|
|
|
|
|
|
|
went to a Lesbian contestant.90 At Sparta the art of playing the auloi was handed down from father to son in certain families.91 At Thebes too the aulos was cultivated assiduously, and towards the end of the fifth century this city established itself as the mother of the leading virtuosi, some of whom developed the capabilities of the instrument by mechanical improvements. An account of them may be postponed for the moment. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At Athens, from the beginning of the Classical period, we see a lively and varied musical culture, fed by influences both from Ionia and from mainland neighbours. At the public level there were all the dithyrambs and dramatic performances at the Dionysiac festivals; these probably owed much in their beginnings to Dorian traditions of choral song in the Megarid and the north-eastern Peloponnese. There were the paeans and hymns sung at various other festivals. At the Great Panathenaea there were also the citharodic, aulodic, and auletic displays. In the 470s Themistocles put up a special building for these contests to take place in, the 'Odeion', perhaps the world's first purpose-built concert hall. In 446, or a little before, Pericles made new ordinances for the musical events, and there were modifications to the Odeion.92 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Meanwhile, in the houses of the leisured class, there was the eternal symposium with all its informal music-making.93 Here, for a while at least, Ionian elegance was the vogue. Hipparchus' importation of Anacreon planted the best East Greek poet-musician of his time in Athenian society, and between about 520 and 460 various vase-paintings depict revellers attired in East Greek fashion, with turbans or bonnets, long cloaks and mantles, and sometimes earrings and parasols. One of them holds a barbitos with Anacreon's name written on it, clear evidence that this style of luxury was associated with him, whether or not he personally started the fashion. The barbitos itself first appears at Athens in his time, and we have noted the suggestion that he may have introduced it from across the Aegean.94 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
90 Cratinus fr. 263. Aristotle (fr. 545) took the reference to be specifically to Terpander; others (Aelius Dionysius l 7) took it to be to Euainetidesotherwise unknown, but evidently another notable Lesbian citharodeor Phrynis. Cf. also Paus. Atticista µ 14. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
91 Hdt. 6. 60 (above, n. 40). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
92 Plut. Per. 13. 9-11; J. A. Davison, JHS 78 (1958) 33-41 = From Archilochus to Pindar 48-64. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
93 See pp. 25f. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
94 Above, p. 58. For the vases and their interpretation cf. M. Davies, Mnemos. 34 (1981), 288-99, C. Brown, Phoenix 37 (1983), 8-11; Maas-Snyder, 119f., 135 figs. 13-14. |
|
|
|
|
|