Ancient music

The music of antiquity is the music of the early advanced civilizations after the end of prehistory . For the ancient Mediterranean, this period extends to the beginning of the Middle Ages . The origin of music has been a popular subject of speculation and research at all times and among all peoples. The music of the ancient peoples is consistently derived from a deity. As a result, it is seen by them as forming and ennobling, and under certain circumstances also working as a miracle.

India

In the ancient Indian music theory Gandharva the view prevailed that in Brahma not only the supreme of the gods, but also the creator of music and in his son Narada the inventor of the national musical instrument vina .

But the most wonderful effects were ascribed to the modes of tones revealed by divine power: One had the consequence that whoever played it was consumed by fire, another was able to darken the sun, bring a third rain, etc. Like all cultures of antiquity trusts Indian music also has an enormous power to it. The Indians developed an almost unlimited wealth of intervals and keys, the latter amounting to no less than 960 according to the music scholar Soma.

It should be noted here, however, that the term “key” was different and broader in antiquity than in Europe, and all variants resulting from increasing, deepening or skipping individual intervals of the scale were considered as such.

As a result of this great wealth of intervals, the Indians, like the rest of the ancient world, divided the octave into well over twelve tones. They also used quarter tones (after Ambros up to 22 to the octave). Her music appears to be overabundant in melodic material, but unsuitable for polyphony and functional harmony.

China

The Chinese music took in public life a prominent position; It was recognized as an effective means of promoting morality, and the wisest of all Chinese legislators, Confucius (500 BC), even maintained that if you wanted to know whether a country was well governed and well-behaved, you had to have yours Listen to music. Traditionally, the pentatonic is predominant in Chinese scales .

Middle East

The music of ancient Mesopotamia , apart from individual finds of musical instruments or images on works of art such as vases, is mainly transmitted through information on clay tablets , which mostly relate to the cultic area (for example the depictions of an animal band ). Therefore, almost no information on everyday music is known, while temple music, which was dominated by priest musicians and relied particularly on the lyre, has been better researched. It related to religious texts such as hymns and prayers and played some role (whatever) in their recitation , so it was not instrumental music. The practitioners - solo and choir singers, many of whom are known by name from the middle of the third millennium BC - were trained in special schools.

The music of that time was often embedded in ideas of world orders and cosmic laws. The historian Plutarch reports, for example, that the Babylonians associated the relationship between spring and winter with a fifth, that between spring and autumn with a fourth, and that between spring and summer with an octave. According to cuneiform texts, the octave itself was divided into seven levels.

There are striking similarities between Chinese and Near Eastern music. This in turn shares many characteristics with Greco-Roman music, so that it can be assumed that it had a certain influence on classical antiquity. An example of this is the division of the octave into two tetrachords (four-tone groups: C to F, G to C), which is often ascribed to the Greeks, but originally comes from Mesopotamia.

The musical instruments correspond to those that also prevailed in other areas of the Near East (in the kingdom of Elam and with the Hittites ), for example angle harps, various lyres and lutes, double whistles and trumpets, trumpets as well as large frame drums and other diverse percussion instruments. On Mesopotamian seals are already in the 3rd millennium BC Chr. Harps shown. The oldest are of a curved shape, followed by angle harps (from around 1900 BC) with a vertical or horizontal sound body. The oriental Tschang developed from the vertical angular harps, the harp types in the Caucasus and the Central Asian steppe from the horizontal ones .

Lyres go out of tune less quickly than simple harps. They usually had between five and ten strings. The images of string instruments on sheet bronze vessels and clay vases from the beginning of the Iron Age to classical antiquity paint the following picture: The Egyptian kithara (region of the Middle East) has an angular resonance body. Mycenaean - Minoan lyres are shown with curved yoke arms. Greek Lyren (Chelys) are defined by the curved body sound of wood or tortoise shells. The name Phorminx comes from a Greek creation myth. Apollo accompanies the nymphs who sing about the new world. Mainly tendons and intestines were used for the strings. According to ancient sources, the seven-string lyre comes from Terpandros in 670 BC. BC, the use of six strings has been around since 580 BC. Proven.

A first high point in the variety of instruments was reached at the time of the First Dynasty of Ur . The (later) Babylonian music found an echo in the Bible in the book of Daniel 3: 5. The passage that describes King Nebuchadnezzar II's representation of power is translated differently in different editions of the Bible, for example as "the sound of trumpets, trumpets, harps, zithers, flutes, lutes and all other instruments" ( LUT ) or as the "sound of the horn , the reed pipe, the zither, the harp, the lute, the bagpipe and all kinds of music ” ( ELB ). In any case, the passage makes it clear that the music also served very mundane interests.

Egypt

The fact that music played an important role in both public and private life in Egypt is shown by the numerous pictorial representations of singers and instrumentalists , sometimes individually, sometimes combined in choirs and orchestras , on almost all of the country's monuments .

The variety of the instruments appearing there, among them the large, richly stringed harp, suggests a certain external splendor and opulence of Egyptian music. For just as the sculpture and painting of Egypt, having reached a certain level of education, was forced to repeat certain types constantly by the power of a priestly class working in mysterious darkness, so too was poetry and music; These arts, however, under the circumstances mentioned above, were all the more likely to succumb to a state of paralysis, as they can least do without the lively participation of the people for their prosperity.

Egyptian art still shows itself in this state at the time of Plato (4th century BC), who reported in his “Laws” ( Nomoi , Book 2) that beautiful forms and good music were appreciated there; “But how these beautiful forms and good music must be designed is determined by their priests, and neither painters, musicians nor other artists are allowed to introduce anything new, deviating from those patterns once recognized as beautiful. This is why her paintings and statues, which were made 10,000 years ago, are in no way better or worse than those that are still being made now. "

In ancient Egypt, music performances with dance are just as proven as with the Hittites . The plucked lyre and harp are known , as well as flutes and reed instruments as wind instruments . For more details see under music history .

As in all ancient civilizations, in ancient Egypt the melodies were passed down exclusively orally , through the practice of cheironomy : hand and finger movements to display the various cadences .

Israel

As far as the music of the Hebrews is concerned, one is only dependent on guesswork with regard to its internal nature, since not only are there no written reports about it, but there are also monuments of ancient Hebrew (a relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome with a picture of a train except for captured Jews). It is characteristic of the Jewish worship service that the biblical text is never read or declaimed, but is always provided with musical accents ( teamim ) and cadences . The church father Jerome testified to this practice around the year 400 with the words: decantant divina mandata : "They (the Jews) sing the divine commandments".

Greece

The tetrachord, which always comprises two whole tones and a semitone, is called Doric (if it is in the middle, e.g. D-EF-G), Phrygian (if it is in the depth, e.g. B. EF-GA) or ionic (if it is in height, e.g. CD-EF).

The combination of two Doric, Phrygian or Ionic tetrachords gives rise to the octave genera of the same name (Greek harmonia ), to which four other tones were added, namely Hh ( Mixolydian ), Aa (Hypodoric), Gg (Hypophrygian), Ff (Hypolydian). The last three, however, are not to be seen as independent keys , but rather as changes to the first three, the higher half of which, the fifth, became the lower. In addition to this system of octave genres, another system was in use, the transposition scale (tonos) , i.e. H. a two-octave minor scale, which was created by adding a Doric tetrachord in the depth and one in the height to the Doric octave genus Ee (both in such close connection that the border tones coincide) and finally this series by a tone in the Depth completed, the "added" (proslambanomenos) .

This system differs in essence from that of the octave genre in that it (like the modern major and minor scales ) is transposed to each of the twelve semitones of the octave without changing the sequence of intervals, as is the case with the octave genres of different pitches the case is.

Although the nature of the octave genres is different (more details about the relationship between the two systems can be found in Friedrich Bellermann's Anonymus , Note 28, p. 45), the transposition scales still had the same names according to provinces, namely the seven original ones (their number later rose to fifteen):

Hypodoric (F minor)
Hypophrygian (G minor)
Hypolydian (A minor)
Dorian (B flat minor)
Phrygian (C minor)
Lydian (D minor)
Mixolydian (E flat minor)
Darmiolydian (D flat minor)

With regard to the names mentioned last, it should already be pointed out that they return almost a millennium later in the same sequence as the designation of the Christian church modes, although these are nothing other than the Greek octave genres and consequently have nothing in common with the transposition scales - an error that results from this What was caused by the fact that during the first centuries of the Middle Ages, along with the Greek language, music theory was also forgotten, and when the study of ancient theory was resumed, the difference between the two systems was ignored.

An important distinguishing feature between ancient Greek and modern music is its melodic diversity, as it emerges with the different tones and shades. The former, of which there were three, the diatonic , chromatic and enharmonic, meant the modifications of the intervals within a tetrachord, in the case of the enharmonic gender down to the interval of the quarter tone, while the shading (chroma) denotes even finer differences in intonation.

Roman Empire

The Roman music stand, as well as the seal initially quite under the influence of Greek poetry. In the time when there was no writing, rhythmic language was a support for memory. The singers and musicians were above all practitioners and based their interpretation on the accents of the spoken language; Auxiliary signs for the rising and falling of the voice were already used by Aristophanes of Byzantium in the 3rd century BC. Invented. In addition to a ritual and symbolic meaning, music always played a special role in the social structures of society. In Rome, music was not sought for the ethical, character-building value as in Greece, but it served as an indispensable companion in cult, at funeral celebrations, in the army and in state events such as triumphal parades and also in performances in the circus and amphitheater .

One of the oldest musical instruments was the bone flute . Later wood, ivory or metal were used for production . The Romans took over the two lyres , the lyre and the kithara from the Greeks .

The aulos (double reed instrument), also tibia, one of the most frequently depicted instruments of antiquity, is a double reed instrument . A double flute is unknown in antiquity.

Under Etruscan influence, various wind instruments found their way into the Romans , which were mainly used in the army: The signaling instrument of the legions was the Roman tuba , a natural trumpet . Her body is a straight tube made of bronze that ends in a funnel-shaped opening. A special Etruscan form was the lituus , which was used as a horn in the cavalry. The cornu was also used. It had a sturdy cross bar for stiffening and was rounded, similar to the letter G. Another brass instrument was the similar, somewhat longer and deeper bucina .

Of course, there were also percussion instruments, and the water organ, the so-called hydraulis , had also been known since Hellenism. It was made by the Alexandrian mechanic Ktesibios around 170 BC. Was invented. The hydraulis was also used in the circus in Rome. Choral singing was hugely popular, but polyphony was unknown. The choirs and orchestras were enlarged enormously, especially for state celebrations. Hunting, war, and outdoor festivities required loud instruments.

The fact that musicians were integrated into the Roman army in the early republic is already shown by the constitution of the Centuries. a. envisaged the use of the entire people for military service: of the 193 centuries to be provided by the citizenry , two went to the minstrels. Trumpeters and horn players gave signals in the army to attack and retreat, to set out and stop, and they announced the times of dinner and the night watch.

If you keep in mind that in a triumph, logically the most important thing next to the triumphant is the army (without an army no victory, without a victory no triumph), then it can be assumed that “military music” also played a prominent role. Unfortunately, there is little pictorial and literary evidence of music in triumph.

There are numerous depictions of Roman warriors with trumpets in Roman triumphal iconography, but mostly they have moved into the background. The triumphator and his deeds, especially the submission of the opponent in battle and the actual battle, are usually in the foreground in pictorial representations. A marble relief in the Conservator's Palace in Rome shows Marcus Aurelius in the triumphal chariot, which a trumpeter is walking ahead. Also of interest is a denarius by Julius Caesar depicting an elephant trampling a Celtic war trumpet (karnyx) .

Literary information on music in triumph is also rather sparse. Mention should be made in this context of the triumph of Lucius Aemilius Paullus ex Macedonia et rege Perse (167 BC) and the triumph of the flaver (71 AD). In both cases it is mentioned that “the trumpeters walk away in front as in a fight”. More often than the instruments, the soldiers in the choir are mentioned in literary testimonies, who offered the archaic triumphal acclamation Io triumpe , also together with the audience. The soldiers sang songs of victory or songs of mockery (ioci militares) on the triumphant.

What is remarkable for today's musicology is that even back then a very precise distinction was made between the timbre of brass and woodwind instruments (this modern term refers to the type of mouthpiece and not to the material from which the instrument is made).

This becomes clear in the ovatio , a substitute for triumph (minor triumphus): the general had to walk, the wreaths were made of myrtle and not of laurel , the army did not go along, and the musical accompaniment consisted of flute music (= woodwind instrument) and not of Triumphal trombones (= brass instrument). Plutarch writes about the ovatio of Marcus Claudius Marcellus de Syracusaneis (211 BC): "The flute is also a peaceful instrument."

Since Roman music was mostly associated with social events that early Christianity loathed or with cult practices that were supposed to be eradicated, efforts were made in late antiquity to erase the ancient music tradition from the memory of believers. Instrumental music in particular met with aversion, and it took centuries for the church to consider the music of antiquity, which presumably lived on in folk music or the music of lower social classes, as important for the musical development of the western civilized world.

literature

Music . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 11, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 917.
Curt Sachs : The music of antiquity. In: Ernst Bücken (Hg.): Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft , Vol. 6. Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, Potsdam 1928/1930, licensed edition by Laaber-Verlag, Regensburg 1979.
Karl H. Wörner: History of Music. A study and reference book. 8th ed., Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, pp. 12-30 ( excerpts from Google Books ).
Friederike Naumann-Steckner , with contributions from Berthold Bell, Jürgen Hammerstaedt , Susanne Rühling, Anthony Spiri, Olga Sutkowsks and Marcus Trier : Lyra, Tibiae, Cymbala ... Music in the Roman Cologne (exhibition catalog Römisch-Germanisches Museum July 19 to November 3, 2013 , Small writings of the Roman-Germanic Museum of the City of Cologne) , LUTHE Druck und Medienservice, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-922727-83-5 .
Johannes Eberhardt: Untamed Muses. Music culture in late Greco-Roman antiquity (= ancient culture and history. Volume 19). Lit, Berlin / Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-643-13915-3 (also dissertation, University of Erfurt 2014).

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Bo Lawergren: Harp. In: Encyclopædia Iranica .
↑ Otto Seewald : The Lyrendarstellungen the Eastern Alpine Hallstatt culture. In: Hellmut Federhofer (Hrsg.): Festschrift Alfred Orel for his 70th birthday. Vienna 1960, pp. 159–171, here p. 163; Franz Zagiba: Music History of Central Europe I. First part. In: Franz Zagiba (Hrsg.): Research on older music history. Publications of the Musicological Institute of the University of Vienna. Association of Austrian Scientific Societies, Vienna 1976, pp. 7–59, catalog p. 160 ff, here p. 26 ff.
↑ Winfried Schrammek : About the origin and beginnings of music . Breitkopf & Härtel Musikverlag, Leipzig 1957, p. 8.
^ Jacques Paul Migne : Patrologia Latina , 1844–1864. Volume 24, p. 561.

[1] Bo Lawergren: Harp. In: Encyclopædia Iranica .

[2] Otto Seewald : The Lyrendarstellungen the Eastern Alpine Hallstatt culture. In: Hellmut Federhofer (Hrsg.): Festschrift Alfred Orel for his 70th birthday. Vienna 1960, pp. 159–171, here p. 163; Franz Zagiba: Music History of Central Europe I. First part. In: Franz Zagiba (Hrsg.): Research on older music history. Publications of the Musicological Institute of the University of Vienna. Association of Austrian Scientific Societies, Vienna 1976, pp. 7–59, catalog p. 160 ff, here p. 26 ff.

[3] Winfried Schrammek : About the origin and beginnings of music . Breitkopf & Härtel Musikverlag, Leipzig 1957, p. 8.

[4] Jacques Paul Migne : Patrologia Latina , 1844–1864. Volume 24, p. 561.