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through-composed, consisting of a series of sung sections punctuated by passages for aulos alone. Strophic form had been taken for granted in Pindar's day, however original his dithyrambs may have been in other respects. Its abandonment by Melanippides in favour of the free form characteristic of auletic and citharistic programme music opened the way to a much more expressive vocal style in which the melody could be shaped to suit the words.7 |
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What Pherecrates says of him is that he undid Music and slackened her with his dozen chordai. We can infer at least that he used extra notes besides those of the plain old scales, and probably that he favoured a mode or modes of the category called 'slack'.8 As to the latter point, we have a vague statement, in the context of a discussion of the origins of the Lydian mode, that 'some say Melanippides originated this melos'.9 As to the former, we hear from the same writer, pseudo-Plutarch, that |
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aulos-playing has changed from a simpler to a more intricate musical art. In the old days, up to Melanippides the dithyrambic composer, it was the case that the auletes were paid by the composers: the primary role was played by the poetry [or composition], and the auletes were subservient to the chorus-trainers [= the composers]. But later this changed for the worse.10 |
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At this point the compiler turns from his source, probably Aristoxenus, to the Pherecrates passage, breaking the thread of the argument, which should have gone on to explain that after Melanippides the aulete in the dithyramb got to do more than just accompany the vocal part. |
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Melanippides reformed the dithyramb in an original and effective way that opened up all kinds of artistic possibilities for the future, and he may have saved the genre from declining into a routine obscurity. But we should not lay every feature of the New Music at his door. Pherecrates represents him as moderate in comparison with Cinesias, Phrynis, and Timotheus, and he does not mention modulations, kampai, in connection with Melanippides as he does with all the others. A gentleman of taste in the last decade of the century, whose favourite epic and tragic poets were Homer and Sophocles, might put Melanippides top for dithyramb.11 |
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7 Cf. pp. 198 and 212ff. |
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8 See p. 179. |
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9 Ps.-Plut. De mus. 1136c. Perhaps the meaning is that he was the first to use Lydian in dithyramb. |
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10 Ps.-Plut. De mus. 1141 cd. |
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11 Socrates' friend Aristodemus in Xen. Mem. 1. 4. 3. |
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