Table I.

Scales of the seven oldest Keys, with the species of the same name.

Seven Scales

Table II.

The fifteen Keys.

Fifteen Keys Fifteen Keys

Transcriber's Note:
Corrected final note in "Lydian" midi file from E as written to F as is more logical.

The moveable notes (phthongoi kinoumenoi) are distinguished by being printed as crotchets.

The two highest of these keys—the Hyper-lydian and the Hyper-aeolian—appear to have been added in the time of the Empire. The remaining thirteen are attributed to Aristoxenus in the pseudo-Euclidean Introductio (p. 19, l. 30), and by Aristides Quintilianus (p. 22, l. 30): but there is no mention of them in the extant Harmonics. It may be gathered, however, from the criticism of Heraclides Ponticus (see the passage discussed on pp. 9-12) that the list of keys was being considerably enlarged in his time, and Aristoxenus, though not named, is doubtless aimed at there. Music of the 'Orestes' of Euripides (ll. 338-344).

Music of Orestes Music of Orestes
[Listen]

The metre is dochmiac, each dochmius consisting of an iambus followed by a cretic, symbols. The points which seem to mark the ictus, or rhythmical accent, are found on the first syllable of each of these two feet. If we assume that the first syllable of the iambus has the chief accent, the dochmius will be correctly expressed as a musical bar of the form—

dochmius

If the first syllable of the cretic is accented, the dochmius is divided between two bars, and becomes—

dochmius

The accompaniment or krousis, consisting of notes interposed between the phrases of the melody, is found by Dr. Wessely and Dr. Crusius in the following characters:

1. The character instrumentalZ appears at the end of every dochmius shown by the papyrus. After the first, third and fifth it is written in the same line with the text. After the seventh it is written above that line, between two vocal notes. Dr. Crusius takes it to be the instrumental Z, explaining the difference of shape as due to the necessity or convenience of distinguishing it from the vocal Z. If that were so the form instrumentalZ would surely have been permanent, and would have been given in the schemes of Alypius and Aristides Quintilianus. I venture to suggest that it is a mark intended to show the end of the dochmius or bar.

2. The group triad08 occurs twice, before and after the words deinÔn ponÔn. There is a difficulty about the sign sign, which Dr. Crusius takes to be a Vortragszeichen. The other two characters may be instrumental notes.

The double ? of ?? (written OOS) is interesting because it shows that when more than one note went with a syllable, the vowel or diphthong was repeated. This agrees with the well-known hei-ei-ei-ei-ei-eilissete of Aristophanes (Ran. 1314), and is amply confirmed by the newly discovered hymn to Apollo (p. 134).

Musical part of the Seikelos inscription.

Symbols

The inscription of which these lines form part was discovered by Mr. W. M. Ramsay, and was first published by him in the Bulletin de correspondance hellÉnique for 1883, p. 277. It professes to be the work of a certain Seikelos. The discovery that the smaller letters between the lines are musical notes was made by Dr. Wessely.

The Seikelos inscription, as Dr. O. Crusius has shown (Philologus for 1893, LII. p. 161), is especially valuable for the light which it throws upon ancient rhythm. The quantity of the syllables and the place of the ictus is marked in every case, and we are able therefore to divide the melody into bars, which may be represented as follows:

Symbols

The hymns recently discovered at Delphi.

Since these sheets were in type the materials for the study of ancient Greek music have received a notable accession. The French archaeologists who are now excavating on the site of Delphi have found several important fragments of lyrical poetry, some of them with the music noted over the words, as in the examples already known. The two largest of these fragments have been shown to belong to a single inscription, containing a hymn to Apollo, which dates in all probability from the early part of the third century B. C. Of the other fragments the most considerable is plausibly referred to the first century B. C. These inscriptions have been published in the Bulletin de correspondance hellÉnique (viii-xii. pp. 569-610), with two valuable commentaries by M. Henri Weil and M. ThÉodore Reinach. The former scholar deals with the text, the latter chiefly with the music.

The music of the hymn to Apollo is written in the vocal notation. The metre is the cretic or paeonic symbols, and the key, as M. Reinach has shown, is the Phrygian—the scale of C minor, with the conjunct tetrachord c—d?—d—f.

In the following transcription I have followed M. Reinach except in a few minor points. When two notes are sung to the same syllable the vowel or diphthong is repeated, as in the fragment of the Orestes (p. 132): but I have thought it best to adhere to the modern method.

Symbols

Symbols

Symbols

Symbols
[Listen]

The notes employed in this piece of music cover about an octave and a half, viz. from ParypatÊ HypatÔn to the Chromatic Lichanos HyperbolaiÔn. In two of the tetrachords, viz. SynemmenÔn and HyperbolaiÔn, the intervals employed are Chromatic (or possibly Enharmonic): in the tetrachord DiezeugmenÔn they are Diatonic, while in the tetrachord MesÔn the Lichanos, which would distinguish the genus, is wanting. On the other hand there are two notes which do not belong to the Phrygian key as hitherto known, viz. O, a semitone below MesÊ, and B, a semitone below NÊtÊ DiezeugmenÔn. If we assume that we have before us Chromatic of the standard kind (chrÔma toniaion), the complete scale is—

Chromatic Scale [Listen]

Enharmonic Scale [Listen]

If the intervals are Enharmonic, or Chromatic of a different variety, the moveable notes (in this case lambda_kappa and peace_star) will be somewhat flatter.

M. Reinach is particularly happy in tracing the successive changes of genus and key in the course of the poem. The opening passage, as he shows, is Diatonic. With the mention of the Gaulish invasion (Galatan arÊs) we come upon the group triad09 (g—a?—a) of the Chromatic tetrachord HyperbolaiÔn. At the beginning of the second fragment the intervals are again Diatonic, up to the point where the poet turns to address the Attic procession (ithi, klyta megalopolis Aththis, k.t.l.). From this point the melody lies chiefly in the Chromatic tetrachord SynemmenÔn tetrachord05 (c—d?—d—f)—a modulation into the key of the sub-dominant as well as a change of genus. At the end of the fragment the poet returns to the Diatonic and the original key. With regard to the mode—the question which mainly concerns us at present—M. Reinach's exposition is clear and convincing. He appeals to three criteria,—(1) the impression which the music makes on a modern ear; (2) the endings of the several phrases and divisions; and (3) the note which recurs most frequently. All these criteria point to a Minor mode. The general impression made by the Diatonic parts of the melody is that of the key of C minor: the rhythmical periods end on one or other of the notes c-e?-g, which form the chord of that key: and the note c distinctly predominates. This conclusion, it need hardly be said, is in entire agreement with the main thesis of the preceding pages.

The symbols O and B, which do not belong to the Phrygian scale, are explained by M. Reinach in a way that is in a high degree plausible and suggestive. In other keys, he observes, the symbol O stands for the note b (natural). Thus it holds the place of 'leading-note' (note sensible) to the keynote, c. It has hitherto been supposed that the standard scale of Greek music, the octave a-a, differed from the modern Minor in the want of a leading note. Here, however, we find evidence that such a note was known in practice, if not as a matter of theory, to Greek musicians. If this is so, it strongly confirms the view that c was in fact the key-note of the Phrygian scale. The symbol B, which occurs only once, answers to our g?, and may be similarly explained as a leading note to g, the dominant of the key. We infer, with M. Reinach, that the scale employed in the hymn is not only like, but identical with, the scale of our Minor.

The fragment marked C by M. Weil resembles the hymn to Apollo in subject, and also in metre, but cannot belong to the same work. The melody is written in the Lydian key, with the notation which we have hitherto known as the instrumental, but which is now shown to have been used, occasionally at least, for vocal music. The fragment is as follows:

Symbols [Listen]

M. Reinach connects this fragment with a shorter one, also in the Lydian key, but not in paeonic metre, viz.—

Symbols [Listen]

.. thon es-che ma ... thÊ-ra kat-ek-ta.... syrigm' a-per..

M. Reinach thinks that the mode may be the so-called Hypo-lydian (the octave f—f). The materials are surely too scanty for any conclusion as to this.

The fragment D, the only remaining piece which M. Reinach has found it worth while to transcribe, is also written in the instrumental notation of the Lydian key. The metre is the glyconic. The fragment is as follows:—

Symbols

Symbols [Listen]

This piece also is referred by M. Reinach to the Hypo-lydian mode. It may surely be objected that of three places in which we may fairly suppose that we have the end of a metrical division, viz. those which end with the words DelphÔn, prospolois and agÊratÔ, two present us with cadences on the MesÊ (d), and one on the HypatÊ (a). This seems to point strongly to the Minor Mode.

On the whole it would seem that the only mode (in the modern sense of the word) of which the new discoveries tell us anything is a mode practically identical with the modern Minor. I venture to think this a confirmation, as signal as it was unexpected, of the main contention of this treatise.

It does not seem to have been observed by M. Weil or M. Reinach that in all these pieces of music there is the same remarkable correspondence between the melody and the accentuation that has been pointed out in the case of the Seikelos inscription (pp. 90, 91). It cannot indeed be said that every acute accent coincides with a rise of pitch: but the note of an accented syllable is almost always followed by a note of lower pitch. Exceptions are, aiolon, hina (which may have practically lost its accent, cp. the Modern Greek na), and molete (if rightly restored). The fall of pitch in the two notes of a circumflexed syllable is exemplified in manteion, heilen, Galatan, Phoibon, Ôdaisi, klytais, bÔmoisin, homou: the opposite case occurs only once, in thnatois. The observation holds not only of the chief hymn, but of all the fragments.