Delphic Hymns and ancient Greek music

My first discovery of Greek musical annotations happened in 2012 when I saw the Seikilos column at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. This temporary exhibition held a copy of the Seikilos Epitaph from Copenhagen that showed ancient Greek music (see: Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph). It was presented as the oldest surviving example of musical composition in the world, dating back to between 200 BC and 100 AD. At that time, I learned that older Greek music inscriptions existed but only fragmentarily, as is the case for the Delphic Hymns. 

While the Seikilos Epitaph is the only complete song we have, the Delphic Hymns are simply the oldest surviving examples so far, dating from the 2^nd century BC. These Hymns were carved on the southern wall of the Treasury of the Athenians in Delphi. They contain hymns praising Apollo, his birth, his life, and his protection of Athens and Delphi, with music to be played on a shrill-sounding flute and a golden, sweet-sounding cithara. These hymns to Apollo were performed during the Pythian Games, a major venue for musical contests that originally focused on art and dance. 

The two inscriptions from the Treasury of the Athenians, now exhibited at the Museum of Delphi, belong to a series of about fifty similar hymns from ancient Greece. A study revealed that these songs of praise or triumph were composed for the Pythian Games of 128 BC, i.e., the ritual procession of the Athenians towards Delphi. Apollo is also hailed for his help in fighting the Galatians in 189 BC, as the Romans won the battle against these Celtic tribes in Asia Minor. 

Like the Seikilos inscriptions, the Delphic Hymns hold musical symbols for the instruments and other notations for the singing voice next to the lyrics. We owe the interpretation of these symbols to Alypius of Alexandria, a musicographer who lived in the 3^rd century AD. 

I followed the history of ancient Greek music and the reconstruction of ancient instruments, mainly the lyre/cithara and the flute, from 2016 onward, with several updates after Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task? We still find it difficult to accept that Homer's epics or the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides originally were sung partially or in their entirety.

The sounds produced by ancient instruments are a far cry from today’s music, even from what is considered classical music or medieval troubadours. Modern music is mostly loud, to be heard beyond the daily noises of traffic, airplanes, and too many people attending the open-air events with screaming amplifiers. It is hard to imagine a quiet, tranquil spot in nature where we could catch the sound of a faraway flute or a string instrument floating on the wind. The basic essence of musical notes no longer reaches us.

With new discoveries and future in-depth research, we may expect to learn more about the music played in antiquity that could have been familiar to Alexander. I hope.

[Pictures from the Delphi Archaeological Museum]

All you need to know about music in antiquity

The subject of music has been discussed previously in several blogs such as

Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph, and Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task?, and Another reconstruction of ancient Greek music, and The Seikilos Epitaph, continued.

 

ARTE TV has recently shown a documentary about music in antiquity, providing an excellent chronology and overview of how it was written and how it was deciphered.

 

Their “Echos de l’antiquité”, of which I insert the summary hereafter, can also be watched on their own site of ARTE, in different languages including English. It is available free of charge until 28 August 2021. After that date, it can be purchased as  a video or DVD.

A very informative summary is given by O2B Film, which I copied hereafter.

ECHOS DE L’ANTIQUITÉ

Réalisateur : Bernard Geore

Auteur : Bernard George

Producteur délégué : O2B Films

Diffuseurs : ARTE France • RTE

Année de diffusion : 2021 (en production)

Durée : 52 minutes

Récemment, un papyrus est découvert dans une réserve du musée du Louvre. Il s’agit d’un texte grec à peine lisible, surmonté de petits signes étranges.

L’enquête entreprise par l’archéo-musicologue Annie Bélis, révèle qu’il s’agit d’une très ancienne partition grecque et plus particulièrement d’une tragédie, une Médée. Une particularité grammaticale du texte permet d’en identifier le compositeur, Carcinos Le Jeune, un auteur cité par Aristote dans sa Rhétorique, où le philosophe et précepteur d’Alexandre le Grand cite quelques vers de cette tragédie.

En découvrant peu à peu la vie de Carcinos, dont le nom est gravé sur un mur du Parthénon, c’est tout un monde qui s’ouvre à nous : celui de musiciens grecs honorés comme des dieux et qui parcouraient la Méditerranée pour participer à des concours sur le modèle des Jeux Olympiques. 

Mais comment décrypter la musique de la Médée ? Un manuscrit médiéval, décrivant le système de notation musical antique grec, les Tables d’Alypius, va se révéler être une véritable « pierre de Rosette ». 

Mais pour entendre la Médée telle qu’elle a été entendue par les Grecs il y a 2400 ans, encore faut-il la jouer avec les instruments d’époque. Des cités grecques d’Anatolie à l’Égypte des Ptolémée, du site mythique de Delphes aux découvertes faites à Pompéi, nous irons sur tout le pourtour de la Méditerranée, là où les fouilles archéologiques nous ont livré quelques partitions antiques et quantité de vestiges d’instruments.

C’est lors d’un concert, donné dans le prestigieux théâtre antique d’Arles, que nous donnerons à entendre au public, avec la Médée de Carcinos rendue à la vie, un monde sonore que l’on croyait disparu à tout jamais : la musique de l’Antiquité grecque.

The accompanying Youtube film is sadly no longer available

https://www.o2bfilms.com/echos-de-lantiquite

 

Alexander in India, a musical intermezzo

A dear friend of mine recently shared this wonderful musical rendition created by Peter Pringle entitled Alexander in India - Surbahar & Kithara.

I am sharing this unique musical interpretation for two basic reasons. On the one hand, I find it quite amazing that Alexander is still remembered in India, although he hardly spent a full year in that country, which includes modern Pakistan as well. On the other hand, I am very much impressed by the reconstructed Greek lyre, Alexander’s favorite instrument. As far as I am concerned, this beautiful kithara reminds me of the lyre Apollo is holding in his arms at the Museum of Tripoli in Libya. This labeling, however, appears to be incorrect since the lyre counts “only” four strings, whereas the professional kithara counts seven strings. The instrument Apollo is holding seems to have even more than seven strings, or is it my imagination?

For further information, I copy hereafter the accompanying explanation about this piece of music and the instruments involved.

The surbahar belongs to the Veena Family of the classical instruments of India, and is comparable to the western cello in size and register. The one you see in the video was made for me about 50 years ago by the great Indian luthier, Kanai Lal of Calcutta.

The Greek “kithara” was built by master luthier, Anastasios Koumartzis, of LUTHIEROS MUSIC INSTRUMENTS, which is located in the Macedonian region of Northern Greece. This is the same area in which Alexander the Great was born. The kithara was the instrument of choice for professional musicians during the Golden Age of Greece which reached its height around 500 B.C.E.

In his military exploits, Alexander travelled east as far as the Indus River, which he reached in 326 B.C.E. By that time, he was far from home, his men were getting tired, and they were met by fierce opposition from the armies of the rulers whose territories they invaded. As a result, Alexander never penetrated into the Indian subcontinent, and died in Babylon in 323 B.C.E., on his way back home.

This composition is in the Indian scale (“thaat”) known as “bhairav” (flat 6th and flat 2nd). The surbahar was built to be tuned to an F#, so the kithara is tuned F# G B C C# D F F#.

In more than one way, India is the missing link in my earlier blogs about music and musical instruments in antiquity as I explored ancient music, starting with the Seikilos inscription (see: Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph and Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task?) and continued with Persia (see: What is Persian music like?) and Uzbekistan (see: A thought for Roxane, Alexander’s Bactrian wife).

Music truly is of all times and certainly unites peoples from around the globe! And I can’t help wondering what Alexander would have thought about all this. He must have liked most of it!

The Seikilos Epitaph, continued

The text and music of the Seikilos Epitaph were found on a column-shaped stone in Aydin, western Turkey, and date from 200 BC/100 AD. This column can now be admired at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.

It so happens that a copy of this artifact was created for the temporary exhibition Horses and their Riders, which was organized in 2012 at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. That’s where it caught my attention.

In my blog about this unique relic, Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph, I discussed these rare inscriptions and inserted a YouTube “re-edited” version of this song. This piece truly deserves our full attention, for it is the only complete music piece ever discovered.

The Seikilos Epitaph remains popular, and just recently, I was redirected to another YouTube version from 2014, where the music is played on a harp.

Other modern renditions of this music have been discussed at large in my blog, Reconstructing Ancient Greek music, an impossible task?

Another reconstruction of ancient Greek music

In one of my earlier posts on the subject, Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task? I spoke about Armand D’Angour, a musician and tutor in classics at Oxford University, who reminded us that the epics of Homer, the love poems of Sappho, and the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides 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.

At present, he and other scholars claim to be able to reconstruct and perform those ancient songs with 100% accuracy. Hereunder is a rendering by David Creese, a classicist from the University of Newcastle. This is an ancient Greek song composed by Seikilos (see: Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph) and performed on an eight-string zither-like instrument with movable bridges. 

 

  So, how about that for a lazy afternoon listening?

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?

Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph

During my recent visit to the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam for their exhibition about Horses and their Riders, I was quite surprised to see a piece of a column engraved with Greek letters and, in between the lines, some strange characters that were labeled as musical notes. I thought nothing was known about ancient Greek music, let alone their inscription in stone!

                             

From the explanatory label, I learned that this column, actually a copy of the original now in Copenhagen, was discovered in 1883 near Aydin in Turkey. It was called the Seikilos Epitaph, dating variously from 200 BC to 100 AD, making it the oldest surviving example of musical composition in the world. Well, how do you like that!

The stone had a life of its own after its discovery. It had been entrusted to the museum of Smyrna, as Izmir was called then, until the city was destroyed during the Graeco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and was lost. At some later time, it was found in a Turkish garden where it served as support for a flower pot. To make it fit his needs, the Turkish owner had ground down the bottom part, erasing the last line of the epitaph. Eventually, it made its way to the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.

The ancient Greek text on this tombstone reads "Εἰκὼν ἡ λίθος εἰμί.Τίθησί με Σείκιλος ἔνθα μνήμης ἀθανάτου σῆμα πολυχρόνιον" meaning “I am a tombstone, an image. Seikilos placed me here as an everlasting sign of deathless remembrance”.

I find it extremely exciting to read such a personal message enhanced with its own music. It seems that as early as the 4th or 3rd century BC, Greek professional composers and choir leaders had developed a musical system. Texts of theater plays, however, were often copied without music as the singers would learn the tunes by listening to them rather than reading the very notes. In any case, this means that this epitaph showing the lyrics together with the music is a very unique piece.

Ὅσον ζῇς, φαίνου,

While you live, shine,

μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ•

have no grief at all;

πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν,

life exists only for a short while,

τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.

and time demands its toll.

The last two words on the column read Σείκιλος Εὐτέρ[πῃ], Seikilos Euter[pei], which means “(from) Seikilos to Euterpe”, whereby Seikilos dedicated this song to Euterpe who was probably his wife. Amazingl,y the song has been “re-edited” and can now be heard on this YouTube video.

Digging a little further into this fascinating subject, I learn that older Greek music notations do exist (for instance, the Delphic Hymns), but all that remains are fragments. The Seikilos Epitaph is the only full song we have. However, some bits and pieces reached us on cuneiform tablets going back as far as 2,000 BC, and also extracts of Chinese court music from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), which is supposed to be the exact copy of the melodies performed during the preceding 16 centuries – yet none can be proved.

During the last exhibition on Alexander the Great in Paris, the Louvre organized an evening of ancient Greek music. Annie Bélis, a member of the French School in Athens, spent many years reconstructing ancient musical instruments and researching papyri and inscriptions for musical notation. I must admit I was rather sceptical at first, as the French like to show off, but there seems to be true value to her study.

This leaves me with an entirely new field to be investigated.