D. B. Monro

“ Here Socrates is insisting that the theory of music should be studied as a branch of mathematics, not by observation of the sounds and concords actually heard, about which musicians spend toil in vain. 'Yes,' says Glaucon, 'they talk of the close-fitting of intervals, and put their ears down to listen for the smallest possible interval, which is then to be the measure.' The smallest interval was of course the Enharmonic diesis or quarter of a tone, and this accordingly was the measure or unit into which the scale was divided. ”

“ Greek writers regard even the repetition of the melody in a strophe and antistrophe as a concession to the comparative weakness of a chorus. With the Greeks, moreover, the union in one artist of the functions of poet and musician must have tended to a more exquisite adaptation of language and music than can be expected when the work of art is the product of divided labour. ”

“ The tendency of music that is based upon harmony is to treat the voice as one of a number of instruments, and accordingly to curtail the use of it as the great source of dramatic [Pg 126] and emotional effect. The consequence is twofold. On the one hand we lose sight of the direct influence exerted by sound of certain degrees of pitch on the human sensibility, and thus ultimately on character. On the other hand the music becomes an independent creation. ”

“ There are two obvious relations in which the scales employed in any system of music may stand to each other. They may be related as two keys of the same mode in modern music: that is to say, we may have to do with a scale consisting of a fixed succession of intervals, which may vary in pitch—may be 'transposed,' as we say, from one pitch or key to another. Or the scales may differ as the Major mode differs from the Minor, namely in the order in which the intervals follow each other. ”

“ 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? ”

“ We have in the Keys the same or even a greater command of degrees of pitch: but we seem to have lost the close relation which once obtained between a note as the result of physical facts and the same note as an index of temper or emotion. A change of key affects us, generally speaking, like a change of colour or of movement—not as the heightening or soothing of a state of feeling. ”

“ The word harmonia, 'harmony,' applied to these forms of music by Plato and Aristotle, means literally 'fitting' or 'adjustment,' hence the 'tuning' of a series of notes on any principle, the formation of a 'scale' or 'gamut.' Other ancient writers use the word tropos, whence the Latin modus and our mood or 'mode,' generally employed in this sense by English scholars. The word 'mode' is open to the objection that in modern music it has a meaning which assumes just what it is our present business to prove or disprove about the 'modes' of Greek music. ”

“ The word 'harmony,' however, is still more misleading, and on the whole it seems best to abide by the established use of 'mode' as a translation of harmonia, trusting that the context will show when the word has its distinctively modern sense, and when it simply denotes a musical scale of some particular kind.
The rhythm of music is also recognized by both Plato and Aristotle as an important element in its moral value. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who hold that the species were the basis of the ancient Modes or harmoniai must regard the keys as derivative. Now Aristoxenus tells us, in one of the passages just quoted, that the seven species had long been recognised by theorists. If the scheme of keys was founded upon the seven species, it would at once have been complete, both in the number of the keys and in the determination of the intervals between them. But Aristoxenus also tells us that down to his time there were only six keys,—one of them not yet generally recognised,—and that their relative pitch was not settled. ”

“ The notation does not represent only the species of a scale, that is to say, the relative pitch of the notes which compose it, but it represents also the absolute pitch of each note. Thus the octaves which are defined by the successive pairs of letters, β-γ, δ-ε, and the rest, are octaves of definite notes. If they were framed with a view to the ancient modes, as Westphal thinks, they must be the actual scales employed in these modes. If so, the modes followed each other, in respect of pitch, in an order exactly the reverse of the order observed in the keys. ”

“ For in the view of those who distinguish harmonia from tonos it is the harmonia upon which the ethos of music depends. Plutarch himself had just been saying (in c. 17) that Plato preferred the Dorian harmonia on account of its grave and elevated character (epei poly to semnon estin en tê Dôristi, tautên proutimêsen) . On the other hand the usual sense of tonos is supported by the consideration that the want of the tetrachord Hypatôn would affect the pitch of the scale rather than the succession of its intervals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Aristotle, therefore, certainly understood Plato to have approved the Dorian and the Phrygian as representing the mean in respect of pitch, while other modes were either too high or too low. He goes on to defend the use of the 'relaxed' modes on the ground that they furnish a music that is still within the powers of those whose voice has failed from age, and who therefore are not able to sing the high-pitched modes (oion tois apeirêkosi dia chronon ou rhadion adein tas syntonous harmonias, alla tas aneimenas hê physis hypoballei tois têlikoutois) . ”

“ The beauty and even the persuasive effect of a voice depend, as we are more or less aware, in the first place upon the pitch or key in which it is set, and in the second place upon subtle variations of pitch, which give emphasis, or light and shade. Answering to the first of these elements ancient music, if the main contention of this essay is right, has its system of Modes or keys. Answering to the second it has a series of scales in which the delicacy and variety of the intervals still fill us with wonder. In both these points modern music shows diminished resources. ”

“ The usage of the words harmonia and tonos is never such as to suggest that they refer to different things. In the earlier writers, down to and including Aristotle, harmonia is used, never tonos. In Aristoxenus and his school we find tonos, and in later writers tropos, but not harmonia. The few writers (such as Plutarch) who use both tonos and harmonia do not observe any consistent distinction between them. Those who (like Westphal) believe that there was a distinction, are obliged to [Pg 30] admit that harmonia is occasionally used for tonos and conversely. ”

“ After drawing a distinction between difference of key as affecting the whole of a melody or piece of music and as a means of change in the course of it—the distinction, in short, between transposition and modulation proper—he says of the latter: hautê de hôsper ekpiptein autên (sc. tên aisthêsin) poiei tou synêthous kai prosdokômenou melous, hotan epi pleon men syneirêtai to akolouthon, metabainê de pê pros heteron eidos, êtoi kata to genos ê kata tên tasin. That is to say, the sense of change is produced by a change of genus or of pitch. A change of species is not suggested. ”

“ If, for example, we take the Perfect System (systêma ametabolon) in the key of a minor—which is its natural key,—and transpose it to the key of d minor, we do so, according to Ptolemy, not in order to raise the general pitch of our music by a Fourth, but because we wish to have a scale with b flat instead of b natural. The flattening of this note, however, means that the two octaves change their species. They are now of the species e-e. Thus, instead of transposing the Perfect System into different keys, we arrive more directly at the desired result by changing the species of its octaves. ”

“ Plato is speaking of the character of a brave man as being metaphorically a 'harmony,' by which his life is made consonant to reason—'a Dorian harmony,' he adds—playing upon the musical sense of the word—'not an Ionian, certainly not a Phrygian or a Lydian, but that one which only is truly Hellenic' (atechnôs Dôristi, all' ouk Iasti, oiomai de oude Phrygisti oude Lydisti, all' hê per monê Hellênikê estin harmonia) . The exclusion of Phrygian may be due to the fact that the virtue discussed in the Laches is courage; but it is in agreement with Aristotle's opinion. ”

“ The old method, by which a note was named from its relative place in the Perfect System, must evidently have become inconvenient. The Lydian Mesê, for example, was two tones higher than the Dorian Mesê, because the Lydian scale as a whole was two tones higher than the Dorian. But when the two scales were reduced to the same compass, the old Lydian Mesê was no longer in the middle of the scale, and the name ceased to have a meaning. It is as though the term 'dominant' when applied to a Minor key were made to mean the dominant of the relative Major key. ”

“ If harmonia means 'key,' there is no difficulty. The scale of a lyre was usually the standard octave from Hypatê to Nêtê: and that octave might be in any one key. But if a mode is somehow characterised by a particular succession of intervals, what becomes of the standard octave? No one succession of intervals can then be singled out. It may be said that the standard octave is in fact the scale of a particular mode, which had come to be regarded as the type, viz. the Dorian. ”

“ As has been observed, it is neither the Enharmonic Phrygian species (c e e* f a b b* c) , nor the Diatonic d-d, but a mixture of the two. Similarly the Mixo-lydian divides the Fourth b-e into four intervals (b b* c d e) , by introducing the purely Diatonic note d. The Lydian is certainly the Lydian Enharmonic species of the pseudo-Euclid; but we can hardly suppose that it existed in practical music. Aristoxenus lays it down emphatically that a quarter-tone is always followed by another: and we cannot imagine a scale in which the highest and lowest notes are in no harmonic relation to the rest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And we have the decisive fact that of the six scales of the cithara given by Ptolemy (see p. 85) not one is diatonic in the modern sense of the word. It may be alleged on the other side that the ideal scale in the Timaeus of Plato is purely diatonic, and exhibits the strictest Pythagorean division. But that scale is primarily a framework of mathematical ratios, and could not take notice of intervals which had not yet been identified with ratios. It is not certain when the discovery of Pythagoras was extended to the non-diatonic scales. ”

“ The modes of ancient Greek music are of interest to us, not only as the forms under which the Fine Art of Music was developed by a people of extraordinary artistic capability, but also on account of the peculiar ethical influence ascribed to them by the greatest ancient philosophers. ”

“ It may be thought, perhaps, that the variety of senses ascribed to the word harmonia goes beyond what is probable. In itself however the word meant simply 'musical scale [24] .' The Pythagorean use of it in the sense of 'octave scale,' and the very similar use in reference to diagrams which represented the division of that scale, were antiquated in the time of Aristoxenus. The sense of 'key' was doubtless limited in the first instance to the use in conjunction with the names Dorian, &c., which suggested a distinction of pitch. From the meaning 'Dorian scale' to 'Dorian key' is an easy step. ”

“ It is open to the obvious objection that the Hypo-lydian (or Hypo-dorian) cannot have been the oldest key. [Pg 72] M. Gevaert meets this difficulty by supposing that the original scale was in the Dorian key, and that subsequently, from some cause the nature of which we cannot guess, a change of pitch took place by which the Dorian scale became a semitone higher. It is perhaps simpler to conjecture that the original Dorian became split up, so to speak, into two keys by difference of local usage, and that the lower of the two came to be called Hypo-dorian, but kept the original notation. ”

“ For if the language even in its colloquial form had qualities of rhythm and intonation which gave it this peculiar half musical character, so that singing and speaking were more closely akin than they ever are in our experience, we may expect to find that music was influenced in some measure by this state of things. ”