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A paean is a song or lyric poem expressing triumph or thanksgiving. In classical antiquity, it is usually performed by a chorus, but some examples seem intended for an individual voice (monody). It comes from the Greek παιάν, "song of triumph, any solemn song or chant". "Paeon" was also the name of a divine physician and an epithet ("byname") of Apollo.
The Pythian Games were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. They were held in honour of Apollo at his sanctuary in Delphi every four years, two years after the Olympic Games, and between each Nemean and Isthmian Games. The Pythian Games were founded sometime in the 6th century BC. In legend they were started by Apollo after he killed Python and set up the Oracle at Delphi. They continued until the 4th century AD.
An aulos or tibia (Latin) was a wind instrument in ancient Greece, often depicted in art and also attested by archaeology.
The dithyramb was an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility; the term was also used as an epithet of the god. Plato, in The Laws, while discussing various kinds of music mentions "the birth of Dionysos, called, I think, the dithyramb." Plato also remarks in the Republic that dithyrambs are the clearest example of poetry in which the poet is the only speaker.
The Delphic Hymns are two musical compositions from Ancient Greece, which survive in substantial fragments. They were long regarded as being dated c. 138 BC and 128 BC, respectively, but recent scholarship has shown it likely they were both written for performance at the Athenian Pythaids in 128 BC. If indeed it dates from ten years before the second, the First Delphic Hymn is the earliest unambiguous surviving example of notated music from anywhere in the Western world whose composer is known by name. Inscriptions indicate that the First Delphic Hymn was written by Athenaeus, son of Athenaeus, while Limenius is credited as the Second Delphic Hymn's composer.
Limenius was an Athenian musician and the creator of the Second Delphic Hymn in 128 BC. He is the earliest known composer in recorded history for a surviving piece of music, or one of the two earliest, or the second-earliest, depending first on whether one accepts the proposition of Bélis that the composer of the First Delphic Hymn is named Athenaeus and, second, whether that hymn was composed in the same year as the Second Hymn, or ten years earlier. Limenius was a performer on the kithara and, as a professional musician performing in the Pythaïs, he was required to belong to one of the guilds of the Artists of Dionysus.
A kitharode (Ancient Greek: κιθαρῳδός and κιτηαρῳδός; Latin: citharoedus) or citharist, was a classical Greek professional performer (singer) of the cithara, as one who used the cithara to accompany their singing. Famous citharodes included Terpander, Sappho, and Arion.
Music was almost universally present in ancient Greek society, from marriages, funerals, and religious ceremonies to theatre, folk music, and the ballad-like reciting of epic poetry. This played an integral role in the lives of ancient Greeks. There are some fragments of actual Greek musical notation, many literary references, depictions on ceramics and relevant archaeological remains, such that some things can be known—or reasonably surmised—about what the music sounded like, the general role of music in society, the economics of music, the importance of a professional caste of musicians, etc.
"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" is the popular English title of the chorale from the 1723 Advent cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147, by Johann Sebastian Bach. The chorale occurs twice in the cantata, with different texts each time : as its sixth movement, Wohl mir, dass ich Jesum habe, and again as its tenth movement, Jesus bleibet meine Freude. The English title derives from famous piano transcriptions made by Myra Hess, in 1926 for piano solo and in 1934 for piano duet, as published by Oxford University Press. Whether played instrumentally or sung in German or English, the chorale is often heard at weddings and during Advent, Christmas, and Easter.
A skolion, also scolion, was a song sung by invited guests at banquets in ancient Greece. Often extolling the virtues of the gods or heroic men, skolia were improvised to suit the occasion and accompanied by a lyre, which was handed about from singer to singer as the time for each scolion came around. "Capping" verses were exchanged, "by varying, punning, riddling, or cleverly modifying" the previous contribution.
The kithara, Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching music to beginners. As opposed to the simpler lyre, the cithara was primarily used by professional musicians, called kitharodes. In modern Greek, the word kithara has come to mean "guitar", a word which etymologically stems from kithara.
The epinikion or epinicion is a genre of occasional poetry also known in English as a victory ode. In ancient Greece, the epinikion most often took the form of a choral lyric, commissioned for and performed at the celebration of an athletic victory in the Panhellenic Games and sometimes in honor of a victory in war. Major poets in the genre are Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar.
2nd millennium BC in music - 1st millennium BC in music - 1st millennium in music
Prosodion in ancient Greece was a processional song to the altar of a deity, mainly Apollo or Artemis, sung ritually before the Paean hymn. It is one of the earliest musical types used by the Greeks. The prosodion was accompanied by the aulos, whereas the associated paean was accompanied by the kithara. Prosodia were composed by Alcman, Pindar, Simonides of Ceos, Bacchylides, Eumelus of Corinth, and Limenius, as well the various winners in art competitions (Mouseia). The etymology of the word is related to ὁδός hodos road and not with ᾠδή ôidê song. According to Soterichus, the music of the prosodia by Alcman, Pindar, Simonides, and Bacchylides was written in the Dorian tonos "because of its grandeur and dignity". The only complete surviving prosodion, however, is composed in the Lydian tonos.
The musical system of ancient Greece evolved over a period of more than 500 years from simple scales of tetrachords, or divisions of the perfect fourth, into several complex systems encompassing tetrachords and octaves, as well as octave scales divided into seven to thirteen intervals.
Sakadas of Argos won a musical competition at the Pythian Games in 586 BC, for Nomos Pythicos, a composition for the aulos that told of the battle between Apollo and Python. This event is one of the earliest known examples of the music of ancient Greece, one of the earliest known accounts of the use of the aulos as a solo instrument, and one of the earliest known accounts of program music.
A rhoptron was a buzzing drum used in Parthian music. According to Plutarch, the Parthian Empire used it made a frightening sound—resembling a mix of animal noises and lightning—to scare their opponents in battle, instead of the more typical Greek battlefield instruments like the salpinx.
The Athena Marsyas Group was a bronze sculptural group by Myron that stood on the Acropolis of Athens in the high classical period, dated to c 450 BCE. Now lost, it has been reconstructed from copies, coins, other visual sources and literary testimonia. The work depicted the satyr Marsyas picking up an aulos dropped by Athena.
The Parthian Empire, a major state of ancient Iran, lasted from 247 BCE to 224 CE, in which music played a prominent role. It featured in festivals, weddings, education, warfare and other social gatherings. Surviving artistic records indicate that it involved both men and women, who could be instrumentalists or singers. Along with the older music of the previous Medians, Assyrians and particularly the Achaemenid period, Parthian music was crucial in laying the foundation for the golden age of subsequent Sasanian music.
The psalterion is a stringed, plucked instrument, an ancient Greek harp. Psalterion was a general word for harps in the latter part of the 4th century B.C. It meant "plucking instrument".
References
- ↑ West 1992, pp. 216–217.
- ↑ Liddell and Scott 1996.
- ↑ West 1992, p. 212.
- ↑ Mathiesen 1999, pp. 59–60.
- ↑ Mathiesen 2001.
- ↑ Mathiesen 1999, p. 59.
Cited sources
- Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott. 1996. A Greek-English Lexicon , ninth edition, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-864226-1.
- Mathiesen, Thomas. 1999. Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-3079-6.
- Mathiesen, Thomas J. 2001. "Nomos (Gk plural nomoi)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
- West, M[artin]. L[itchfield]. Ancient Greek Music. 1992. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-814897-6.