Unlocking the Riddles of Classical Greek Melodies I: Dorian Keys to the Harmonic Revolution of the New Music and the Hellenistic Musical Documents

Abstract

Abstract Bringing together evidence preserved by Aristoxenus, Aristides Quintilianus, Ptolemy, Porphyry and the Greek musical handbooks in a unified framework, this article and its sequels show how the reconstruction of the Classical modulation system offered in Lynch 2018 is confirmed by the melodies recorded in the Greek musical documents. Taken jointly, these articles offer the first comprehensive account of the use of notation tónoi in the ancient Greek musical documents that is fully consistent with the extant technical evidence on Greek harmonic theory and with literary testimonies about the harmonic innovations introduced by the New Musicians. The present article focuses on the Classical/Hellenistic harmonic system, whereas its Imperial counterpart will be discussed in Lynch forthcoming 1 and 2. These theoretical analyses are based upon a newly developed database (dDAGM) that collects all the musical notes attested in the standard edition of the Greek musical fragments (DAGM), comprising over 3,500 notes.

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