modes of Ancient Greek Music
Monro, D. B. (David Binning)
Music, Greek and Roman
[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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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