|
|
|
|
|
|
|
people listening to libation-airs on the pipes, or to enharmonic Dorian songs'; 'classical' music is evidently in question.22 Philo says that the seven-stringed lyre is the best of instruments because it best displays the most dignified of the genera used in song, the en-harmonic. He may, however, simply be echoing older theory.23 Ptolemy, after specifying harmonic ratios for the intervals in the various genera and their sub-types, says: |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Now of the genera that have been set out, we would find all the diatonic ones familiar to our ears, but not to the same extent the enharmonic, nor the soft one of the chromatics, because people do not altogether enjoy those of the characters (ethe) that are exceedingly slackened.24 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A couple of pages later, however, he makes it clear that there still were people who sang in the enharmonic genus.25 Aristides Quintilianus writes that the diatonic is the most natural genus, |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
since it can be performed by everyone, even the wholly untutored: the chromatic is more technically sophisticated, being performed only by those who have been trained: and the enharmonic demands stricter precision, being accepted only by the most outstanding musicians, while for most people it is impossible.26 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Macrobius states that the enharmonic has gone out of currency because of its difficulty, while Gaudentius says roundly that only the diatonic is still in general use in his time, the other two being 'perhaps obsolete'.27 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So far we have defined the genera in terms of a single set of intervals for each, and described the intervals by means of the familiar and convenient measures 'semitone', 'tone', 'minor third', etc. But lyre-strings could be tuned to give many shades of intonation that do not precisely correspond to those of our tempered scale, and certain of |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
22Dem. 22. On the other hand in Comp. 62-3 he treats it as a controversial matter whether quarter-tones are perceptible. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
23Sacrarum Legum Allegoriae 1. 5 (i. 64. 13 Cohn). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
24Harm. 1. 16 p. 38. 2, translated by Barker, GMW ii. 311. By 'slackened' Ptolemy refers to the lowering of the inner notes of the tetrachord. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
25Harm. 1. 16 p. 40. 6. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
26De mus. p. 16. 10ff., trans. Barker, GMW ii. 418. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
27 Macrob. in Somn. Scip. 2. 4. 13, Gaud. Harm. p. 332. 1. Cf. also Winnington-Ingram, Mode, 78. |
|
|
|
|
|