Ancient Greek Music and Contemporary Composition
March 29, 2001, Bandeen Hall, Bishop’s University
Andrew Paul MacDonald
PART I: Overview of Ancient Greek Music
Tonight I would like to talk about Ancient Greek music and how it has affected the music which I am now composing, over two thousand years later. The best way to introduce you to this ancient repertoire is by letting you hear some if it. I recommend the First Delphic Hymn to Apollo, written by Athenaeus in 127 BC and played on reproductions of the original instruments by De Organographia of the University of Oregon.
As you can hear, this music has a simple, folk-music quality about it, and the tuning reminds us of the traditional musics of the Middle East and eastern Europe. In fact, some of the characteristics of Ancient Greek music survived in medieval Byzantine music and continue in Greek folk music to this day. The quirkiness of the rhythm is due to its being set in the paeonic metre with its five-beat units. This irregular grouping contrasts significantly with the conventional symmetrical duple and triple groupings of so much Western music, but is quite commonly found in music of the Balkans.
The extant repertoire of Ancient Greek music includes over 60 compositions preserved in inscriptions and on papyri, and more pieces keep turning up as excavations continue in Greece, Italy and Turkey and as scholars review the papyri already in museums. Although many of the works are fragmentary, some important ones have turned up by such luminaries as Euripides. At the peak of his career in the late 5th century BC, Euripides, along with his colleague Timotheus, was considered an “avant garde” composer for the theatre. His plays were actually operas—entirely sung! He wrote mainly in the enharmonic genus which featured quarter-tones which sound out-of-tune and odd to our ears. Yet these micro-intervals are still vibrantly present in the folk and pop music of present day Greece and the Middle East. Open your ears and listen to Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis.
Scholars have known about Ancient Greek music for a long time from evidence of music making in the archaeological remains, ancient Greek literature and technical documents, and more recently from actual musical scores.
1. Archaeology and art
Regarding archaeology and art there are first of all the remains of actual instruments, the two most important being the lyre or kithara, and the aulos. There are also models of instruments for votive purposes, and statues, gemstones and reliefs of people playing instruments.
Best of all are the many black- and red-figure vase paintings from 6th and 5th-century BC Athens and 4th-century BC Italy which depict instruments and singers. These also inform us of playing techniques and of the social contexts for music making such as banquets, symposia (or drinking parties), weddings and funerals, daily labour, private music in the home, public recitals, theatre (opera, really), music competitions, and public worship of the gods.
The simple lyre, with origins dating far back to the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, had seven strings and a tortoise shell sound box, while its bigger cousin the kithara was like our concert grand piano—a rather large affair with many strings and played by virtuosi.
The other significant instrument was the aulos, a double-reed instrument like the modern-day oboe, which like the lyre, was known also in Minoan times and earlier. Played in a pair and called auloi, they were used regularly to accompany singers both in the theatre and in religious ceremonies.
The aulos can be followed by voice and kithara in performances of The Song of Seikilos, from the 1st century AD. The song text, inscribed on a funeral stele, says: “While you’re alive, shine, man, | Don’t be the least bit blue. | Life is but a short span; | Time demands its due.” (trans. M.L. West)
2. References to music-making in Greek literature:
There are many references to music-making throughout Greek literature from the 8th century BC onwards. Informative descriptions of social music-making can be found in the works of the epic and lyric poets, where for example in Book 8 of the Odyssey, the minstrel Demódocus is called upon to play his lyre and sing of the glorious deeds of men while the company listens after their feast (Od. 8.43-108). Homer, Hesiod and other bards may have accompanied their great epics with simple music to articulate the rhythm and phrasing, and of course, to delight their audiences. By the early 6th century, however, this convivial practice had expanded considerably—at the Great Panathenaea held every four years in Athens, relays of professional rhapsodes were singing the complete cycles of both the Iliad and the Odyssey .
Elegiac and Lyric poets of the 7th, 6th and 5th centuries BC, such as Alkman, Sappho and Stesichorus, were all accomplished composers who sang to their own accompaniment on the kithara, often at the symposium. Another was Pindar, famous in his day as a kitharode who made his living writing commissioned victory odes which he himself often performed.
Although we find many references to music in the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, it is in the comic plays of Aristophanes that we learn something about contemporary views on musical fashion. In the Frogs he sends Dionysius to the underworld where he ends up as judge in a contest between Euripides and Aeschylus, comparing their poetic and musical styles. Contemporary with Aristophanes, the conservative comic poet Pherecrátes goes as far as to refer to the avant-garde music of Timotheus as “perverted ant-crawlings”…with “exharmonic high-pitched blasphemous warbles” which filled him up “with wrigglings like a cabbage!” (Ps-Plutarch, On Music, 1142a)
There are many discussions of music in the great philosophical works of Plato and Aristotle. Both examine the nature of music and the social value of certain styles and scale-forms, as well as specific technical details. Later, Athenaeus of Naucratis, in his Deipnosophistai (or The Sophists’ Dinner) of c. 200 AD, discusses the classical supperparty and symposium and quotes many passages with musical references by authors whose works are otherwise lost. His contemporary compatriot, Pollux of Naucratis, wrote a useful dictionary, the Onomastikon, which although a little dry, does contain valuable information about musical forms such as the “Pythikos nomos”. Theophrastus, the Peripatetic scholar who suceeded Aristotle as head of the Lyceum, describes in his Historia Plantarum how aulos reeds are cut and where one can find the best ones—at Lake Copais in Boeotia, of course!
3. Specialist writing on music—technical aspects
Besides a number of clerical-type documents recording the hiring of musicians, the conferment of honours and prizes on virtuoso competition winners and the establishment of musical subjects in school curricula, we have a large number of specialist treatises on music which deal with technical aspects of the art.
Most important in this genre was the late 4th-century BC writer, Aristoxenus of Tarentum, a student of Aristotle who was respectfully known in ancient times as “the Musician”. Of the 453 books which he is said to have written, only three from The Elements of Harmonics and a fragment from The Elements of Rhythm are extant. He was a very influential writer—excerpts from these treatises and a number of his lost works, as well as expansions of his ideas, turn up in the books of later authors from the 2nd to the 5th century AD. Significant among these are:
– Cleonides, Introduction to Harmonics
– Gaudentius, Introduction to Harmonics
– Alypius, Introduction to Music
– Bacchius, Introduction to Music
and most notably, On Music by Aristides Quintilianus, a Neoplatonic work designed under the all-encompassing vision that music is the source of the divine order of things.
Contemporary with Aristoxenus was Euclid’s Sectio Canonis, in which he discusses musical intervals in terms of mathematics. Also written in the late 4th century were the Pseudo-Aristotelian Problems of the Peripatetic School, an anonymus collection of 900 scientific questions and answers with sections 11 and 19 devoted to acoustics and harmony respectively.
Besides the Aristoxenian-derived works of Cleonides, Gaudentius, Alypius, Bacchius and Aristides Quintilianus mentionned above, many other specialist books on music continued to circulate in antiquity. From the 2nd century AD we have Theon of Smyrna’s Explanation of Mathematical Matters for Readers of Plato, Nicomachus of Gerasa’s Harmonic Handbook, and the very significant Harmonics by Ptolemy. Another important book from the late 2nd century is On Music—attributed to Plutarch. It is a very significant source for the early history of Greek music, containing excerpts from lost books by Glaucus of Rhegium, Heraclides Ponticus and Aristoxenus. In the 3rd century Porphyry wrote his Commentary on Ptolemy’s “Harmonics” which also contains the late 4th century BC De Audibilibus of the Peripatetic School. Of the Latin writers, the 5th century Martianus Capella and 6th century Boethius included chapters on music as a branch of higher learning. Based on earlier writers such as Aristides and Cleonides, these Latin works served as a point of departure for medieval music theorists. In the 9th and 10th centuries Arab scholars such as Al-Farabi (c. 870-950) in his The Grand Book of Music adopted and disseminated Greek music theory. Our final ancient theoretical sources are Byzantine treatises by the 11th-century Michael Psellus and 14th-century Manuel Bryénnius.
4. Musical Scores:
The most noteworthy sources of evidence for Ancient Greek music are the scores themselves, preserved on inscriptions and papyri. From at least the 4th century BC to the 5th century AD a notation system was universally employed by professional Greek musicians, and in late Hellenistic times was even taught in Ionian high schools (West, 271-2). There were two parallel pitch notation systems in use, one for vocal pieces, and another for strictly instrumental works. The oral tradition of transmitting music was undoubtedly used extensively, but notation was sometimes added when the song text was displayed on an inscription, or in a papyrus, often just an excerpt instead of a whole piece, probably as a memory aid to performers, teachers or someone passing by the monument. Unfortunately, as people were familiar with the tunes and learned them by rote, we have many song and dramatic texts without the music!
The first examples of scores in the ancient notation (or parasimantiké) which came to light after the Middle Ages were four poems by the 2nd-century AD Cretan, Mesómedes, published in 1581 in Florence by Vincento Galilei. These were the only specimens of Ancient Greek music known until 1841, when some short instrumental pieces published by Friderico Bellermann joined the repertoire. Included in a set of Byzantine manuscripts now known as the Anonymous Bellermanni, these instrumental tunes and exercises are accompanied by a short theoretical tract based on Aristoxenus and Aristides Quintilianus.
Suddenly in the late 19th century more compositions were found.
– In 1883 “The Song of Seikilos”—a complete song inscribed on a funeral stele in the 1st century AD—was found near Tralleis in Asia Minor (or modern-day Turkey). This was the piece we heard earlier in a demostration of the aulos and kithara.
– In 1892 a few lines from the first stasimon (vs. 338 ff) of Euripides’ Orestes (composed c. 408 BC) were found on a Rainer papyrus of c. 200 BC. Although it is mutilated and very fragmentary, one can discern 33 notes in six lines of text.
– Then in 1893 the big discovery was made. During the excavations of Delphi in which the entire modern town was moved to a new site and the original sanctuary was uncovered, the French Archaeological team found two hymns to Apollo on the outer wall of the Treasury of Athens.
Inscribed in 127 BC during a pilgrimage of artists from Athens, these are comparatively extensive pieces (the “Beethoven Symphonies of Ancient Greek music”), one set in vocal, the other in instrumental notation. Although the stones are somewhat broken, the compositions are almost complete, and give us a good idea of what Hellenistic music sounded like. (This was the first piece we heard tonight.)
– Many more papyri have turned up in the 20th century, including another fragment by Euripides. In 1972, for example, sixteen lines with music notation (vs. 784-92) from Iphigenia in Aulis were discovered on a c. 250 BC papyrus at the University of Leiden—the oldest specimen yet!
5. Ancient Greek music notation
The notes of the basic “scale” or αρμονια were named according to the seven strings of the classical lyre in reference to the musician when he is holding the instrument. From low to high these were – Hypate (“topmost”– or closest to player), Parhypate (“alongside topmost”), Lichanos (“forefinger”), Mesé (“middle finger”), Trité (“third finger”), Paranété (“alongside bottom”) and Nété (“bottom”). The seven were divided into two conjunct tetrachords, dovetailing at the Mesé, that became known as the “Lesser Perfect System”.
Another note, the Paramesé, was added a whole tone above the Mesé to create a disjunct tetrachord known as the Diezeugmenai, or Bridged notes. By Aristoxenus’ time another conjunct tetrachord, known as the Hyperbolaiai (or Overthrown notes), was added above the Diezeugmenai to form the “Greater Perfect System”. Below the middle tetrachord, or Mesai, the tetrachord Hypatai (or Bottom Notes) was added, and below this the Proslambanomenos, “the note we take as an extra” to complete the all-encompassing note complex of the Lesser and Greater Perfect Systems. This became known as the Unmodulating System as the Greeks believed that moving back and forth between the two upper paths was not really modulating because one was still within the same system.
The tetrachord was the foundation of all Ancient Greek music and was built on the interval of a perfect fourth. Interestingly, the fourth also forms the basis of folk melody from many parts of the world. As intervals in Greek music were calculated by ratios in the Pythagorean tradition, the tetrachord’s perfect fourth was the ratio 4:3 in the harmonic series. The notes at either end of the tetrachord were known as “standing notes” and functioned as reference points for tuning, melodic return and modulation. The Mesé, for example, may have functioned as a tonal centre, for one Peripatetic writer said that, “all good melodies return to the Mesé”. It also served as a pitch reference as the other strings were tuned to it (Ps. Arist.) The other notes in the tetrachord were movable and changed position within the perfect fourth according to the genera.
There were three genera of tetrachord known as the diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic, terms which have no connection with their modern meanings. In the diatonic genus, the movable notes were placed a minor second and a minor third above the bottom standing notes, to create a tetrachord with a semitone followed by two whole tones. The movable notes in the chromatic and enharmonic genera were closely packed to the lower standing note in an area of the tetrachord known as the “pyknon”. In the chromatic genus, the interval succession was two semitones followed by a minor 3rd, while in the enharmonic it was two quarter-tones followed by a major 3rd.
Any of the three genera could be employed throughout the tetrachords of the Greater and Lesser Perfect Systems, and composers would move freely between the conjunct and disjunct tetrachords by means of common tones. By the time of Aristoxenus, the Unmodulating System was a template transposed into 13 different registers, each a semitone apart. By the time of Alypius, there were two more tonoi, or transpositions of this template, added above the original 13. Not to be confused with later meanings of the terms, these “modes” (or tonoi) were named Lydian, Aeolian, Phrygian, Iastian and Dorian. The five a perfect 4th above these were known as HyperLydian, HyperAeolian, etc., while the five a perfect 4th below were called HypoLydian, HypoAeolian, etc. Mode and genus in a score were defined by the notational symbols used. Although the notation did not differentiate between the chromatic and enharmonic genera, scholars generally agree that the late 5th century repertoire was enharmonic. The Hellenistic and later repertoire is placed in the diatonic and chromatic genera as the ancient writers tell us that the enharmonic genus had by then gone out of fashion. Note the position of the Mesé and Paramesé.
[show Picture #10: the Alypian table and Anon. Bell. note values and rests]
Alypius’ Eisagoge Musika or Introduction to Music from the 3rd century AD is the principal source of our knowledge of Ancient Greek music notation and scales. In it he gives the 15 neo-Aristoxenian tonoi, or modes, with their corresponding notational symbols or “σημεια”. Although the work was translated into Latin in the early 17th century, its value was not realized until the late 19th century when more scores started turning up, and in particular, scores composed centuries before and after Alypius’ time which used the same set of symbols. This tells us that this was a notational system widely accepted among Ancient Greek musicians for a long period of time (almost eight hundred years!) The choice of symbols was based on the Ionic alphabet which was officially adopted by the Athenians in 403 BC. In the music notation the letters appear normal, reversed and sideways along with newly-invented symbols. The pitch symbols were arranged in groups of three, related either by shape or in alphabetic sequence for mnemonic reasons. They were fixed in a range of just over three octaves to cover all 15 tonoi and the singing compass of male and female voices.
Most scores had no rhythmic signs as the rhythm was supplied through the poetic metre. Long and short syllables were given duration values where the long was twice the duration of the short. When the composer wanted to stray from this convention he could make use of certain rhythmic signs which indicated multiples of the short syllable beat (or monosemé) [see Anon. Bell. duration symbols on Pic #10]. Other symbols include the dot (or stigmé) which indicated the upbeat of the metre, the leimma (∆) which served as both a monosemé rest and as a tie, and a curved line which functioned exactly as our present-day slur does!
The original 1st-century AD funeral stele inscription of the Song of Seikilos gives the musical symbols placed above the song text.
PART II: My compositions inspired by Ancient Greek Music and Myth
Turning to the present, I would now like to talk about some of my compositions in light of the previous discussion. Although my works have been inspired by such varied sources as Canadian folk song, the poetry of Ralph Gustafson and bird songs, fully one-quarter of my sixty-odd works to date have some connection to ancient Greek culture. This interest of mine is not unique, however, as many others have been likewise caught by the classical “bug”. One need only recall the many early operas based on Greek mythology, such as Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Peri’s Dafne and Cacinni’s Eurydice in which a new style of singing, the ‘stile rappresentativo’, or recitative, was employed in an effort to emulate the style of the Ancient Greek tragedies. Interest in Greek mythology continued throughout the 17th century and well into the 18th. Gluck’s Orfeo and Eurydice provides a very famous example and more recent ones such as Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and his Elektra are heard in opera houses around the globe. In the 20th century Stravinsky’s oratorio Oedipus Rex along with his ballets Apollo and Orpheus are but a few of the many new works which attest to a lively interest in the Classical world.
Although my approach continues this tradition, I differ from my predecessors in synthesizing ancient compositional techniques with my own, quoting actual Ancient Greek melodies and developing them, and sometimes by choosing constellations as my subjects. Like Stravinsky’s Apollo, my Greek pieces are non-vocal, but unlike his ballets my works do not have a visual representation of the myth to guide the audience. Instead I try to capture the essence of the story by recreating certain scenes, doing musical character sketches or by focusing on a numerical feature on which I can build a complete musical structure.
I would like to introduce you to these works in the order in which I composed them, and play some examples. Please refer to the handout listing my Greek-inspired pieces.
1. In the Garden of Gaea, op. 23 (1991)
My first Greek-inspired composition was an orchestral piece commissioned by the Esprit Orchestra of Toronto. Written in 1991, it is a simple symphonic poem depicting the creation myth according to Hesiod. Laid out in several musical scenes, it begins with a young composer in a garden falling asleep to the sound of birds. He dreams of Gaea, the earth goddess, as she gives birth to life in all its multitudinous forms. Violence ensues as the sky god Uranus stuffs the Cyclopes and other monsters back into her. In revenge, Cronus castrates his father and tosses the organs into the swell of great Ocean, whereupon Aphrodite emerges from the waves and rises upward to the celestial clouds.
Besides portraying these mythological scenes, the piece is also of interest as it contains examples of birdsong which I transcribed, and a theme for Gaea on which I base all the themes of her offspring. Although I had not yet begun to synthesize Ancient Greek compositional techniques, I did give prominence to the oboe, the modern-day relative of the ancient aulos.
2. Eros, op. 35 (1994)
Eros, my next Greek piece, was commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for the Winnipeg New Music Festival. Written in 1994, this short character sketch of the ancient god of love is set in three contrasting sections, and again does not yet exemplify my use of Ancient Greek compositional techniques, although I did give prominence this time to the harp to simulate the sound of the kithara.
What is interesting about this piece is the build-up to the climax where the ever-present melodic semitone of the “sigh” motive finally finds gratification—
with all the bells and whistles going—in a brief quotation from the climax to Tchaikovsky’s overture, Romeo and Juliet!
3. Hymenaeus, op. 38 (1996)
The next three pieces to discuss were all written back-to-back in 1996 and are the first works in which I employ Ancient Greek compositional techniques. The first, Hymenaeus, was commissioned as a wedding gift for two musicians. Scored for violin and viola, it was premiered by the newlyweds!
Hymen was the god of weddings and the hymenaeus is a wedding song. My composition is in two parts: a slow processional (prosodos) followed by a lively dance (epithalamios) to accompany the revelries which would take place outside the closed door of the marriage chamber.
Here the Perfect 4th of the ancient tetrachord is the foundation interval for my construction of chords and melody. The opening chord in 5ths (as inverted fourths) establishes the harmonic framework, and motivic melodic 4ths at the beginning of the epithalamios. These uses of fourths as quartal harmony and motivic material is also a feature of much of my earlier, non-Greek music.
In the tetrachords I make frequent melodic use of both the diatonic and chromatic genera, as well as an instance of the enharmonic with its quarter-tone pyknons near the end. This is easy enough to do with string instruments, but of course impossible on a piano unless it is retuned. One may also find many examples of Greek poetic metres in Hymenaeus such as the short-long of the iambic and the 5-beat paeonic. There’s a section near the end with a melodic figure featuring quarter-tones—a figure which will recur in many of my subsequent pieces.
4. Pythikos nomos, op. 39 (1996)
Both Hymenaeus and the next piece, Pythikos nomos, differ from the preceding ones in that they both represent ancient musical forms, not just musical portrayals of mythological scenes or characters, and in the Pythikos nomos in particular, I make much use of ancient techniques. The Pythikos nomos (or “Law of the Python”) was a strict musical form which evolved from an ancient tradition by which the laws were sung by the people so that they could be easily memorized (Michaelides, 222). Later on compositions addressed to the gods were governed by laws which led to the establishment of certain formal constructions which were strictly adhered to. The Pythikos nomos was a compositional form honouring Apollo and was first heard at the great auletes’ competitions at the Pythian Games at Delphi in the early sixth century BC. The pioneer of this genre, Sakadas of Argos, won the prize at the first contest in 586 and set the standard for centuries to come as a piece in five movements. According to Pollux of Naucratis, in his Onomastikon, these five movements depict the battle between Apollo and the guardian of the Delphic oracle, the giant serpent Python, as follows:
“The aulos-type Pythikos nomos is divided into five parts: Peira, Katakeleusmos, Iambikon, Spondeion, and Katachoreusis. The nomos portrays the fight of Apollo against the dragon. In the Peira he surveys the field, to see if it is worthy of a contest. Then in the Katakeleusmos he calls out to the dragon and in the Iambikon they fight. And the Iambikon has both forceful trumpet-like notes, and the tooth technique which represents the dragon grinding its teeth after it has been shot with arrows. The Spondeion (or libations ceremony) shows the victory of the god, while in the Katachoreusis the god dances the “epinikia”, a dance upon the defeated one.”
My Pythikos nomos, scored for oboe and string quartet, was commissioned by oboist Lawrence Cherney. Because the aulos was made in different sizes, I chose to have the oboist also play two related instruments, the English horn and the oboe d’amore, in the 4th and 5th movements respectively. The piece exhibits a plethora of ancient techniques including tetrachords in all three genera (in normal position, and inverted), perfect 4ths for quartal harmony, and different types of Greek metre such as iambic (for the Iambikon or “tooth” movement), dactylic in the Peira, spondaic in the Spondeion, and anapaestic and paeonic for the Apollonian dance of victory. I even take advantage of oboe multiphonics and biting on the reed to achieve the groans of the dragon and the grinding of its teeth.
The opening the first movement, Peira, up until the oboe’s entry illustrates the P4th’s, the chromatic genus of the tetrachord, and the dactylic rhythms (long, short-short).
The climax of the third movement Iambikon illustrates musically the fight between the two protagonists. Note the special oboe multiphonics which were very likely what Pollux meant by the “tooth technique”. After being shot, the Python’s last breaths are realistically depicted by the oboist blowing air through his instrument.
In the fourth movement, Spondeion, I give the English horn an ancient, reduced form of the tetrachord in simple spondees (long-long) in an attempt to evoke the solemn atmosphere of a temple during the ceremonial ritual. The ancient Greeks played a melody called the spondeion in front of the altar at libations to honour a god, as well as at the signing of treaties.
In the finale, Katachoreusis, I make my first quotation of ancient Greek music—suitably, the opening of the First Delphic Hymn in praise of Apollo— and give it to the oboe d’amore. I first examined the original inscription at the Delphi Museum in 1995 and then again in greater detail in 1999—each time I hear this piece I uncover new beauties.
5. Free Flight, op.40
In the interest of time, I will now deal superficially with my next three Greek pieces. Free Flight, my cello concerto from 1996, was commissioned by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra for British cellist Alexander Baillie. Based on the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, the first two movements are character sketches of the father and son respectively, while the finale, “Events in Rarefied Air”, depicts Icarus’s lofty ascent and the tragic results which followed. As with other works of this time, one will find an abundant use of the tetrachord scale fragment with its pyknon emphasizing small chromatic and quarter-tone collections, as well as iambic, dactylic and paeonic metres. I have done an arrangement for cello and piano of the second movement, “Icarus”, which gets programmed regularly on recitals.
6. The Great Square of Pegasus, op. 42
The Great Square of Pegasus was commissioned by the Société Radio-Canada for the 1997 CBC/SRC Young Performers Competition. In fact, they wanted four arrangements of the piece, one each for violin, viola, cello and double bass. This is the first of my works in which I combine Greek myth, Ancient Greek compositional techniques and amateur astronomy. My many late-night stargazing sessions that summer burned in my memory the constellation Pegasus, the most prominent part of which is the “Great Square” with its four bright stars easily perceived as corners. For my composition, each instrument’s piece takes the name of one of the stars of this square: “Markab” for violin, “Algenib” for viola, “Alpheratz” for cello and “Scheat” for double bass.
Each version takes us on a ride through the Pegasus myth, but each somewhat differently for these are not really arrangements, but rather a set of variations that can be performed consecutively. There’s another special relationship among these pieces which was an added challenge I imposed upon myself—for composing is also an exercise in problem-solving! Although these “stars” are separate entities in the night sky, they also mean something to us as a group. Hence I decided at the outset to compose all four solos so that they could be played together as a quartet (albeit a busy one!), with the obvious inclusion of a few rests in the parts. Gestures and motives heard individually in the solos take on new meaning in the quartet version with such things as close imitations moving through the points of the “square” and special harmonic and textural effects which lend added dimensionality.
7. The Winds of Thera, op. 44
In 1997 I also composed The Winds of Thera for accordion and string quartet. This work was commissioned by Toronto accordion virtuoso, Joseph Petric, and will be premiered at the Strings of the Future festival in Ottawa on May 24. Again there are Ancient Greek compositional techniques and mythology—but this time based on primitive Greek wind instruments. In one of his calmer moods, the mythical Triton once gave the Argonauts a clump of earth which when dropped into the sea grew into the island of Thera, now known as Santorini. In this work I try to evoke the music of the wind as it inspired me when I last visited Santorini in 1995. Stimulated by the wonderful sounds of the accordion, I composed three wind-inspired movements, “Rhombus”, “Iynx” and “The Conch of Triton”, each of which has an associated myth.
8. Pleiades Variations, op. 45 (1998)
1998 saw the creation of six new major compositions, all inspired by ancient Greek culture. Pleiades Variations, for flute, viola and harp, was commissioned by the Trio Lyra, and is a piece formally designed according to the seven stars of the Pleiades. Known to the ancients as the “Seven Sisters”, the Pleiades is a tiny constellation (or a “fuzzy” to some!) prominent in the winter skies of the northern hemisphere. The formal design of the Pleiades Variations is demarcated by seven sections, each of which is a variation on a simple seven-note theme of ascending fourths, the foundation of the tetrachord. The treatment of the theme is organic, with the material taking on the qualities needed for the mood of each section. Each variation is composed according to Greek folklore surrounding the Pleiades—character sketches and associated myths.
In this variation, “Orion in Pursuit”, notice the use of quarter-tones from the enharmonic genus in the flute and viola, and the harp’s “thunder gliss'” as Orion stomps across the sky in pursuit of the Pleiades sisters.
9. Triangulum: Concerto Grosso No.1
I named my first concerto grosso Triangulum after the triangle-shaped constellation of the same name. Written for the string orchestra I Musici de Montréal on a commission from the Orford Arts Centre, it represents an obsession with the number three: three movements; a three-note primary motive; soloists playing as a trio. Whereas a concerto grosso typically has a set group of soloists as a concertino pitted against the larger group of players, or ripieno, my composition features an ever-changing trio of soloists drawn from the whole ensemble. At each solo trio statement there is always a different triangular formation which we can hear spatially and timbrally, and notice visually.
There are several myths surrounding this perfect triangle of stars, according to Eratosthenes’ compilation of myths explaining the constellations, and the movements of this composition are each based on one.
Here is the middle movement, “Hymn to the Deltaic God”, a simple song of praise to the once omnipotent Zeus. Eratosphenes tells us that the constellation Triangulum was arranged as a delta shape to honour Zeus, as delta is the first letter of the genitive form of his name (Διος). Notice in this movement the use of the perfect fourth and quarter-tones—first in solo, duet and trio lines, then as grandiose minor triads moving in parallel quarter-tones at the climax of the movement. All this in the style of a Baroque concerto grosso!
10. The Eleusinian Mysteries, op. 47;
11. Hermes of the Stars: Concerto Grosso No.2, op. 48;
12. Nausikáa, op.49;
13. String Quartet No. 3, “The Delphinian”, op. 50;
14. The Dream of Amphíon, op. 53;
15. Through the Asklepion, op.54
Of my subsequent works which were Greek-inspired, some elaborate earlier ideas while others show new approaches, each now thoroughly saturated with Ancient compositional techniques. In The Eleusinian Mysteries I explore the myth behind one of the most important religious rituals of antiquity in a concerto for harp and gamelan orchestra, where the soloist functions as the mystic Hierophant, or high priestess, spinning an intricate web of sound as she reveals the essence of these secrets. Hermes of the Stars is my second concerto grosso for string orchestra and features a spondeion for the second movement.
Nausikáa is a fantasy for violin in which the soloist explores a scene from the Odyssey (Book VI). My third string quartet is named after the constellation Delphinus, or “The Dolphin” and features an extensive opening section entirely in natural harmonics as a musical picture of the starry heavens. We skip over 1999 to the year 2000 when I composed The Dream of Amphíon for solo piano. This piece was just performed 15 times in November by soloists from around the world at the Esther Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary. Based on the myth of the great musician Amphíon, the climax of this work is a mammoth improvisation on earlier motives in the piece—just the kind of requirement made of the competitors at the ancient Pythian Games!
Finally there is Through the Asklepion, for violin, cello and piano, written in 2000 for the Gryphon Trio. Inspired by visits to the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidavros in Greece where I lived for three and-a-half months in 1999, the work’s four movements are musical impressions of the remains of the site’s ancient structures. The main subject matter in the final Allegro is again a piece of ancient Greek music, a fragment of a hymn to Asklepios inscribed in the third century AD (but probably much older), found near the temple. This time it’s not just a quotation, but an integral motivic entity which undergoes considerable development. In addition to this, snake-like quarter-tone intervals and ancient Greek tetrachords and rhythms lend an exotic quality to the work as I conflate the ancient with the new, evoking the mystical spirit of that old place.
And what’s next? I’m currently finishing a large piece for violin and piano, and I have two big commissions coming up: one a string quartet for the Alcan Quartet, and another—a full-length symphony for the Calgary Philharmonic. Who knows what path they may take. May the gods inspire me! Thank you.
F I N I S
Select Bibliography for studies in ancient Greek music:
• Barker, Andrew, ed., Greek Musical Writings, 2 volumes, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• Bélis, Annie, Les Hymnes à Apollon, Tome III de Corpus des Inscriptions de Delphes, École Française d’Athènes, Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1992.
• Comotti, Giovanni, Music in Greek and Roman Culture, Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
• Michaelides, Solon, The Music of Ancient Greece, London: Faber, 1978.
• Pöhlmann, Egert, Denkmäler Altgriechischer Musik, Nürnberg: H. Carl, 1970.
• Scott, William C., Musical design in Sophoclean theater, Hanover: Dartmouth College : University Press of New England, 1996.
• West, M. L., Ancient Greek Music, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
• Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Mode in Ancient Greek Music, Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1968.
Select Discography for ancient Greek music:
• “Music of the Ancient Greeks”, featuring the ensemble De Organographia, Pandourion CD1001, Pandourion Records, 1995
Listen to some of the MacDonald works discussed in this article:
MacDonald, Hymenaeus, op. 38
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQt2Lrr52hk
MacDonald, Pythikos nomos, op. 39
I. Peira, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR30WAaCHOQ
II. Katakeleusmos, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfxILnmm1AI&t=0s
III. Iambikon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27bifeQe2IE&t=0s
IV. Spondeion, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geIjXurUC5o
V. Katachoreusis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0POJVD1pqzc
MacDonald, The Great Square of Pegasus, op. 42
“Markab” for solo violin, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw07MgyAVoM
MacDonald, The Winds of Thera, op. 44
I. Rhombus, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UssbozrXMfg
MacDonald, Pleiades Variations, op. 45
I. Heliacal Rising – II. To the Ships, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFeU41fIPME
MacDonald, The Eleusinian Mysteries, op. 47
I. Rites of Purification https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBu6K318Lqg