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the New Music specialized. It is not possible to say much on the subject here: in the ancients' critical remarks about this music it is difficult to distinguish between melodic complexity and ornamentation in performance, and between instrumental and vocal antics. We shall go into more detail in Chapter 7. But there seems to have been occasional employment of ornaments for expressive effect. Euripides, as parodied by Aristophanes,37 uses some sort of trill or turn on the first syllable of the verb 'twirl', to give musical expression to its meaning. The practice seems to have been contained within fairly narrow limits at this period, while certain of the later musical texts show it being used a little more extensively. The implication of Aristophanes' satire is that it was a novelty. We get the impression that older music was sung in a straightforward way, voice matching instrument note for note, without noticeable decorative embellishments. |
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In choral singing a good blend of voices was admired. The Muses sing 'with voices coinciding', and Alcman pretends that his choir's voice is a single Muse or Siren voice.38 Seneca, apparently using a Greek philosopher's example, speaks of how all the voices in a choir blend into one and are not heard individually.39 |
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All in all, the indications are that early Greek singing style was not characterized by any special mannerisms. Clarity and purity of tone, resonance, and coincidence with the accompaniment were the virtues commended. So far as we can see, it was much like that 'natural' mode of singing which Sachs finds only in the modern West. |
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However, there may have been special styles associated with certain songs of foreign provenance, or with certain religious contexts. The boy who sings the Linos in Homer (cf. above, p. 28) is described as singing it in a 'slender' voice. One might suppose this to be merely because of his youth, except that an ancient commentator states that the Linos is 'a song of lament which is sung in an attenuated voice'.40 Perhaps he is inventing an explanation of Homer's phrase, but it looks more like a genuine piece of learning. It is particularly interesting that a constricted vocal style, employed by a solo performer with poorly co-ordinated antiphonal responses from a chorus, has been identified by Lomax as part of a distinctive pattern |
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37Ran. 1314. 1348. |
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38 Hes. Th. 39; Alcm. PMG 30. |
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39Ep 84. 9; cf. ps.-Arist. Mund. 399a16. |
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40Il. 18. 570 with schol. b (p. 558. 44 Erbse) = PMG 880. |
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