This is so interesting. I watched the short film through, but I am still wondering about how the pitch for each letter of the notation was determined. Were the pitches of the melody determined based on the available pitches from the reconstructed aulos? Or were they based on other musical information from ancient Greece, such as Pythagoras' measurements of vibrating strings? It is probably a very complicated answer, but as a musician trained to tune my violin from the absolute pitch of an A vibrating at 440Hz, I am interested in how absolute pitch from ancient notation is reconstructed.
Great question. The answer is that without Herz frequencies there is no ready determination of absolute pitch, and well into the 19th century there was in practice some variation (up to 3 semitones or more) in the pitch of A. Baroque organ pipes show wide variation in pitch.
The ancients pitched Alpha (the Greek keynote) within a range of perhaps up to a third, and will have settled on a pitch depending on available resources, range of voices etc; as you say, existing ancient pipes give some indication of the general register - and are remarkably uniform. Those, together with calculations of the likely sung range used in existing compositions (taking the spread of lowest to highest notes indicated on scores), give a very consistent guide to where that A was pitched.
The Greeks assumed a fixed central note (like our 'middle C') and the notation reflects that. Thereafter the notation indicates notes at predetermined intervals, about which ancient texts tell us in detail. Aristoxenus (4th cent BC) laid out scale systems (modes,as reported by a later author) that represent the intervals to which lyre strings were tuned. Ptolemy (1st cent BC) constructed an instrument ('canon') with strings stretched across moveable bridges, and he tuned each string, recording the precise proportions in each case - so we can reconstruct up to 24 lyre tunings.
Felix tu, Armande! Delphi is one of the very few places I've visited which was truly numinous. Cassandra is shown sitting on the _omphalos_ in one of the recently excavated frescoes from Pompeii.
You're right that the melody is somewhat churchlike, and this was a hymn after all. But inevitably the Oxbridge-drawn choir takes a churchlike approach to singing, which I would argue is the wrong kind of sound for this music. We are told that ancient voices needed to be clear and penetrating, and of course singers did not use equal temperament.
So the singing needs to be recreated with vocalists trained to sing in a different way!
This is so interesting. I watched the short film through, but I am still wondering about how the pitch for each letter of the notation was determined. Were the pitches of the melody determined based on the available pitches from the reconstructed aulos? Or were they based on other musical information from ancient Greece, such as Pythagoras' measurements of vibrating strings? It is probably a very complicated answer, but as a musician trained to tune my violin from the absolute pitch of an A vibrating at 440Hz, I am interested in how absolute pitch from ancient notation is reconstructed.
Great question. The answer is that without Herz frequencies there is no ready determination of absolute pitch, and well into the 19th century there was in practice some variation (up to 3 semitones or more) in the pitch of A. Baroque organ pipes show wide variation in pitch.
The ancients pitched Alpha (the Greek keynote) within a range of perhaps up to a third, and will have settled on a pitch depending on available resources, range of voices etc; as you say, existing ancient pipes give some indication of the general register - and are remarkably uniform. Those, together with calculations of the likely sung range used in existing compositions (taking the spread of lowest to highest notes indicated on scores), give a very consistent guide to where that A was pitched.
The Greeks assumed a fixed central note (like our 'middle C') and the notation reflects that. Thereafter the notation indicates notes at predetermined intervals, about which ancient texts tell us in detail. Aristoxenus (4th cent BC) laid out scale systems (modes,as reported by a later author) that represent the intervals to which lyre strings were tuned. Ptolemy (1st cent BC) constructed an instrument ('canon') with strings stretched across moveable bridges, and he tuned each string, recording the precise proportions in each case - so we can reconstruct up to 24 lyre tunings.
Thank you, that is very helpful.
The video was fascinating as was the star, you!!! Brad Pitt watch your back!
Felix tu, Armande! Delphi is one of the very few places I've visited which was truly numinous. Cassandra is shown sitting on the _omphalos_ in one of the recently excavated frescoes from Pompeii.
Thank you for both the essay and the video. Mesmerizing and affecting.
The paean sounds like church music to me, though it's probably the other way around. Endlessly fascinating!
You're right that the melody is somewhat churchlike, and this was a hymn after all. But inevitably the Oxbridge-drawn choir takes a churchlike approach to singing, which I would argue is the wrong kind of sound for this music. We are told that ancient voices needed to be clear and penetrating, and of course singers did not use equal temperament.
So the singing needs to be recreated with vocalists trained to sing in a different way!