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From other sources we get an impression of a more frugal and calculated use of heterophony. In a discussion that seems to go back to Aristoxenus39 we read of the use of heterophony in old tunes deriving from people like Olympus; it is presupposed that it was an integral feature of the ancient tradition, not something improvised by the modem executant. We are told that in the libation style, where the melody used (it seems) only the notes e  f a b c',40 the accompaniment used  and e' besides:  to make a concord of a fifth with  , and e' to make a concord with a and a discord with c'. The author goes on to say (it is not clear whether he is still referring to the same music) that the ancients used d' in their accompanimentwhen they would have been ashamed of its effect in the melodyto clash with f, b, and c'. This intriguing notion of the function of heterophonic notes is echoed by the late writer Gaudentius. According to him there is, between concordant and discordant notes, an intermediate category of 'paraphones', which sound concordant in the accompaniment. He gives as examples the interval of three tones from f to b (where the tonic is a) and that of two tones from g to b.41 |
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But we have more direct evidence. In the fragment from Euripides' Orestes, besides the vocal notes, there appear a small number of instrumental (aulos) notes, just one or two at a time, at significant points. With one exception they are placed between words of the text, and it is usually assumed that they were meant to sound between those words. But that would disrupt the rhythm intolerably, and I have no doubt that they were intended to sound simultaneously with the following word, possibly continuing as a drone throughout the phrase. There was nowhere else for the copyist to fit them in conveniently but before the word at which they sounded. Three different notes are represented, and two of them are not matched in the vocal |
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39 Ps.-Plut. De mus. 1137b-d. |
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40 This resembles but is not identical with the scale of the Spondeion discussed on p. 173. See Barker, GMW i. 256f. |
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41 Gaud. p. 338.3-7; cf. Bacchius p. 305. 13, and 'Longinus', Subl. 28.1, who speaks of 'the so-called paraphones' being used to make 'the proper note' more pleasurable. Ps.-Arist. Pr. 19. 12 (corrupt text) apparently refers to the playing of b with a. The assertion sometimes made that heterophonic accompaniment in Greek music was always higher than the voice has no basis in ps.-Arist. Pr. 19. 39 or ps.-Plut. De mus. 1141b, since hypo ten oiden does not mean 'above' but simply 'accompanying' the song (cf. Pl. Leg. 670a; Polycrates, FGrH 588): it has a precarious basis in Plut. Coniugalia praecepta 139cd. |
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