|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He is said to have been the first to introduce 'multiplicity of notes' (polychordia) into unaccompanied kithara-playing, which probably means that he adopted one of the new instruments with up to eleven strings. He had pupils, whom he instructed in a room adorned with images of Apollo and the nine Muses. He taught not only the kithara but also harmonic theory, which he illustrated with a diagram of modal scales and their combination.48 This was very relevant to the modulatory style of music that his polychord kithara was designed for. His music should be imagined as mimetic rather than abstract.49 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The musician who aroused the greatest popular enthusiasm was the citharode. At the Panathenaic competitions in the late fifth and early fourth centuries it was the citharodes who got the largest prizes. In 402 the first prize (not in fact awarded) was a gold crown weighing 85 drachmas (about 370 grammes). Fuller information is provided by a slightly later inscription, where there are no less than five prizes for citharodes. The top prize is a crown worth 1000 silver drachmas, plus 500 drachmas in cash; the other prizes are worth 700,600,400, and 300 drachmas respectively. For aulodes there are only two prizes, worth 300 and 100 drachmas. For citharists there are three, the highest being worth 500 drachmas. For auletes the details are lost.50 In the musical contests instituted at the Eretrian festival of Artemis about 340 BC the prizes were:51 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At the Macedonian court, which attracted some of Greece's leading musicians from Pindar's time on, citharodes were prominent among the entertainers after the late fifth century.52 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
48 Phaenias fr. 32 Wehrli; Ath. 348d; P. Maas. RE ivA. 326f.; above. p. 218. On hearing Timotheus' Semele he commented 'What cries she would utter if she were giving birth to a contractor instead of a god!' (Ath. 352 a). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
49 Arist. Poet. 1447d15 states this as a characteristic of solo kithara and aulos music. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
50IG 22. 1388. 36:2311 = SIG 1055; J. A. Davison, JHS 78 (1 958), 37 f. = From Archilochus to Pindar, 56 f. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
51IG 12(9). 189. 15-20. Aulodes and auletes are not provided for here. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
52 Plut. De Alex. fort. 334b (Timotheus a familiar of Archelaus); Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 236 (Philip); Chares, FGrH 125 F 4 (Alexander). |
|
|
|
|
|