Music in Greek Tragedy

Zusammenfassung

Bernard Knox: I think the question of music which Marianne has raised is very important indeed. It was an integral part of the ancient performance, but from the evidence we have it looks as if it was less important in the earlier part of the century and more important in the later part. Sophocles and Euripides apparently were responsible for the music as well as the choreography, the words, and the direction. It wasn’t very complicated music; there is just one player on vase illustrations, with one of those double flutes and occasionally a lyre. Sophocles, for example, appeared on the stage with a lyre in Thamyras because the character Thamyras played the lyre; and apparently Sophocles played it in the play, but not for very long, just a solo. In general, the music was probably not very complicated flute-work, to give the chorus the tone--quite secondary unlike the music in opera. We know, however, that Euripides employed a composer Timotheus who did the music for him. Obviously the music had become much more important, and consequently the words of the chorus had become less important, as in opera; this may explain the apparent inanity of some late Euripidean choral work, and its lack of relevance. It’s as if the words are getting less important as the music gets more important, which is what you’d expect.

At the closing roundtable discussion, Marianne McDonald noted that speakers at the conference had paid little attention to music in Greek tragedy. This prompted the following discussion