GREEK MUSIC. 



The " Codex Ejilirerii,'' in the king's library at Paris, of 

 the fifth century, has likewife the fame kind of mufical 

 notes, and it is affigned as a reafon for the " Codex Alexan- 

 drinns'' not having them, that it was written for private ufc, 

 not for the feiviceof the church. 



Kircher undertakes to give his reader an idea of modern 

 Greek mufic and its characters ; and has indeed coUefted a 

 great number of notes and their names, but pretends not to 

 furnifh equivalents in the mulic of the weftern world. And to 

 infert fuch barbarous names, and more barbarous charafters 

 here without explanation, would no more help to initiate a 

 ftudent in the myfteries of Greek mufic, than the He- 

 brew or Chinefe alphabet. At the firft glance they very 

 m.uch refemble the chara.^ers ufed in Choregraphy, an art 

 invented about two hundred years ago to delineate the 

 fiii-ures and Heps of dances. They are too numerous and 

 complicated to be inferted and explained here; however, 

 we have given the names and correfpondent notes in the Hif- 

 tory of Mufic, vol. ii. p. 51—52, by the ftudy of which the 

 mufical reader will be able to form fome idea of the melody 

 which they are intended to exprefs. 



There are eight afcending, and fix defcending charafters, 

 fome for fingle founds, and others for wider intervals, as 

 thirds and fifths, fuch as Zarlino, in the paffage mentioned 

 above, had imagined were invented by J. Damaicenus ; and 

 all thefe have their particular Chironom'ia, or figns tor the 

 geftures with which the prieft is to accompany the inflexions 

 of voice. 



The beginning, or firft note of every chant, is called Ifoii, 

 which is equivalent to the key or tone in which any melody is 

 fung. 



Kircher, to whom even Egyptian hieroglypbies are eafy, 

 has refolved the names of thefe Greek notes into Latin. 

 Mufurgia, ubi fupra. 



The abate Martini heard the Greeks, in Paffion Week, 

 fing feveral tropes or modes, which they now term nx''^i '" 

 four parts, in the llyle of Paleftrina : and tins kind of mulic 

 they call Cretan, but why, is not eafy to divine, unlefs they 

 learned counterpoint while the Venetians were matters of the 

 ifland. 



The abate fays that he often heard the common people of 

 Greece fing in concert, and obferved that they made frequent 

 ufe of the fourth : " della confonanza che noi chiamiamo 

 oggi quarta.'' By this he muft mean that they ufed it as a 

 concord in two parts, or if there were more than two parts, 

 in pofitions where our harmony forbids the ufe of it ; other- 

 wife it would not have affcQed his ear as a fingidarity. 



The fail is curious, and we find it confirmed by Zarlino, 

 who obferved the fame praflice in the Greek church at 

 Venice. The fourth, we find, was in fuch favour during 

 the time of Guido, as to be preferred in difcant to every 

 other concord, and thought to conftitufe the moft pleafiniT 

 harmony.. This partiality may probably have arifen from 

 the importance of fourths in the ancient Greek fyftem, and 

 the want of a temperament to render thirds and iixths more 

 agreeable ; but the improvements in harmony foon brought it 

 into difgrace in Ita'y, while, from a contrary caufe, it has 

 kept its ground to the prefent time in Greece, at leaft among 

 the populace. And, indeed, even in Italy, it feenis to have 

 retained a jiart of its ancient privileges long after the time of 

 Guido, and when harmony was thought to be in great per- 

 feftiou : for Zarlino fays, that Jufquin, and the other old 

 Flemidi matters, ufed it frequently in their compofitions : 

 *' nella parte grave, fenza aggungcrle altro intervallo.'' 



The prefent ilate of Greek mufic, indeed, does not con- 

 firm or favour the opinion of Dr. Brown, who afi'erts with 



his ufual courage, that, '• about four himdred years after 

 Guido, the debauched art once more paflfed over into Italy 

 from Greece : certain Greeks, who efcaped from the taking 

 of Conttantinople, brought a refined and enervate fpecies of mu- 

 fic to Rome, &c.'' As many travellers afiert that the modem 

 Greeks have no mufic in parts, we may fuppofe, that in 

 thofe places where it was heard by the abate Martini, it had 

 been brought thither by the Venetians, during the time that 

 they had pofieffions in the Archipelago. 



That the Greek mufic has undergone many alterations 

 fince the ancient treatifes that are come down to us were 

 written, is certain from the change and increafe of its voca- 

 bulary. Bryennius has given, as names of intervals, a li(t 

 of barbarous terms not to be found in any preceding writer 

 within our knowledge ; and in the Greek gloflary of Du 

 Cange, and the abate Martini's papers, a great number oc- 

 cur that are not to be found either in writers of high antiqui- 

 ty, or in Bryennius. 



The technical language of the Greeks has always been 

 copious, and in mufic perhaps its feeming redundance is more 

 confpicuous than in any other art or icience. But in other 

 arts and fciences words are reprefcntatives of things exiiling ; 

 whereas, in denominating the tones and inflexions of voice, 

 which, to re?,lize, require new creation, there can be no 

 correfpondence between the type and fubftance. The co- 

 lours, the form.s, and obiefts, which a painter wiflies to re- 

 prefent, are in nature ; and tlie poet, in all the ebullition of 

 wild enthufiafm and fervid imagination, defcribes what he has 

 feen and felt, or what is to be ieen and felt, and for which 

 common language mutt fupply him with lymbols. But it has 

 never entered the thoughts of man to give nan';es to all the 

 minute fliades of colour between black and white, or to the 

 gradations by which light is propagated between the time 

 of total darknefs and the fun's meridian. And yet, in a 

 fcale of founds, from the loweft mufical note in the human 

 voice to the highett, where octaves are not reprefented by 

 fimilar figns and appellatives, the names and charafters muil 

 be numerous. Tlie lines and clefs of the European mufic 

 have certainly freed it from many perplexities with which it 

 was embarralfed, even in the artlefs times of canto fermo. 



But however flowery the Greeks may have made their ec- 

 clefiaftical melody, or however they have multiplied its cha- 

 ratlers, the defire of permanence in the heads of tlie weftern 

 church, with refpeft to all facred matters, long kept mufic 

 in the plain and iimple ftate in which it vvas left by pope 

 Gregory the Great ; for we do not find, till the invention of 

 counterpoint, that it received any matei-ial change or- in!- 

 provement. Our own bible and liturgy, if they remain ir: 

 their prefent ftate five or fix hundred years, will, perhaps. 

 be unintelligible to the vulgar, though written in the bell 

 language of this country when they were introduced intt) 

 the church. And the Greek and Roman languages, which 

 were fo well underftood by the primitive Chrittians, becarT>. 

 dead and obfoletc by degrees, to all but the learned in after 

 ages. Tiie preclufion of change or innovation in facred 

 concerns which has occafioned permanence, has likewife been 

 the caufe of inelegance and oblcurity. 



" Peter the Great, like his predeceflors, had a particuLir 

 partiality for the mufic of the church ; maintained his own 

 choir, or fingers for divine fervice, and read publicly in t! - 

 church the epittlcs and the hours, which, in that country, u. 

 permitted to be done by any layman, who delights in fuch 

 oxercife, as well as bj the prieils." (King's Rites of the 

 Greek Church.) 



Many of the kings of France not only fung in the 

 choir, but compofed hymns for it, and fet them to mufic- 



(Laborde. ) 



