ΟΡΝΙΘΕΣ, THE BIRDS. From Aristophanes to Hadjidakis

Aristophanes was a rather prolific comedy writer, who lived from ca. 446 to ca. 386 BC. An amazing eleven of his forty plays have survived and the best-known is probably The Birds created in 414 BC.

The poet was greatly disappointed by the political situation in Athens and the misery of his countrymen at that time. To express his disagreement (and probably his frustration), he composed this caustic protest.

The story is told by two Athenians, who like Aristophanes, are disgusted with the situation. They decide to leave the city. On their way, they meet the birds and manage to convince them to create an Ideal State, named Nephelococcygia, somewhere between Heaven and Earth. From there, they’ll rule the world in fairness and in honesty.

The Macedonian kings, including Alexander, must have been familiar with the work of Aristophanes. This means that Alexander may very well have attended the performance of The Birds in his home country and maybe even on special occasions while he was in Asia.

Manos Hadjidakis lived more than two centuries later. He was born in Xanthi, Greece in 1925 (his house is still there to visit) and died in Athens in 1994. He wrote songs, soundtracks for movies, and musicals but also a great collection of poems. People outside Greece generally know him from the song Never on Sunday which won him an Oscar, but in my opinion, he wrote far better music. Today, he is considered to be one of the greatest songwriters of his time, and certainly so in Greece.

Hadjidakis’ version of The Birds is obviously based on the play by Aristophanes. Initially, the piece was not well received because his music was a kind of urban Greek music called rebetiko. This style is generally described as the popular song of the Greeks, mostly the poorest classes, common from the late 19^th century to the 1950s and 1960s. Hadjidakis managed to create a unique sound, the kind of music that stands alone. And it clearly stands out.

It takes time for our Western ears to get used to but eventually, with time and an open mind, it really does grow on you!

The Birds has been successfully performed in concerts, plays, and even as a ballet choreographed by Maurice Béjart. Personally, I prefer the orchestral rendition where I can let my imagination run freely. Unfortunately, I have not found it available on YouTube, but I highly recommend the CD released by EMI under the title ΟΡΝΙΘΕΣ, THE BIRDS, ISBN 7243 5 22324 2 0. The music is totally enthralling. To add to the pleasure of the listener, the CD comes with a leaflet containing the lyrics both in Greek and in English.

Among the most interesting YouTube music by Hadjidakis, it is worth exploring these two links 30 Νυχτερινά Μάνος Χατζιδάκις and Ο Μάνος Χατζιδάκις Στη Ρωμαϊκή Αγορά Full Album

Of course, this is a far cry from the kind of music in antiquity as we know it (see: Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task?). We may wonder what the ancients, including Alexander and Aristophanes, would have thought of Hadjidaki's interpretation.

The Symposium by Plato

The Symposium by Plato (ISBN 0-14-044024-0) is not exactly my kind of reading but it must be for those persons really interested in philosophy. I found the book at a fair for second-hand books and bought it because the subject is quite intriguing and I hoped to find out more about it. Besides that, Plato was the tutor of Aristotle who in turn was called to Macedonia by King Philip to teach young Alexander. Reason enough to have a close look.

The stage is set in Athens in 416 BC where a group of people from the upper class are coming together to eat, drink, and talk at the house of the poet Agathon. The other guests are Phaedrus, an aristocrat; Pausanias, the legal expert; Eryximachus, a physician; Aristophanes, the great comic poet; Socrates, the philosopher, and Plato’s teacher; and towards the end of the Symposium enters Alcibiades, a prominent statesman, orator and general – quite a mixed company.  It is being decided that, since they all recently have been drinking heavily, they will amuse themselves with talk in the form of a speech instead of the usual entertainment with flute girls and wine. Each participant will take his turn and the subject that is chosen is Love.

Each character evidently develops his own vision and opinion. Love as expressed during this symposium is mostly homosexual love between men as was current in classical Greece at that time. The one before the last speaker is Socrates who asserts that the love of wisdom is the highest level of love, introducing the bases for what is to be known later on as platonic love. At this stage, Alcibiades bursts in with some drunken companions and takes the lead. He sketches the character of Socrates and his own love and admiration for the philosopher. A last drunken party erupts and mingles, and in the end, some of the guests go home while others stay put and fall asleep. In the early morning hours only Agathon, Aristophanes, and Socrates are still awake, talking and drinking. The last “survivor” is Socrates who leaves the house as sober as when he arrived.

So much for the story itself, the philosophy has to be taken as it comes by those who want to linger on these deep reflections about the human soul. In Socrates’ speech, the question is clearly asked whether Achilles would have died to avenge Patroclus if he had not believed that his courage would live on in men’s memory. The desire for immortal renown and glory is the incentive for his action; he is in love with immortality. This book definitely leads to some deep reflection on the subject.

What I find interesting is the general concept of what we call homosexuality today and the intensity of shameless drinking. This is, of course, seen through the eyes of our modern society. True love between men prevailed and was accepted without question, something we should seriously consider when talking about Alexander’s love for Hephaistion. The heavy drinking that could go on for hours is another aspect of ancient life that we should take into account in Alexander’s life. He probably wasn’t drinking more or any less than his companions or his army buddies. Judging facts that happened more than two thousand years ago is extremely hard and I think in this aspect we could be a little more tolerant towards Alexander as a man. 

Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task?

This is what I thought: it is an impossible task. Lately, I saw a replica of the Seikilos Epitaph from 200 BC/100 AD found in Aydin, Turkey (see: Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph). Since then, I have come across many articles treating and analyzing this unique subject.

 

The remains of ancient Greek music are very scant, leaving the impression that music was not popular in ancient Greece. Nothing is further from the truth since music then was all around, in theaters, athletics, education, and everyday life to express joy or sorrow. Ancient Greek music has been brought back to life thanks to, for instance, the achievements of the group LyrAvlos, a contraction of "lyra" (lyre) and "avlos" (flute). The group made several appearances, among which The Athens Hall of Music and the Warsaw Opera shows, the Festival of Old Music in Stockholm, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, the co-operation with the National Orchestra of Athens in the First Greek Musical Celebrations, as well as at the 2004 Olympic Games.

 

Stefos, the leader of Lyravlos, worked hard to construct precise replicas of the old instruments to play the music from eons past. So far, 61 ancient songs have been saved, some on papyrus, others on shards or stone like the above-mentioned Seikilos Epitaph. Such stones and papyri from Egypt, dating overall between 300 BC and 300 AD, show a vocal notation consisting of letters and signs placed above the vowels of the words. Besides, the Greeks had worked out the mathematical ratios of musical intervals, in which an octave is 2:1, a fifth 3:2, and a fourth 4:3.

 

On the other hand, a musician and tutor in classics at Oxford University, Armand D’Angour, reminds us of Homer's epics, the love poems of Sappho, and the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides that originally were music. This means that pieces composed between 750 and 400 BC were to be sung partially or in their totality, accompanied by the lyre, reed pipes, and some percussion instruments.

 

The oldest musical document discovered to date shows only a few bars from Orestes, probably written by Euripides himself in the 5^th century BC. How Euripides exactly fits modern analysis is hard to figure out, but it is known that with the words “I lament” and “I beseech,” he uses a falling, mournful cadence, while with the words “my heart leaps wildly,” the melody is rising. It is astonishing to learn that Athenian soldiers earned their meals while singing Euripides during their captivity in the quarries of Syracuse in 413 BC - a moving detail reported by Plutarch. From Homer, we know that the bards used a four-stringed lyre, the “phormix,” and we may assume that those strings were tuned to the four notes that survived in the later basic Greek scales. 

A thorough analysis has proved that rhythms, for instance, are preserved through the words themselves, based on the short or long syllables. The instruments are known from statues, paintings, and literary descriptions, by which a musician can amazingly find the timbre and range of pitches they produce. For instance, the letter A at the top of the scale is actually a fifth higher than the letter N halfway down the alphabet. Absolute pitch can then be figured out based on the vocal ranges required to sing the surviving tunes. 

Yet this music is very far from our Western conception and comes closer to the sounds produced in India or the Middle East. It seems, however, that instrumental practice from the ancient Greeks still survives in some specific areas of Sardinia and Turkey. More technical details can be found in the article “How did ancient Greek music sound?” by Armand D'Angour.

Another important story is about a chip of papyrus found in a forgotten corner of the Louvre’s basement in 2002. It turned out to be a partition of Medea by Carcinos the Younger (approximately 360 BC) that was mentioned by Aristotle in his Rhetorics, and in which the heroine, unlike in Euripides’ version, is innocent. So today, we can listen to the bewitching aria sung in a deep voice, as in antiquity, the role of women was held by men. Annie Bélis, a world-renowned specialist in ancient music, studied this papyrus and other bits and pieces; she now concentrates on performing both vocal and instrumental scores that have survived, creating an ensemble called Kérylos. All the music partitions are authentic. The already known chorus score from Euripides’ Orestes, and the Seikilos Song of the two Delphic Hymns to the Pythian Apollo, have been deciphered and reproduced in her musical works. Among them, there also is an excerpt from Aristophanes’ Birds (nothing to do with Hadjidakis’ interpretation), a paean by Mesomedes of Crete (favorite composer of Emperor Hadrian), a piece from Carcinos’ Medea mentioned above, and an anonymous paean to the stars to name just a few. 

 

Based on strict archaeological references, Annie Bélis uses carefully rebuilt lyres, kitharas, flutes, and percussion instruments. For instance, statues, mainly of Apollo playing the lyre, and remains of instruments gleaned from different archaeological locations. So far, she has performed with the Ensemble Kérylos in several countries, including Greece, at Delphi. More recently, a special concert in Paris was organized in the frame of the exhibition “Au Royaume d’Alexandre le Grand. La Macédoine Antique” in 2011. Sorry to have missed it. More details can be found on the Kérylos site.

Based on all the above information and interpretation, we can almost recreate Alexander the Great's music. Isn’t that wonderful?