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The interpretation of Greek music: An addendum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

E. Clements
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Extract

The main object of this addition to the paper published under the above title in JHS xlii. 133, is to make known a new discovery in the shape of an unanswerable argument leading to the same solution as before of the problem presented by the Greek notation. This problem is still considered to overshadow all other problems. After the conclusion of the argument the writer proposes to make a few necessary corrections in the former paper, and to lay further emphasis on certain points.

It is an unfortunate circumstance in the music of to-day that performers and composers alike, even those destined to spend their lives as devotees of opera and symphony, begin their careers with little or no acquaintance with the most important branch of musical knowledge, the theory of intonation. They have been taught to think in terms of a scale tuned by fifths (whether tempered or true makes no practical difference), and au fond their instructor is the piano tuner. This is quintal music, to borrow a term used by historians in speculation regarding primitive origins.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , 1936 , pp. 25 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1936

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References

1 See the introduction to Düring's, Ptolemaios und Porphyries, Göteborgs Hogskolas Arsskrift XI (1934), 1Google Scholar.

2 The music meant is that of the hereditary Durbar singers, not that of the bazaar or theatre, or the efforts of harmonium-trained amateurs.

3 Aristoxenos knew better (Harm. II. 42, 43Google Scholar).

4 Aristoxenos, , Harm. III. 69Google Scholar; Ptolemy, , Harm. II. 10, 11Google Scholar.

5 Anon. § 28, ed. Bellermann, Berlin, 1841.

6 Vide Gaudentius, ed. Jan, p. 343; pseudo-Philolaus, ap. Boethium, , Mus. III. 8Google Scholar.

7 Harm. II. 41Google Scholar.

8 Harm. I. 9, 10Google Scholar.

9 Also named the syntheton.

10 Vide Aristides, , Meibom. p. 25Google Scholar.

11 Philebus, 56.

12 One stroke with the glide is a probable alternative. Lyre-playing could be supremely beautiful. Anyone who heard Mushraf Khan on the bina would understand.