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scales. We cannot, of course, take Aristides' account as a comprehensive record of Classical modes; but we can take it as a record of the forms that some of the main ones had at a particular epoch. It tells us that the Dorian, the Phrygian, and the other harmoniai, while having some elements in common, such as the enharmonic tetra-chord, differed from one another in the selection of notes used, and to some extent in ambitus. Each one contained its own particular set of intervallic relationships, which we are not in a position to define. From the lists of notes we can read off all the intervals that might have been used in melody, but the individuality of the mode would depend to a considerable extent on which ones actually were, and with what emphasis, and also on the relative frequency of the several notes.58 |
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No doubt there were other differential characteristics that do not appear from the bare scales. Some types of rhythm were probably felt to go with one mode rather than another.59 There may have been particular melodic formulae associated with particular modes. The connection between mode and melodic style is implicit in the overlapping usage of melos and harmonia (above), and explicit in Heraclides Ponticus' hypothetical history of music in which he stated that 'the sequence of melody that the Dorians used to perform they called the Dorian harmonia'.60 |
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Certainly the modes appear to have been marked in some cases by differences of tessituradifferences in the degree to which high or low singing was required· Lasus of Hermione, in a hymn to Demeter and Kore, says he is singing 'in the deep-resounding Aeolian harmonia'. Pratinas recommends this mode with the words |
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Do not pursue either the tense
or the relaxed Ionian Muse,
but plough the intermediate field
and be Aeolian in your song.
. . . Befitting
all song-roisterers
is the Aeolian harmonia.61 |
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58 Cf. Aristid. Quint. p. 29. 18-21 (Barker, GMW ii. 431); Winnington-Ingram, Mode, 57-9. |
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59 Cf. below. p. 181. |
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60 Fr. 163 W. ap. Ath. 624d. |
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61 Lasus, PMG 702; Pratinas, PMG 712. The word 'Ionian' is thought by D. L. Page to be interpolated. |
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