Reasoning/Spiritied: A Second Addendum to the Barbara Kowalzig Post

 

The Oxford Classical Dictionary sheds (some minimal) new light on "new music." I ended my last post with a question about the dramatic date of Plato's Laws (that was proposed by Zuckert) in light of Kowalzig's argument about new music. My question was, if "new music" (the experimenting with meters of dithyrambic choruses) was contemporary with Plato (as an author) rather than with Zuckert's proposed dramatic date (460-450), then must we discard the dramatic date she proposes. Alternatively, could the Athenian Stranger and be discussing early "new music" or something which sounds like a description of "new music" but actually is something different? So I decided to research the date of "new music" to see if it began c. 450 or whether it was a much later invention.

I have not been able to find much, but I managed to get access to an online version of the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Although there is no specific date for the beginning of "new music," this entry seems to me to create a beginning date of about 430, but this is just an estimate from the names on the list and their careers. Other than the transliterated Greek words, all italics are mine (in order to establish emphasis on the particular sections that are important).

"Choral lyric, an indissoluble blend of poetry, melody, accompaniment and, dance, was already an admired art in the 7th cent., notably in Sparta and at the Delian festivals; competition was endemic and essential in this genre too (see particularly Alcman fr. 1 Poetae Melici Graeci, and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo). We hear of many types: the story of the two that later achieved highest status, dithyramb and tragedy , cannot be retold here. Both originated in the singing and dancing of choruses to the auloi, which always remained the accompanying instrument: the dialogue of drama perhaps grew out of interchanges between the chorus and its leader. Other choral genres, such as paeans, maiden-songs, and victory-songs, were often accompanied by a kithara, sometimes by aulos and kithara together (but the question whether Pindar's victory-songs were indeed choral, or were solo pieces prefacing choral singing, is now the subject of lively dispute). Poet-composers of the late 6th and early 5th cents.— Lasus , Pratinas , Pindar , Simonides , and others—were often self-consciously reflective about their art: traces of various musical controversies survive, and Lasus is said to have written the first treatise on music. Pindar repeatedly proclaims himself a musical innovator (e.g. Olympian Odes 3. 4–6, fr. 61 B. Snell and H. Maehler ). But to moralists from Aristophanes (1) onwards, their period marks the pinnacle of the ancient, simple, educative, and edifying style: afterwards there is nothing but decline into theatricality and populism. As the 5th cent. progressed, melodies came to be embroidered with ornaments and turns, both in the vocal line and independently in its accompaniment. Modulations between scale-systems, facilitated by developments in instruments (more finger-holes on auloi, added strings on the kithera) became common, undermining old links between genre and musical structure. Traditionally distinct genres, such as kitharidia and choral dithyramb, began to merge into new and indeterminate forms. Technical expertise and startling dramatic effect were untiringly pursued: star instrumentalists and singers were idolized by the public, and like their modern counterparts enhanced their musical acts with striking costumes and histrionic bodily movements. Whereas previously the sense, rhythm, and cadence of the words had dictated their musical interpretation, now they were progressively subordinated to musical ideas worked out in their own terms and for their own sake. These developments spelled the downfall of an integrated art closely allied to religion and civic tradition; but it also meant the emancipation of pure music from ritual and, crucially, from poetry, which came gradually to be seen as a separate art. This musical revolution went hand in hand with the radical political and social changes of the later 5th cent., and with the individualistic, questioning modes of thought exemplified in the sophists and Socrates. The main names associated with it are Phrynis, Melanippides (2) , Cinesias , Philoxenus (1) , and especially Timotheus (1) : Cinesias and other purveyors of the ‘new music’, including Agathon and Euripides, are regularly pilloried by Aristophanes (1) . The Theban school of auletes (see Thebes (1) ), notably Pronomus and Antigenidas, achieved astonishing new levels of technical virtuosity and emotional expression.

The new music met with resistance not only from Aristophanes and Plato. A 4th-cent. source paraphrased at [ Plutarch ] De musica 1137–8 lists a string of musicians who deliberately rejected the elaborate styles and theatrical tricks of Timotheus in favour of older and severer forms. But as always in musical history, the new music gradually became old hat. The subtle nuances of intonation and the complex modulations characteristic of Timothean music came to seem heavy and ‘classical’ in their turn, and were supplanted by straightforward diatonic progressions lightly flavoured with chromaticism." (Oxford Classical Dictionary, the entry on "music," section 4: history)

This evidence is problematic for the date of the that Zuckert proposes for Plato's Laws. However, this data is still inconclusive, as is the fact that Plato was talking about "new music" rather than some kind of precursor to that genre. Furthermore, if anyone has a anymore ideas about this, that would be lovely.

Reasoning/Spirited: An Addendum to the Barbara Kowalzig Post

At Barbara Kowalzig's talk, she talked about the differing depictions of chorality in ancient Greece and ancient Egypt. She explains that the Eygptian depictions were much more rigid and formulaic than the corresponding artistic representations in Greece. Also, she mentioned that the according to Herodotus, the Egyptians did not use choruses in their celebrations of Dionysus, which were otherwise much these same as the Greek celebrations (Herodotus 2.48). This aroused my curiosity because of the way that the Athenian Stranger in Plato's Laws advocates employing Egyptian principles for musical and choral dance.

I tried to ask the following question, but unfortunately Mary Louise Hart ended the question-and-answer session before I got the chance:

"In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger suggest using Egyptian Laws for music, but to use them in order to celebrate Dionysus with a chorus. Does Plato's schema alter the civic Hellenic culture of choruses by incorporating the Egyptian rhythms and musical modes (which were different than the Greek choruses) into the musical and military education?"

At the end of the conference during the wine and cheese social, I managed to find her and ask her this question. Gratifyingly, she told me that it was a good question. She explained that at the time that Plato was writing, the art of dithyramb was changing. This change involved the incorporation of new rhythms and modes and came to be called New Music. She explained that the regulation with the unchanging Egyptian rhythms would be a way to strain out the new experimental influence.

This may indeed have been the case. However, it brings up two new questions. First, if this is true, it might call into question Zuckert's dramatic timeline for Plato's dialogues. I say might because I am not sure whether the introduction of New Music happened in around 450 (Zuckert's hypothesis for when the Laws took place.). On the other hand, I cannot seem to find much on New Music at all, so this might not throw off the timeline. [1] Second, if Herodotus, who I strongly believe that Plato would have read for reasons that I can substantiate at some other time, pointed out the connection between Egypt and chorality, could Plato have been trying to make another point, rather than just considering the rigidity of Egyptian rhythms, with the references to the system?

Endnotes

1. If you have any ideas for articles about New Music, please comment or email me.

Reasoning: The Iconography of Greek Theater #5, Barbara Kowalzig

Barbara Kowalzig is a historian and anthropologist who is currently a visiting associate professor at NYU. She appears to work primarily on Greek religion and its relationship to music and ritual. Kowalzig received her PhD from St. John's College, Oxford, and speaks with a fabulous Oxford accent that drifts easily between English and French. She is quite a striking woman of average height with a mane of curly flaxen hair and this strange combination of stance and gesture that makes her seem at once both extremely persuasive and rather meek. Her general air is charming, but with a surprising frankness and without any trace whatsoever of the superficiality that often accompanies charm. She comes off as having a brilliance that is neither easy nor labored but clearly demonstrates an engaged thought process working behind it.

Her talk focuses on the imagery of chorality (i.e. choruses and chorus dancing) on archaic and classical Greek vases. Specifically, she discusses the interaction between the dolphins, choruses, and hoplites. Through these images, she illustrates the relationship between the development of the chorus and chorus rituals and the evolution of Greek political institutions.

Generally, classicists and historians consider theater to be a specifically and uniquely Athenian institution. However, evidence highlighted at this conference demonstrates that theater, although it might have started in Athens, began to spread out through magna Graeca. Kowalzig expands the importance of theater and specifically chorality as part of a Hellenic rather than simply an Athenian identity.

Barbara explains that the social transformation in the 7th and 6th century coincided with a transformation and upsurge in the importance of chorality. Consequently, chorality becomes a part of the Hellenic identity and a connective medium through the expanse of the Greek world. Choral dancing existed throughout Indoeuropean and other cultures in the Mediteranean including in Mycenean, Cypriot, Hittite, Egyptian civilizations, as well as other eastern cultures. She explains that the Greeks considered there to be something unique about choruses, which is probably why they figure so heavily into treatises of the political imaginary such as Plato's Laws.

In her talk, Kowalzig employs a number of different surviving cultural instances to demonstrate the importance of chorality and its ties to politics and culture. The first image is the red figure pyskter below from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Barbara explains that this image comes at the end of a long process of the development of images, language, and chorality.

This picture comes from The Met's website

One of the stories that she uses demonstrates the link between language, images, and chorality is the Story of Arion from Herodotus' Histories. In the story, merchants turn pirates who threaten Arion, a wealthy man who needed passage back to Tarentum, and tell him either he can jump over the side of the ship (leaving his money behind) or they will kill him. Arion asks if he can sing before he jumps over the side. As he sings, dolphins gather around the ship and he jumps on the back of one of them and rides to safety. He later named the song he composed and sang the dithyramb, and taught it at Corinth (Herodotus 1.23-24). She explained that this story took the shape of a traditional "Dionysiac resistance myth" because a Dionysian practice is first rejected and then accepted. it also demonstrates the traditional understanding of the seas where merchants become pirates. The dolphin is also linked to Dionysus as far back as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, where sailors leap overboard into the sea and become dolphins. Kowalzig explains that the riding on dolphins and the transformation into dolphins is turning into a dancing chorus in the cultural imaginary of dithyramb.

Many other vases show the morphing of people and sailors into dolphins or have patterns of humans with equivalent patterns of dolphins on opposite sides of the vase. This evokes chorality and the idea of dithyramb. In the picture above, as in many of the other vases, the dolphin-riders or dolphin-men are armed, using imagery to invoke civic duty and the hoplite phalanx. This is because, as Barbara Kowalzig argues, the quintessential citizen not only in Athens but in Greece, includes both the civic duty of war and that of dancing and Dionysian celebration. Choruses were made up, so far as can be discerned, of ephebes, men right on the brink of military age. Plato's Laws effectively demonstrates this though the emphasis laid on the dual nature of education: the physical military training and the musical chorus training.

Kowalzig argues that the transition from sailor to dolphin corresponds to the transition from pirate to hoplite whereas in other traditions pirates/sailors became satyrs on shore. She also emphasizes that this is a Hellenic rather than Athenian piece of imagery.

Reasoning/Spirited: Greek History Review #4

I am still in the process of writing up the remaining lectures given at the Artists and Actors symposium, but life, it seems, keeps getting in the way. I hope that I shall manage to get Barbara Kowalzig's talk up by the end of tonight. In the intervening period, I have decided to revise my original plan of only rereading the secondary sources from my Greek History syllabus, but also rereading the primary sources assigned to each day. This will make the process take longer, but ultimately I think it will provide a clearer and fuller sense of the kind of information that scholars use to glean their insights and interpret Greek history.

In terms of more general textbook sources, I finished reading Oswyn Murray's Early Greece, and I have recently begun (and am about 100 pages into) Pomeroy et al's Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History. Sadly, this larger and more comprehensive volume lacks the charm and energy of Murray's work, but it still sheds some light on the history providing a more comprehensive background, upon which I can stitch together the secondary and primary sources from my syllabus.

The first sections are on the way to read Greek sources and how to interpret the information. Specifically focusing on the way in which the Greeks interpreted their own past and the Dark Age. So far I've read The Landmark Herodotus (1.56, 2.53) and The Landmark Thucydides (1.1-8, 12) and I am working reading The Odyssey of Homer(Books 1-4) and Oresteia (lines 1-907). and fjls

 

After this, this, there is a lot more Homer to read. I am going to try to read the entirety of the Odyssey, because I have not read the whole thing since 9th grade and I probably need a refresher.

I am also going to try to supplement the history syllabus by increasing my knowledge of Greek art. I'm planning on using The Art and Culture of Early Greece and Archaic and Classical Greek Art, but I would be happy for suggestions if anyone has particular favorites.

 

Reasoning: The Iconography of Greek Theater #4, Francois Lissarrague

The second speaker was the charming and wonderful Francois Lissarrague (apologies for my inability to make a cedilla. Could someone tell to make one in unicode script?). I believe that I have read some of his work before because knew his name and that he worked on Greek art, but I am not entirely sure what I read. Francois, according to the brochure from the conference, is the director of the Centre Louis Gernet. He writes about the layering of images for increasingly complex narrative effects.

Francois started his talk by providing a brief note on the history of the satyr. He explained that satyrs are an Attic invention of the early sixth century, which are depicted as a cross between man and horse. There are other human animal hybrids and even human-horse hybrids (like centaurs) that are depicted, but satyr imagery only begins to show up int he 6th century. I found this to be fascinating because I assumed that the depiction of satyrs came long before the invention of the satyr play.

He then moved on to discuss the Pronomos Vase (pictured below) which is a depiction of a celebration after a victory in the Athenian tragic competition. The actors, having finished their satyr play are still in costumes and holding masks as they celebrate. Francois Lissarague actually used this particular photo of the famous Pronomos Vase. He explained that the vase was put in storage following an earthquake in Naples. Francois and a few other scholars were allowed to take it up to the roof of the museum to photograph it (which is why it sit here on a roof on a piece of newspaper).

I got this from a Google Image Search that lead me to this website [1].

Here is a slightly clearer picture so that some of the detail is discernible.

This lovely and clear image comes from this website, which also includes other wonderful theatrically-related images.

This final image flattens the vase in order to show the full range of characters depicted on the front of the vase. The back shows another scene.

A flattened version of the Pronomos vase from this website.

Francois' theme, which began with the Pronomos Vase and employed a number of other spectacular vases from Athens and South Italy seemed to be to show the variety of instances of the satyr, and especially the satyr in theater, portrayed on vases as well as the way in which theater is bound up with Dionysus on these vases. He also demonstrated the use of "metatheatricality" or the interplay between "real" mythological beings and theatrical portrays of those in the same scenes.

The front portion of the Pronomos Vase depicts Dionysus and his consort, presumably Ariadne, lying on a bed which looks suspiciously like a matrimonial bed rather than a symposium couch, according to Francois, amongst the victorious actors, choregos, and playwright after their performance. The victory is indicated by victory tripods, although these would not be the traditional indication of victory for a theatrical performance. All of the saytrs, save one who is still dancing, have taken off their masks and most hold them in various positions. The chorus, which is all uniformly dressed in costume, still has a large degree of variety to it and the citizen names of each individual are etched above the depiction.

Although there is a back panel and a front panel, the panels are continuous to some degree. The back panel depicts a group of "real" stayrs, not from a theatrical performance, with maenads and Dionysus and Ariadne, emphasizing the Dionysiac nature of theater.

A drawing of the back panel of the Pronomos Vase from Perseus.

The other eight vases that he showed demonstrated a variety of similar themes as well as depicting some fascinating images such as female satyrs, possible scenes from specific satyr plays such as Euripides' Cyclops, satyrs and Eros (which Lissarrague referred to as a "late improvement"), and a possible image of Dionysiac epiphany (which is one of my favorite Greek vases of all time [3]).

Although Francois Lissarrague did not voice much of a strong argument, he provided detailed instruction on the depiction of satyrs. Furthermore, his charming air and his excitement about his work prompted a number of the guests, my mom and me included, to immediately run up to see the Pronomos Vase after he finished speaking. He was quite fabulous.

Endnotes

1. I have tried to link the "this website" under each photo to the website from which it came.
2. Another version, possibly more easily accessible, of this image can be found here in Perseus's archives.
3.  This pot is number 12 out of 17 in the Getty Slideshow. It is called "Mixing Vessel with Dionysus and Comic Actors."