The Music Of The Pre-Christian Ages - The Greeks
The musical history of the Greeks may be divided into two great periods, the mythological, and the historical. The first period covers the entire range of traditions and legends, and extends up to the time when the Greeks began to reckon by Olympiads, or periods of four years, the date of the first Olympiad being 776 B.C. From 776 B.C. to 161 A.D. is the historical period.
To the first period belong the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, perhaps the noblest and most beautiful of all the fairy-tales of art; the building of Thebes and Cadmea by Amphion, who by his playing caused the rocks and stones to move spontaneously; the contest between Apollo and Marsyas; the myth of the Sirens, and numberless other stories and traditions with which the Hellenic mind loved to surround, as with many garlands, the art of music.
Homer provides us with a link between the traditional and historical periods; and in the ” Iliad ” and the ” Odyssey ” are to be found both legend and exact information.
Coming to the historical period proper of Greek music, we cannot fail to be impressed with the broadly moral significance which music possessed for the Greeks. Among the Assyrians,, it is to be imagined, music was more or less sensuous in character; among the Egyptians it apparently partook of the nature of an occult philosophy; among the Israelites music was primarily an act of worship; and it is, therefore, to the Greeks that the credit of being the first to recognise the educative value of music is due. Although not yet an independent art, music probably gained very nearly as much as it lost in this respect, by being made an essential part in the grandest manifestations of the literary and dramatic genius of Greece. Thus the Greek play resembled more an opera than a play, the word being used in its modern acceptation
Tags: amphion, art of music, assyrians, fairy tales, greek music, history of the greeks, iliad and the odyssey, music drama, musical aspect, musical history, occult philosophy, olympiads, orpheus and eurydice, thebes
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