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IV Performance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 March 2016
Extract
Archaic hexameter poetry could be declaimed by a rhapsode; in some circumstances it could also be sung or chanted to the accompaniment of a lyre. Beyond that we know disappointingly little about performance practices or about the social context of performance. Even Homer is only a partial exception. We know that Homeric epic was performed competitively at the Great Panathenaea festival in Athens, but that was not its only possible setting and we have no reliable evidence at all about its original setting. With Hesiod we know even less. We must make do with isolated snippets of information and hints. This chapter cannot offer many answers: only present what relevant information is available and indicate which kinds of guesses are reasonable ones.
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References
1 For more details on these instruments see M. L. West 1992: 49–59; Landels 1999: 47–68; Bundrick 2005: 14–26.
2 On technique see M. L. West 1992: 64–70; Landels 1999: 55–61.
3 Terpander test. 1, test. 16, fr. 6 Campbell; Plin. HN 7.204. But cf. test. 14 (Terpander changed the tuning, not the number of strings); test. 17 (Terpander added only one string); ps.-Plut. De mus. 1137b (Terpander's music had only three notes).
4 Ps.-Arist. Pr. xix.918b.7–8 weighs against the idea that the lyre played at a different octave: as an example of an instrument playing at the (lower) octave he cites the φοῖνιξ, rather than one of the standard lyres.
5 Ps.-Plut. De mus. 1141b.
6 M. L. West 1992: 279, 287–8.
7 Ps.-Pl. Hipparch. 228b–c; Lycurg. Leoc. 102; Dionysius of Argos FGrH 308 F 2; Dieuchidas of Megara FGrH 485 F 6. See Burgess 2004 on possible rhapsodic performance of the Epic Cycle.
8 Heracleid. fr. 157 Wehrli (ps.-Plut. De mus. 1132b–c); Pl. Ion 553c.
9 Xenoph. fr. A 1 §18 (ἐρραψῴδει τὰ ἑαυτοῦ).
10 Quint. Inst. 1.12.3 (‘even the foot is busy with keeping a regular time’), 9.4.55 (‘the beat of fingers and feet’). See M. L. West 1992: 133–7, esp. 133 nn. 13, 14. Terentianus Maurus 1345 is more metaphorical (‘[a metrical foot] lifts the sound in one part, puts it down in the other’).
11 Aristox. Rhythm. 22.27–8 Pighi (2.20 Barker): irrational time is between 1 : 1 and 2 : 1 time; Aristid. Quint. 1.(§14).34: irrational rhythms ‘do not fit comfortably into any of the ratios specified above’.
12 Dion. Hal. Comp. 17 (71.4–72.2 Usener–Rademacher).
13 Aristox. Rhythm. 24.16 Pighi (2.30 Barker); Maurus 1409 (the dactyl ‘balances the time in the arsis with the thesis’; similarly 1350 of the spondee); Aristid. Quint. 1.(§15).35 (rhythms called dactylic because of their ἰσότης [‘equality’]).
14 Dion. Hal. Comp. 20 (93.6–16 Usener–Rademacher).
15 Daitz 1991: 151–3; Danek and Hagel 1995: 6–8.
16 Andrews 2005: 9–24.
17 Quint. Inst. 9.4.51, 9.4.55. Quintilian's inania probably refer to strict caesuras in non-hexameter metres, such as in the middle of the pentameter: thus Landels 1999: 115.
18 Aristid. Quint. 1.(§24).47.
19 Sch. on Dion. Thrax, 26–8 Hilgard; see also Daitz 1991: 150.
20 See Barker 2007: 19–104 on what may be inferred about Aristoxenus’ predecessors.
21 For recent treatments see Landels 1999: 86–109; Barker 2007; Hagel 2009.
22 Ps.-Plut. De mus. 1134f–1135b.
23 Hagel 2009: 10, with n. 35.
24 For commentary on Ptol. Harm. 2 see especially Mathiesen 1999: 451–77.
25 Andrews 2005: 2–9 makes many similar observations, but does not attempt to pin pitch contours down to a musical melody.
26 Dion. Hal. Comp. 11 (40.17–41.1 Usener–Rademacher).
27 Dion. Hal. Comp. 11 (41.18–42.14 Usener–Rademacher); for extant scores, see M. L. West 1992: 283–326. Some egregious early examples: no. 3 West (Eur. Or. 338–44), a low note on the second syllable of ματέρος; no. 4 (Eur. IA 784–92), a descent of nearly an octave onto the second syllable of πατρίας; and possibly no. 7 (p.Cair.Zen. 59533), descending lines on ἑτάρων and γονάτων. The main exemplars where melody and pitch accent do go hand in hand are late: nos. 12–13 West, second century (these also include melismata on syllables with perispōmenē).
28 See n. 7 above.
29 Nagy 1996: 39–43, 2009: 9–28.
30 BM E 270, Attic, Cleophrades Painter, c.490–480 (=‘Homer’ unplaced fr. 1 West). It is conceivable that the ‘rhapsode’ might be singing, accompanied by an aulistēs on the other side of the vase; but, taken together, his staff and the hexameter imply rhapsodic performance.
31 Burkert 1979; M. L. West 1999: 376–82.
32 WD 654–7; Hymn. Hom. Ap. 165–73; Hymn 6.19–20.
33 Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 154a (Hes. test. 38); Phaenias FGrH 1012 F 10; Diog. Laert. 2.46.
34 Also comparable in hexameter are the face-offs in Theoc. Id. 5, 6, ps.-Theoc. Id. 8, 9, and the pairs of songs in Theoc. Id. 7, 10. Pretagostini 2006: 57–61, following Serrao, believes we can be confident in a historical reality behind Theocritus’ singing contests (though that would not imply any link to earlier agonistic contexts); Gutzwiller 2006: 17–18 sees instead a literary model, Euripides’ lost Antiope.
35 Phemius: Od. 1.150–5, 1.325–52, 17.358–9, 23.130–6, 23.143–7. Demodocus: Od. 8.62–92, 8.254–389, 8.470–522. Apollo: Il. 1.601–4, 24.62–3; Shield 201–3.
36 Od. 16.252, 22.330–80.
37 Od. 8.62–4; see also Introduction, pp. vii–viii.
38 Xenophanes may possibly have been a guest of one of the Sicilian tyrants: Diogenes Laertius states that he visited Sicily (Xenoph. fr. A 1§18), and his lifetime overlapped with Gelon's reign.
39 Clay 1989: 7.
40 Irwin 2005a: 40–9, citing Semonides fr. 2 and Phocylides fr. 2 on ‘tribes of women’.
41 Murray 2008 (note the helpful survey of views on Homeric performance at 161–4).
42 However, see Johnston 2003 on possible links between the Hymn and the Hermaia festival, and between Hermes’ cattle raid and initiation songs: ‘Public recitation of myth, then, almost functions as a ritual itself, as listeners negotiate the tensions that the myth expresses’ (170).