| The musical history of the Greeks may be divided | | | | simplest way of making clear the musical aspect |
| into two great periods, the historical, and the | | | | of the Greek drama would be to say that a |
| mythological. The mythological period covers the | | | | Greek play was like an opera of which the |
| entire range of traditions and legends, up to the | | | | composer wrote the libretto and the librettist |
| time of the Olympiads, the date of the first | | | | wrote the music. |
| Olympiad being 776 B.C. From 776 B.C. to 161 A.D. | | | | Sometimes the Greek dramatist, as in the case |
| is the historical period. | | | | of GEschylus, composed the music to his own |
| To the mythological period belong the stories of | | | | tragedies. Sophocles also accompanied the |
| Eurydice and Orpheus. Perhaps the noblest and | | | | performance of one of his plays upon the cithara |
| most beautiful of all the fairy tales of art, the | | | | (an instrument of the harp kind). |
| building of Thebes and Cadmea by Amphion, who | | | | Other than fragments of musical work, which it |
| by his playing supposedly caused the stones and | | | | would be difficult to absolutely accept as |
| rocks to move spontaneously. The contest | | | | authentic, there are no musical compositions of |
| between the myth of the Sirens, Apollo and | | | | the ancient Greeks now known to be in existence. |
| Marsyas, and numberless other stories and | | | | There has been preserved, however, a |
| traditions with which the Hellenic mind loved to | | | | considerable amount of Greek literature about |
| surround, as with many garlands, the art of music. | | | | music, including the theoretical writings of |
| The poet Homer, provides us with a link between | | | | Aristoxenus (B.C. 300), Euclid (B.C. 277), |
| the traditional and historical periods, and in the | | | | Nicho-machus (A.D. 60), Alypius (A.D. 115), |
| "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" are to be found both | | | | Bacchius (A.D. 140), Aristides Quintilianus (A.D. no), |
| legend and exact information. | | | | and others. |
| Coming to the historical period proper of Greek | | | | Of these Aristoxenus wrote upon the Elements |
| music, we cannot fail to be impressed with the | | | | of Harmonics, Euclid wrote an Introduction, to |
| broadly moral significance which music possessed | | | | Harmonics, Nichomachus an Introduction to |
| for the Greeks. Among the Assyrians, it is to be | | | | Harmony, Alypius a work on musical notation, |
| imagined, music was more or less emotional in | | | | Bacchius, supposed to have been tutor to the |
| character. Among the Egyptians, it apparently | | | | Emperor Antoninus, was the author of a short |
| shared of the nature of an occult philosophy. | | | | Introduction to Music, in dialogue form. Aristides |
| Among the Israelites, music was primarily an act | | | | Quintilianus wrote a treatise, "De Musica," in three |
| of worship; and it is, therefore, to the Greeks | | | | books. |
| that the credit of being the first to recognise that | | | | These writers, and others, have perpetuated the |
| music was highly valuable as an educational | | | | theoretical systems of the Greeks. Although they |
| resource. | | | | give us little or no hint of the practical application |
| Although not yet an independent art, music | | | | of the same, and it is upon their works that the |
| probably gained very nearly as much as it lost in | | | | earliest theorists of Europe based their further |
| this respect, by being made an essential part of | | | | efforts towards the construction of a musical |
| the literary and dramatic genius of Greece. Thus, | | | | system at once logical, scientific, and capable of |
| the Greek play resembled more an opera than a | | | | allowing the emotional side of man's musical |
| play, however, with the music strictly subdued in | | | | nature, free play. |
| favour of more dramatic interest. Perhaps the | | | | |