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was still of the pentatonic type, without divided semitones, and that Euripides adopted the more modern, nuanced version described by Damon, in which the Dorian scale, for example, had nine notes instead of seven. |
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The principal modes employed were the dignified Dorian and the more emotional Mixolydian.113 The Ionian and (Slack) Lydian were also used.114 The introduction of the Lydian is attributed to Sophocles. He is also credited with introducing the Phrygian mode to tragedy and using it in a rather dithyrambic manner.115 Agathon then brought in the Hypodorian and Hypophrygian. These too were associated with the dithyramb (the Hypodorian also with citharody), and they were not used for choral odes but only in astrophic mono-dies.116 |
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The first tragedian on whose music any judgements are recorded is Phrynichus. Songs played a large part in his plays, and they were remembered as being highly melodious and grateful to the ear. His choreography was also noted for its inventiveness.117 |
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Aeschylus' music was distinctly different in style from Phrynichus': so we gather from Aristophanes, who represents it as long-winded and repetitive, like an antiquated rope-maker's work songs. At the same time it is somehow like the citharodes' nomoi, requiring only lyre-strums between the lines to bring out the resemblance.118 The point of the comparison seems to lie in Aeschylus' occasional use of rolling dactylic rhythms of an epical cast, not in any modal factor, since the modes most associated with the citharodes, Lydian and Hypodorian, were introduced to tragedy only after Aeschylus' time.119 |
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113 Aristox. fr. 81, cf. ps.-Arist. Pr. 19. 48, Plut. De audiendo 46b. Aristoxenus thinks the tragedians got the Mixolydian mode from Sappho; evidently it was less widespread in archaic music than Dorian. If its scale was as described in the Damonian list, e ( ) f g a ( )  e', it may account for Psellus' 'enharmonic with an admixture of diatonic'. |
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114 Aristox. fr. 82, Psell. De trag. 5, Heraclid. Pont. fr. 163 (Ath. 625b); Aesch. Supp. 69 'so I too lamenting in Ionian strains . . .', cf. my Studies in Aeschylus (Stuttgart. 1990), 130f. |
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115 Aristox. fr. 79; Psell. loc. cit., who remarks that the Lydian belongs more to the citharodic style. |
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116 Psell. loc. cit.; ps.-Arist. Pr. 19. 30, 48. See above, pp. 183f. |
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117 Ar. Vesp. 220 and schol., 269, 1490 (with MacDowell's n.), 1524; Av. 748ff.; ps.-Arist. Pr. 19. 31; epigram in Plut. Quaest. conv. 732f (TrGF 3 T 9-10, l 3). |
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118Ran. 1249f., 1261-300, cf. 914f. |
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119 One ancient interpreter, Timachidas (ap. schol. Ran. 1282), explained the reference by saying (not necessarily with any evidence) that Aeschylus used the |
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(Footnote continued on next page) |
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