Momence High School - Monesse Yearbook (Momence, IL)

Page 20 text:

20 SENIOR YEAR BOOK. been a mere extemporization. He wrote two books, one on harmony, the oth¬ er on rhythm. Patriotic and love songs lasted for a period of about two hundred fif¬ ty years. These songs softened the manners of the audience and united them in zeal for excellence and virtue. Terpanderand Sappho were the chief representatives of this period. Sing¬ ing attained its perfection under the Lespian school, followed by Sappho, who was a gifted poetess and the inventor of vocal music. Between 580 B. C., and 570 B. C. Sappho became a leader in Grecian musical culture. She gath¬ ered around her a large and elegant circle, entirely of women and girls, to whom -she taught poetry and music. Her home must have been a musical univer¬ sity. Her career certainly was a wonderful one for, among the ancient Greeks women.were looked down upon, and were regarded as slaves, and only fit for domestic duties. Sappho, apparently, was the only woman in all the realm of the ancient Greek music who was pure, noble and uncontaminated. After her, music as practiced by her sex, was handed over to the most degraded. The period of the drama and chorus lasted for about five hundred years. This was the culmination of Greek musical art, upon the artistic and aesthet¬ ic side. These were the palmy days of Greek music. Songs were sung in unison. There was no part singing, accompanied by the cithara. Every town had its body of singers, who sang and performed the evolutions of the dance appropriate to the services. This lead to the drama. The three great dramatic authors of the period were AEschylus, Sopho¬ cles and Euripides. All were great poets, the first, probably, the greatest. They wrote the music to the plays, as well as the words. About four hundred seventy B. C. the great tragedian made his debut as actor and author and placed three speakers on the stage, instead of one. The principles each rep¬ resented more than one character, making some slight change of costume nec¬ essary, in order to indicate the transformation. The stage was simply an open platform. He lessened the part of the chorus and made dialogs possible without their assistance. He aimed at the terrible and seems usually to have hit it. Sophocles was a fine musician and an elegant poet. He composed what was called the “orchestric”. From this term we get our word “orchestra”. It formed the pantomimic complement of the acting, with the added grace of art in grouping and posturing, mythical dancing and gestures. It will readily be seen that this drama was essentially opera. The music is thought to have been of slight tonal value from the compass of the instruments aud the gener¬ al deficiencies of the Greeks upon this side. This mythical drama, which left so much to the imagination, lasted but a few years. Euripides felt the chorus to be an inconvenience, and yet he could not

Page 19 text:

SENIOR YEAE BOOK. 19 Judging from the samples of Chinese music heard in Chicago the bad spirits must be responsible for the whole of it. The Japanese are a very musical nation. Their instruments resemble those of the Chinese but their music is much better. They never understood harmony until it was introduced to them by the European nations. They are adopting modern methods, however, even introducing music into their schools and with their keen musical sense there is hope of the very best results. By music the Greeks meant much more than the tonal art itself. It in¬ cluded much of what they meant by a liberal education. Music itself they called harmony. They were in advance of all the other ancient nations in music, because they very early recognized its rank as a fine art. The characteristic instrument was the lyre. The later form was called the “cithera”, which had six strings and no finger board, and so had as many tones as strings. They also had a flute. Greek music was weak on the tonal side but, for the aesthetic side musi¬ cal theory is indebted to the Greeks. Their notation consisted of the letters of the alphabet placed over the syllables to which the tones indicated were to be sung. The letters represent¬ ed absolute pitch. There were about seventy characters. They used the slur and the staccato in a limited way and divided semitones into quarter tones. Greek history of music may be divided into four great sections, begin¬ ning at about 1000 B. C. with the rhapsodists. These sections, or periods, overlapped each other. The first period lasted two hundred fifty years. The rhapsodists;. chanted the Homeric poems and we find the minstrel an honored guest who- sang the ancient ballads or improvised new ones, as the occasion required.. The heroes sometimes took part, for the Odyssey tells us that Ulysses occas¬ ionally took the lyre and sang a rhapsody of his own adventures. There were regular guilds, or schools of rhapsodists to which only those were admitted as masters who were able to treat the current topics with the light touch of real poetry, and those as apprentices who showed proper talent and promise. It is supposed that the poems were transmitted in this way for more than three centuries before they were written. One of the famous rhapsodists was Terpander. He was the starting point of the later and more elaborate art. First, he separated the prelude from the recital which followed, and thus constituted an independent piece of music. Next he added words to the instrumental part and thus created a new and terse musical form. It contained pleasing melody and was no longer a mere musi¬ cal recitation. His second reform was the regulation of tune. Up to this time tune had

Page 21 text:

SENIOR YEAR BOOK. 21 break the custom and do away with it. Euripides was more practical than Aeschylus who aimed at the somber and made things appear worse, and more tragical than they realty were. Sophocles’ works were more light and airy, more of a recreation, more on the operatic style. Immediately after Euripides appeared Aristophenes, about four hun¬ dred twenty B. C. the great comedy writer. He was also a patriot and a philosopher. He satirizes the classical dramas, parodies their effects and pokes fun at them in general. He was a good musician and might have gone on in the steps of his predecessors, had he chosen. The fourth period, or period of the theorists and philosophers, lasted for about three hundred years, or until three hundred A. D. The chief representatives of this period were Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, Plato, Aristoxenus and Aristotle. Socrates made words the images of exact concepts and set in opera¬ tion an age of scientific classification and intellectual development into which music could not enter, considering the form so poor on the tonal side as it then was, and ever remained. The earliest musical theorist was Pythagoras. He learned much of his theory, philosophy and musical science of the priests in Egypt. His influence upon music was of a sentimental character. He was probably the first to introduce among the Greeks the theory of the music of the spheres. This he probably got from the Assyrians. Pythagoras united the various modes into one scale and organized Greek music and placed it upon a scientific basis. He organized a brother¬ hood in southern Italy which taught that music was the great means of education and the guide to all the virtues. Then followed Plato and Aristotle, the philosophers. The latter was the father of scientific classification and orderly knowledge. Aristotle raised the question why they did not sing in fourths and fifths, as well as octaves. Plato was particular that only noble harmonies should be allowed in his state. He wanted one warlike, to be uttered in time of danger, the other for time of peace and freedom of action. Aristoxenus was a disciple of Aristotle and to him we are indebted for the first really musical work which has come to us. He made a scientific treatise upon the art, and united into a harmonious whole the best of the elements of his predecessors. These best things the world has never lost, but by a process of evolu¬ tion and selection has grafted upon them the newer and better elements which go to make up the best of the music of the present day.