The Modes of Ancient Greek Music — Reading Notes

on in the later writers on music is the word [Greek: tropos][1]. In the course of the passage of Plutarch already referred to (_De Mus._ c. 17) it is applied to the Dorian mode, which Plutarch has just called [Greek: harmonia]. As [Greek: tropos] is always used in the later writers of the keys ([Greek: tonoi]) of Aristoxenus, this may be added to the places in which [Greek: harmonia] has the same meaning.

§ 13. _Modes employed on different Instruments._

In the anonymous treatise on music published by Bellermann[2] (c. 28), we find the following statement regarding the use of the modes or keys in the scales of different instruments:

'The Phrygian mode ([Greek: harmonia]) has the first place on wind-instruments: witness the first discoverers--Marsyas, Hyagnis, Olympus--who were Phrygians. Players on the water-organ ([Greek: hydraulai]) use only six modes ([Greek: tropoi]), viz. Hyper-lydian, Hyper-ionian, Lydian, Phrygian, Hypo-lydian, Hypo-phrygian. Players on the cithara tune their instrument to these four, viz. Hyper-ionian, Lydian, Hypo-lydian, Ionian. Flute-players employ seven, viz. Hyper-aeolian, Hyper-ionian, Hypo-lydian, Lydian, Phrygian, Ionian, Hypo-phrygian. Musicians who concern themselves with orchestic (choral music) use seven, viz. Hyper-dorian, Lydian, Phrygian, Dorian, Hypo-lydian, Hypo-phrygian, Hypo-dorian.

[Footnote 1: Aristides Quintilianus uses [Greek: tropos] as the regular word for 'key:' e.g. in p. 136 [Greek: en tê tôn tropôn, hous kai tonous ekalesamen, ekthesei]. So Alypius (p. 2 Meib.) [Greek: dielein eis tous legomenous tropous te kai tonous, ontas pentekaideka ton arithmon]. Also Bacchius in his catechism (p. 12 Meib.) [Greek: hoi tous treis tropous adontes tinas adousi; Lydion, Phrygion, Dôrion; hoi de tous hepta tinas; Mixolydion, Lydion, Phrygion, Dôrion, Hypolydion, Hypophrygion, Hypodôrion, toutôn poios estin oxyteros? ho Mixolydios, k.t.l.] And Gaudentius (p. 21, l. 2) [Greek: kath' hekaston tropon hê tonon]. Cp. Dionys. Hal. _De Comp. Verb._ c. 19.]

[Footnote 2: _Anonymi scriptio de Musica_ (Berlin. 1841).]

In this passage it is evident that we have to do with keys of the scheme attributed to Aristoxenus, including the two (Hyper-aeolian and Hyper-lydian) which were said to have been added after his time. The number of scales mentioned is sufficient to prove that the reference is not to the seven species of the octave. Yet the word [Greek: harmonia] is used of these keys, and with it, seemingly as an equivalent, the word [Greek: tropos].

Pollux (_Onom._ iv. 78) gives a somewhat different account of the modes used on the flute: [Greek: kai harmonia men aulêtikê Dôristi, Phrygisti, Lydios kai Iônikê, kai syntonos Lydisti hên Anthippos exeure]. But this statement, as has been already pointed out (p. 22), is a piece of antiquarian learning, and therefore takes no notice of the more recent keys, as Hyper-aeolian and Hyper-ionian, or even Hypo-phrygian (unless that is the Ionian of Pollux). The absence of Dorian from the list given by the _Anonymus_ is curious: but it seems that at that time it was equally unknown to the cithara and the water-organ. There is therefore no reason to think that the two lists are framed with reference to different things. That is to say, [Greek: harmonia] in Pollux has the same meaning as [Greek: harmonia] in the _Anonymus_, and is equivalent to [Greek: tonos].

§ 14. _Recapitulation--[Greek: harmonia] and [Greek: tonos]._

The inquiry has now reached a stage at which we may stop to consider what result has been reached, especially in regard to the question whether the two words [Greek: harmonia] and [Greek: tonos] denote two sets of musical forms, or are merely two different names for the same thing. The latter alternative appears to be supported by several considerations.

1. From various passages, especially in Plato and Aristotle, it has been shown that the modes anciently called [Greek: harmoniai] differed in pitch, and that this difference in pitch was regarded as the chief source of the peculiar ethical character of the modes.

2. The list of [Greek: harmoniai] as gathered from the writers who treat of them, viz. Plato, Aristotle, and Heraclides Ponticus, is substantially the same as the list of [Greek: tonoi] described by Aristoxenus (p. 18): and moreover, there is an agreement in detail between the two lists which cannot be purely accidental. Thus Heraclides says that certain people had found out a new [Greek: harmonia], the Hypo-phrygian; and Aristoxenus speaks of the Hypo-phrygian [Greek: tonos] as a comparatively new one. Again, the account which Aristoxenus gives of the Hypo-dorian [Greek: tonos] as a key immediately below the Dorian agrees with what Heraclides says of the Hypo-dorian [Greek: harmonia], and also with the mention of Hypo-dorian and Hypo-phrygian (but not Hypo-lydian) in the Aristotelian _Problems_. Once more, the absence of Ionian from the list of [Greek: tonoi] in Aristoxenus is an exception which proves the rule: since the name of the Ionian [Greek: harmonia] is similarly absent from Aristotle.