§ 35. Evidence for Scales of different species.

The object of the foregoing discussion has been to show, in the first place, that there was no such distinction in ancient Greek music as that which scholars have drawn between Modes (harmoniai) and Keys (tonoi or tropoi): and, in the second place, that the musical scales denoted by these terms were primarily distinguished by difference of pitch,—that in fact they were so many keys of the standard scale known in its final form as the Perfect System. The evidence now brought forward in support of these two propositions is surely as complete as that which has been allowed to determine any question of ancient learning.

It does not, however, follow that the Greeks knew of no musical forms analogous to our Major and Minor modes, or to the mediaeval Tones. On the contrary, the course of the discussion has led us to recognise distinctions of this kind in more than one instance. The doctrine against which the argument has been mainly directed is not that ancient scales were of more than one species or 'mode' (as it is now called), but that difference of species was the basis of the ancient Greek Modes. This will become clear if we bring together all the indications which we have observed of scales differing from each other in species, that is, in the order of the intervals in the octave. In doing so it will be especially important to be guided by the principle which we laid down at the outset, of arranging our materials according to chronology, and judging of each piece of evidence strictly with reference to the period to which it belongs. It is only thus that we can hope to gain a conception of Greek music as the living and changing thing that we know it must have been.

1. The principal scale of Greek music is undoubtedly of the Hypo-dorian or common species. This is sufficiently proved by the facts (1) that two octaves of this species (a-a) constitute the scale known as the Greater Perfect System, and (2) that the central a of this system, called the Mesê, is said to have been the key-note, or at least to have had the kind of importance in the scale which we connect with the key-note (Arist. Probl. xix. 20). This mode, it is obvious, is based on the scale which is the descending scale of the modern Minor mode. It may therefore be identified with the Minor, except that it does not admit the leading note.

It should be observed that this mode is to be recognised not merely in the Perfect System but equally in the primitive octave, of the form e-e, out of which the Perfect System grew. The important point is the tonic character of the Mesê (a), and this, as it happens, rests upon the testimony of an author who knows the primitive octave only. The fact that that octave is of the so-called Dorian species does not alter the mode (as we are now using that term), but only the compass of the notes employed.

The Hypo-dorian octave is seen in two of the scales of the cithara given by Ptolemy (p. 85), viz. those called tritai and tropoi, and the Dorian octave (e-e) in two scales, parupatai and ludia. It is very possible (as was observed in commenting on them) that the two latter scales were in the key of a, and therefore Hypo-dorian in respect of mode. The Hypo-dorian mode is also exemplified by three at least of the instrumental passages given by the Anonymus (supra, p. 89).

2. The earliest trace of a difference of species appears to be found in the passage on the subject of the Mixo-lydian mode quoted above (p. 24) from Plutarch's Dialogue on Music. In that mode, according to Plutarch, it was discovered by a certain Lamprocles of Athens that the Disjunctive Tone was the highest interval, that is to say, that the octave in reality consisted of two conjunct tetrachords and a tone:

Disjunctive Tone
[Listen]

As the note which is the meeting-point of the two tetrachords is doubtless the key-note, we shall not be wrong in making it the Mesê, and thus finding the octave in question in the Perfect System and in the oldest part of it, viz. the tetrachords Mesôn and Synêmmenôn, with the Nêtê Diezeugmenôn. How then did this octave come to be recognised by Lamprocles as distinctively Mixo-lydian? We cannot tell with certainty, because we do not know what the Mixo-lydian scale was before his treatment of it. Probably, however, the answer is to be sought in the relation in respect of pitch between the Dorian and Mixo-lydian keys. These, as we have seen (p. 23), were the keys chiefly employed in tragedy, and the Mixo-lydian was a Fourth higher than the other. Now when a scale consisting of white notes is transposed to a key a Fourth higher, it becomes a scale with one ♭. In ancient language, the tetrachord Synêmmenôn (a-b♭-c-d) takes the place of the tetrachord Diezeugmenôn. In some such way as this the octave of this form may have come to be associated in a special way with the use of the Mixo-lydian key.

However this may be, the change from the tetrachord Diezeugmenôn to the tetrachord Synêmmenôn, or the reverse, is a change of mode in the modern sense, for it is what the ancients classified as a change of System (metabolê kata systêma) [44]. Nor is it hard to determine the two 'modes' concerned, if we may trust to the authority of the Aristotelian Problems (l. c.) and regard the Mesê as always the key-note. For if a is kept as the key-note, the octave a-a with one ♭ is the so-called Dorian (e-e on the white notes). In this way we arrive at the somewhat confusing result that the ancient Dorian species (e-e but with a as key-note) yields the Hypo-dorian or modern Minor mode: while the Dorian mode of modern scientific theory [45] has its ancient prototype in the Mixo-lydian species, viz. the octave first brought to light by Lamprocles. The difficulty of course arises from the species of the Octave being classified according to their compass, without reference to the tonic character of the Mesê.

The Dorian mode is amply represented in the extant remains of Greek music. It is the mode of the two compositions of Dionysius, the Hymn to Calliope and the Hymn to Apollo (p. 88), perhaps also of Mr. Ramsay's musical inscription (p. 90). It would have been satisfactory if we could have found it in the much more important fragment of the Orestes. Such indications as that fragment presents seem to me to point to the Dorian mode (Mixo-lydian of Lamprocles).

3. The scales of the cithara furnish one example of the Phrygian species (d-d), and one of the Hypo-phrygian (g-g): but we have no means of determining which note of the scale is to be treated as the key-note.

In the Hymn to Nemesis, however, in spite of the incomplete form in which it has reached us, there is a sufficiently clear example of the Hypo-phrygian mode. It has been suggested as possible that the melody of Mr. Ramsay's inscription is also Hypo-phrygian, and if so the evidence for the mode would be carried back to the first century.

The Hypo-phrygian is the nearest approach made by any specimen of Greek music to the modern Major mode,—the Lydian or c-species not being found even among the scales of the cithara as given by Ptolemy. It is therefore of peculiar interest for musical history, and we look with eagerness for any indication which would allow us to connect it with the classical period of Greek art. One or two sayings of Aristotle have been thought to bear upon this issue.

The most interesting is a passage in the Politics (iv. 3, cp. p. 13), where Aristotle is speaking of the multiplicity of forms of government, and showing how a great number of varieties may nevertheless be brought under a few classes or types. He illustrates the point from the musical Modes, observing that all constitutions may be regarded as either oligarchical (government by a minority) or democratical (government by the majority), just as in the opinion of some musicians (hôs phasi tines) all modes are essentially either Dorian or Phrygian. What, then, is the basis of this grouping of certain modes together as Dorian, while the rest are Phrygian in character? According to Westphal it is a form of the opposition between the true Hellenic music, represented by Dorian, and the foreign music, the Phrygian and Lydian, with their varieties. Moreover, it is in his view virtually the same distinction as that which obtains in modern music between the Minor and the Major scales [46]. This account of the matter, however, is not supported by the context of the passage. Aristotle draws out the comparison between forms of government and musical modes in such a way as to make it plain that in the case of the modes the distinction was one of pitch (tas suntonôteras ... tas d' aneimenas kai malakas). The Dorian was the best, because the highest, of the lower keys,—the others being Hypo-dorian (in the earlier sense, immediately below Dorian), and Hypo-phrygian—while Phrygian was the first of the higher series which took in Lydian and Mixo-lydian. The division would be aided, or may even have been suggested, by the circumstance that it nearly coincided with the favourite contrast of Hellenic and 'barbarous' modes [47]. There is another passage, however, which can hardly be reconciled with a classification according to pitch alone. In the chapters dealing with the ethical character of music Aristotle dwells (as will be remembered) upon the exciting and orgiastic character of the Phrygian mode, and notices its especial fitness for the dithyramb. This fitness or affinity, he says, was so marked that a poet who tried to compose a dithyramb in another mode found himself passing unawares into the Phrygian (Pol. viii. 7). It is natural to understand this of the use of certain sequences of intervals, or of cadences, such as are characteristic of a 'mode' in the modern sense of the word, rather than of a change of key. If this is so we may venture the further hypothesis that the Phrygian music, in some at least of its forms, was distinguished not only by pitch, but also by the more or less conscious use of scales which differed in type from the scale of the Greek standard system.

It may be urged that this hypothesis is inconsistent with our interpretation of the passage of the Problems about the tonic character of the Mesê. If a is key-note, it was argued, the mode is that of the a-species (Hypo-dorian, our Minor), or at most—by admitting the tetrachord Synêmmenôn—it includes the e-species (Dorian of Helmholtz). The answer may be that the statement of the Problems is not of this absolute kind. It is not the statement of a technical writer, laying down definite rules, but is a general observation, or at best a canon of taste. We are not told how the predominance of the Mesê is shown in the form of the melody. Moreover this predominance is not said to be exercised in music generally, but in all good music (panta gar ta chrêsta melê pollakis tê mesê chrêtai). This may mean either that tonality in Greek music was of an imperfect kind, a question of style and taste rather than of fixed rule, or that they occasionally employed modes of a less approved stamp, unrecognised in the earlier musical theory.