1

From Euripides to Koukouzeles and Back:

A Survey of Greek Musical Culture from Antiquity to Late Byzantine Times1
Andrew Walker White, University of Maryland, College Park

Given Dr. Puchner’s many contributions to the scholarship of theatre and

drama in Byzantium, I wanted to pay my respects by offering a small paper on one of

the least explored aspects of ancient drama: its music. A number of recent studies in

English have succeeded in making Ancient Greek music more accessible,2 and it has

become increasingly clear that the principles of melodic composition, much like those

of spoken, Attic Greek, remained in continuous use until the Fall of Constantinople

and beyond.

The music of the Great Dionysia remains a puzzle for most theatre historians;

likewise, western musicologists are still coming to grips with the Ancient Greek roots

of Orthodox chant. Accordingly, the present study will attempt to look at these

seemingly distinct eras, Antiquity and Byzantium, with the goal of illuminating both

ends of this historical spectrum and give a brief account of the changes in Greek

musical culture over two millenia. It is hoped that this small contribution will

generate interest among theatre historians and musicologists alike, in creating a more

complete historical narrative of Greek music both as a performance art and as a

theoretical object.

Part 1: Agon and Innovation

Two formative influences on the development of Ancient Greek music were

the relative geographic isolation of early Greek-speaking communities and the

institution of the agon. Ancient musical competitions drew artists from all over the
1
The author would like to thank Dr. Diane Touliatos of the University of Missouri at St. Louis for her
assistance in preparing this study. All errors are, of course, the author’s own.
2
See especially Thomas J. Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and
the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1999); Giovanni Comotti, Music in
Greek and Roman Culture, trans. Rosaria V. Munson (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1989); and Martin L. West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). In
addition Andrew Barker’s anthology, Greek Musical Writings, 2 vols. (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1984) has provided translations of many important primary sources.
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Mediterranean world, and Greek composers (a more accurate rendering of ποιητές)

developed their work in a milieu where each community boasted its own ‘sound,’

with distinct variations in terms of modes, rhythms, and melodic patterns.3

Although modern musicians vie for prizes with instruments tuned to

international standards, Ancient Greek musicians built and tuned their instruments
4
according to regional and even personal tastes. For all this variety, however, Ancient

composers tended to follow certain common precepts. The basic building block of

any melody was the tetrachord (“four-string”), an interval that encompassed two-and-

a-half tones.5 Musicians developed a nomenclature for notes that reflected their

dynamic function in a melody; but which also reflected their thetic function, i.e., their

position on a stringed instrument. Tuning began with the mese, or “middle” string,

the central note of any melody whose pitch remained fixed; both above and below the

”middle” string, the fixed outer boundaries consisted of the nete, “bottom” string and

the hypate, “topmost” string.

Then as now, the “topmost” string was the lowest in pitch, with the “bottom”

string being the highest (modern stringed instruments work on the same principle).

Martin West’s survey of extant musical specimens indicates that melodies, wherever

and however they wandered, tended to rely on a common figure – a move to either the

mese or the note two and a half tones below – to create a sense of cadence or closure.6

3
West (Ancient Greek Music, 19-20) finds evidence of contests as early as the eighth century BCE, and
Mathiesen (Apollo’s Lyre, 11) quotes Hesiod bragging about winning a competition in Chalcis.
4
See Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 183-184, for example, for a description of Pronomos of Thebes’
innovative design for the aulos. It is possible to read the famous “Pronomos vase” as a celebration of
his ingeniuity. On the various types of auloi and lyres developed by the Classical period see
Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre 182-197 & 243-247 and West, Ancient Greek Music, 62-64 & 89-103.
Comotti (Music in Greek and Roman Culture, 34) believes the dithyrambic competition, was the chief
source of the innovations in tragic compositions.
5
See West, Ancient Greek Music, 160 & ff., for a discussion of modes. Dr. Touliatos reminds me that
the terms “tone,” “half-tone,” “quarter-tone,” etc., are not equivalent to the western concept of “steps.
Likewise, the term “scale” does not adequately describe how notes were created in Ancient Greek
composition.
6
West, Ancient Greek Music, 192-194.
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The tonal boundaries of the lower tetrachord were the mese and hypate;

between these two fixed notes was placed a third, floating note called lichanos, or

“index finger,” implying how this note would have been played on a lyre. In later

years another floating note was introduced, the parhypate or “next-topmost,” so called

because of its position next to hypate (fig. 1).7

With the free-floating tones lichanos and parhypate, infinitely many tunings

were possible. Eventually, ancient theorists derived three basic tunings, known as

modal types or genera: the enharmonic (“harmonious” or “in tune”), the chromatic

(“colored” or “colorful”), and the diatonic (“through-toned“ or “parted-tone”) (fig.

2.). The position of the lichanos was the chief means of identifying the mode genus

for any given melody.

Pitchwise, the diatonic genus ascended first by a semi-tone, then a whole tone,

then a whole-tone; the chromatic genus ascended first by a semi-tone, then a semi-

tone, then 1½ tones. The enharmonic genus ascended in microtones, i.e., intervals

less than a half-tone, and then by two whole tones. Because of their tonal proximity,

the cluster of three notes at the bottom of the enharmonic tetrachord were referred to

as pyknon, “tightly packed.”8 Music theorists defined these intervals using

Pythagorus’ monochord system, which fretted a single string based on mathematical

ratios.9

7
See West, Ancient Greek Music, 163-4 and 173, for theories on the evolution of the modes. West
discusses the practical roots of this terminology for the whole system in Ancient Greek Music, 218-223,
and we shall return to the terminology below.
8
West, Ancient Greek Music, 162. See also Ancient Greek Music, 8-12 (for a discussion of tuning
using A. J. Ellis’ system of cents, which divides an octave into 1,200 units) and 237-242 (for a
comparison of tuning methods among ancient threorists using Pythagorus’ mathematical ratios).
9
See Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 468-472, for tables drawing from various ancient theorists, as found in
Claudius Ptolmey’s Harmonica (ca. 2nd century CE). See also Ancient Greek Music, 169-170.
 4

THE TETRACHORD:

Mese

Lichanos

Parhypate

Hypate

Fig. 1. Names for Notes/Strings in the “lower” Greek tetrachord. The later note
Parhypate is in italics. Following the arrow, which ascends pitchwise, the names
translate into: Topmost, Next-topmost, Index Finger, Middle.

THREE MODAL GENERA:

NOTE: DIATONIC: CHROMATIC: ENHARMONIC:

Mese
(1) ( 1½ ) (2)
Lichanos
(1) (½) (¼)
Parhypate ↑
(½) ( 1½ ) (¼)
Hypate

Fig. 2. The Three Modal Genera, with their tonal intervals.

Note the position of Lichanos in each genus, their chief identifying feature.
 5

Modal genera also had specific associations in the Greek ear; as the fourth-

century theorist Aristoxenus explains:

Of these [modes] the diatonic, since human nature comes upon it first, must be
reckoned the first and oldest, the chromatic second, and the enharmonic third
and most sophisticated, since perception becomes accustomed to it at last, with
difficulty, and through much hard work.10

Contradicting modern-day notions of Ancient Greek music as primitive or simple,

Aristoxenus makes it clear that microtonal modes – being the province of both the

educated elite and professional musicians – were a common feature in Classical and

Hellenistic music. Aristoxenus’ description can be also be seen as creating a

benchmark by which to assess later musical trends in Roman and Byzantine times,

with shifts to chromatic and diatonic genera indicating a decline in musical culture.

Because melody took precedence in Antiquity, musicians did not tune to a

specific “key” but rather to whatever notes the composer required for a particular

song; these groups of notes were commonly known as harmoniai, “tunings.” Some

harmoniai had specific regional associations – Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian, for

example – chiefly because of their melodic formulae. Later, when music theorists

attempted to clarify the harmoniai’s inter-relationships and integrate them into a

unified system, they came to be known as tonoi, “sounds” or “tones.” In practice,

what distinguished harmoniai from tonoi was that harmoniai referred to tunings for

specific melodies, whereas tonoi designated more generic systems.11

The chief element regulating Greek melodic composition was that of the mese

or “center,” a note toward which the melody would always return,12 and which had a

10
Aristoxenus, Elementa Harmonica, 19:22-29; English translation from Βarker, Greek Musical
Writings, 2.139.
11
See Barker, Greek Musical Writings 1.163-164, for Barker’s description of the harmoniai and
Aristoxenus’ now-lost attempt to create a system of tonoi. See also Greek Musical Writings, 2.17-27,
for a more detailed discussion.
12
See Comotti, Music in Greek and Roman Culture 90-91, where he cautions against thinking in terms
of western-style ‘dominant’ or ‘sub-dominant’ notes.
 6

grammar-like function to the Ancient Greek ear. In the Pseudo-Aristotelian

Problems, it is asserted that “all worthwhile songs use the mese a lot,” explaining that:

. . . just as, when, with words, you can remove conjunctions like “and” and
“also” and it isn’t [proper] Greek, . . . in the same way, for sounds, the mese is
a conjunction – and the best kind, because it’s the sound you encounter most
often.13

This motif of perpetual return to the mese provides a disciplinary element, with the

tonal center giving shape and sense to the melody.14

With the increasing complexity of compositions and the continued drive for

innovation, the range of notes for a given melody became so numerous and their

relationships so complex that musicians expanded their original nomenclature; this

expansion was codified in two teleia systemata, “complete” or “perfect systems,”15

which came to be known as the “Lesser Perfect System” (LPS) and the “Greater

Perfect System” (GPS), with the LPS adding one conjunct tetrachord and the GPS

adding two disjunct tetrachords above the middle tone (mese). Contemporary studies

in English have merely transliterated the terms used in the LPS and GPS, making

them look less like musical schema than new lines on the Athens Metro.

Accordingly, fig. 3 offers translations of both systems into English, so that their roots

in musical practice become clearer.

The LPS and GPS created what musicologist Thomas Mathiesen describes as

a “scalar superstructure,”16 a common terminology that enabled musicians, composers

and singers to work together and understand how and where the melody was moving.

They also made it easier for the musician to understand the relationships among the

13
After the French translation in Aristote: Problèmes, vol. II, Sections XI à XXVII, trans. Pierre Louis
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993), 105.
14
See West, Ancient Greek Music, 190-194 for a survey of extant fragments of Ancient Greek music.
West finds great variety, but admits that Greek music, in its most ancient form, may have been more
formulaic. Comotti on the other hand (Music in Greek and Roman Culture 8) finds the melodies
“substantially repetitive.”
15
Systema can refer to “any articulated mode or mode-section” (West, Ancient Greek Music, 223).
16
Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 383.
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THE GREATER & LESSER PERFECT SYSTEMS, IN ENGLISH

GREATER (GPS):
Bottom Overshot
OVERSHOT

Next-Bottom Overshot

Third Overshot
LESSER (LPS):
Bottom Disjunct
Bottom Conjunct
Next-Bottom Disjunct
DISJUNCT

CONJUNCT
Next-Bottom Conjunct
Third Disjunct
Third Conjunct
Next-Middle

Middle

MIDDLE
Forefinger Middle

Next-Topmost Middle

Topmost Middle
TOPMOST

Forefinger Topmost

Next-Topmost Topmost

Topmost Topmost

The Note We Take as Extra

Fig. 9. The Greater and Lesser Perfect Systems in English. “Conjunct” tetrachords
are those that share a common central note (mese) and cover the range of six tones
(roughly a seventh), while “Disjunct” tetrachords are separated by a whole tone (the
paramese or “next-middle”) and cover a range of seven tones (roughly an octave).
Compare with West, Ancient Greek Music, 222.
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various modal genera and harmoniai that melodies modulated into and out of. When

preparing for a modulation into a new harmonia it helped to remember, for example,

when a particular note that functioned as a mese in one harmonia could also serve as a

paramese or lichanos in another. It also helped musicians to know which notes on

their instruments could follow the change either through harmony or direct, note-for-

note accompaniment.17 The results may have been along the lines of a contemporary

jazz performer who plays a series of notes that – although not part of the melody

proper – are appropriate to its general tuning. These two systems remained a staple

for advanced music courses in Byzantine times.

During roughly the same period when the LPS and GPS were created,

musicians also developed a pitch-specific system of musical notation with two sets of

symbols, one for voice and one for instrumental accompaniment, along with

rudimentary rhythmic notation,18 covering a range of three octaves instead of the 1½

or 2 octaves of the LPS and GPS.19 The vocal register required 24 signs – in the

center of this scheme, it consisted of the letters of the Greek alphabet – to portray a

single octave, with 3 letters allotted to each tone.20

In performance this ancient pitch-specific notation would have been aligned

mentally with the LPS and/or GPS, along with the various modal genera the

composition called for. A typical performance of Ancient Greek music, in other

17
The theorist Cleonides (circa 2nd-5th centuries CE) distinguishes four kinds of modulation: by mode,
by system (i.e., switching from the Lesser to the Greater Perfect System, or vice versa), by harmonia
(he uses the term tonon), and by melody (i.e., what we would call transposition, involving a change in
pitch but not the melodic line). See Cleonides, Ἐισαγωγή Ἁρµονική (Introduction to Harmonics), in
Ἀρχαίοι ἁρµονικοί Συγγράφεις, ed. Dimitrios Koutroubas, (Athens: Georgiades, 1995), 246-250.
18
For charts featuring this notation see Comotti, Music in Greek and Roman Culture, 101 and West,
Ancient Greek Music, 256.
19
See West, Ancient Greek Music, 254-273, and Comotti, Music in Greek and Roman Culture, 99-110.
West dates the development of this anywhere between the eighth and third century BC (Ancient Greek
Music, 259); given Aristoxenus’ scornful remarks about notation (see Ancient Greek Music, 271), it
would appear they were well developed by the fourth century BC.
20
West doesn’t think the notation distinguishes among modal genera, but his own “repertory of
symbols” is based on the doubtful premise that modern, western pitch values are equivalent to Ancient
ones (see Ancient Greek Music, 255-256).
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words, required three separate systems – one written and pitch-specific, the other two

transmitted by a combination of intellect and ear (the LPS/GPS and modal genera) –

working together in harmony.

Given the importance and complexity of modulation in Greek compositions,

ancient theorists paid special attention to when and how to accomplish it. The

preferred method, according to Aristoxenus (a protégé of Aristotle’s), consisted of

locating notes held in common between harmoniai, and hence between one systema

and another.21 In this scenario, a melody would arrive at a note in the first harmonia

that was shared with the second, and then depart from it with notes from the next

harmonia.22 To have the desired aesthetic effect, however, it was still necessary to

establish one harmonia first – and hence create the aural expectation of continuity –

before moving on to the next.

Part 2: The Euripidean Revolution.

The Great Dionysia was by no means the only musical venue in Antiquity, but

it was there that issues of music practice and theory were addressed head-on, as a part

of Athens’ contentious political discourse. Given the central role of music in

Athenian education, and the festival’s value as a showcase for Athenian cultural and

political dominance, the music of the Dionysia had political and moral overtones.

The modal genus most commonly associated with tragic compositions until

the late 5th century was the enharmonic.23 Athenian citizens trained for the Dionysia

with enharmonic melodies,24 and although Aeschylus’ generation characterized by a

more conservative style, this stereotype does not account for their enharmonic

21
Barker, Greek Musical Writings 2.131.
22
For another description see Barker, Greek Musical Writings, 2.328-329.
23
West, Ancient Greek Music, 164. Aristoxenus states that previous theorists “dealt only with the
enharmonic, and never gave a thought to the other genera” (El. Harm. 2.6-7, as found in Barker, Greek
Musical Writings II:126). But see also Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 103.
24
On the hiring and payment of performers at the Dionysia, see for instance Sir Arthur Pickard-
Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 87-91.
Chorus members were paid, lead actors apparently.
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melodies or their florid, highly creative lyrics.25 It was during the late 5th century BCE

that composers like Euripides threw quantitative meter and elite language to the

winds, and dabbled in simpler chromatic melodies.26 In Aristophanes’ Frogs,

Aeschylus accuses Euripides of getting his material from brothels, drinking parties,

and histrionic Carian women. Euripides represented a striking departure from older,

elite forms of µελοποιΐα. Euripides not only simplified the language of tragedy, but

also simplified – and hence, ‘feminized’ – tragedy’s elite melodic stylings.

Another problem was Euripides’ taste for pure music as a mode of dramatic

expression. To demonstrate this, Aeschylus offered his own version of a typical

Euripidean ode:

Aeschylus: You halcyons, who chatter by the everflowing waves of the sea,
Wetting and bedewing the skin
Of your wings with rainy drops;
And you spiders in crannies beneath the roof, who
Wi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-nd with your fingers
27
loom-taut spoolings . . .

Here, the comical repetition of vowels, in effect a series of nonsense syllables,

appears to serve no dramatic purpose whatsoever. But behind this satire lies evidence

that Euripides used nonsense to achieve specific effects. Perhaps the most vivid

example comes at the pivotal moment in Bacchae, when Pentheus threatens to go to

war against the women of Thebes:

Pentheus: Servants, my armor from the palace! And you, shut your
mouth!
Dionysus: A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-------------------------------a!
Do you want to see them sitting together on the mountains?
Pentheus: Yes, indeed: I’d give much gold to do so.28

25
The system of accents and breathing marks for Greek texts was developed at roughly the same time
as musical notation, and served the purpose of preserving.
26
See West, Ancient Greek Music, 164-165 & 351, and Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 103-106.
27
Frogs 1309-1315; English translation after Aristophanes, Frogs, Assembleywomen, Wealth, trans.
Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 202-203.
28
Bacchae 809-812, English from Euripides, Bacchae, Iphigenia at Aulis, Rhesus, trans. David Kovacs
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 87.
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In critical editions of Bacchae, a lone “ᾶ” (the letter alpha with notation for a rise and

fall in pitch) occupies an entire metric line. Often rendered awkwardly in English as

either “stop” or “wait,” a close reading indicates that before Dionysus’ cry, Pentheus

is determined to slaughter the women of his own city; after the cry, Pentheus becomes

pliable to the god’s will, consenting to spy on the women in drag.29 The function of

the “ᾶ” is to mark the point at which Dionysus stops toying with Pentheus and

assumes control of the king’s fate. What an Aeschylus or a Sophocles would have

achieved through dialogue, Euripides achieves here through pure music, and extant

fragments from Euripides’ choral odes tend to confirm that the dramatist used music

to move beyond the wordy surface of the drama to its more abstract emotional and

spritual core.30

By the end of Euripides’ career, Attica alone hosted six theatrical festivals a

year, with similar festivals in Macedonia (where Euripides retired) and elsewhere.31

The spread of festivals contributed to the development of a new class of performer,

the βάναυσος or “mechanical” who was paid for his services. The

professionalization of this amateur pursuit, coupled with Euripides’ musical reforms,

prompted the first great aesthetic debate on the social and moral functions of music.32

Part 4: Music in Plato – the Counter-Revolution.

29
Kovacs fills in this gap with added stage directions: Dionysus cries “with imperious authority,
countermanding Pentheus’ orders,” and after the cry, Pentheus replies “as if under a spell” (Bacchae,
87). See also Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 577-578, for Mathisen’s discussion of Aristides Quintilianus’
somewhat mystical schema of vowel associations: “a” is associated with the element of water, and
(perhaps a nod to Dionysus’ androgyny) is both a masculine and feminine sign.
30
See West, Ancient Greek Music, 284, for a transcription of a choral ode fragment from Orestes (for
alternate transcriptions see also Egert Pohlmann, and Martin L. West, eds., Documents of Ancient
Greek Music: Extant Melodies and Fragments edited and transcribed with commentary (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 13 and Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 117-118).
31
Eric Csapo, “The Politics of the New Music,” in Music and the Muses: The Culture of ‘Mousikē’ in
the Classical Athenian City,” ed. Murray Penelope and Peter Wilson (Oxford, 2004), 208-209.
32
Csapo (“Politics,” 208-209) believes that by this time, Athens had to compete with other city-states
for professional performers. Not that this pleased everyone; Aristotle, following Plato’s lead, objected
strenuously to the idea of music as a profession. See Politics 1339a11-1342b34, as found in Greek
Musical Writings I:173-182.
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Although raised on Euripides’ dramas, Plato’s musical tastes were

characterized by a “violent antipathy to every feature of New Musical style.”33

Assuming as he did that “imitation, if long continued from an early age, turns into

habits and dispositions – of body, speech and mind”34 Plato critiques contemporary

music as a mimetic practice. What gave Plato’s critique its power was the generally

accepted notion that each melody, each modal genera and harmonia, had a unique

ethos or moral character.35 The imitation of an action on-stage relied on melody as its

chief signifier, which led inevitably to certain types of melody becoming associated

with specific kinds of action in tragedy and comedy.

Along with the actors, Plato bans professional musicians and their subtle,

‘many-stringed’ instruments,36 as well as a host of harmoniai because of their alleged

immorality. The only harmoniai in Plato’s ideal city-state are the (enharmonic)

Dorian and Phrygian, because he finds their melodies appropriate for the imitation of

courageous, moderate men.37 As Csapo points out, Plato wrote at a time when “elite

cultural superiority . . . was threatened by the rise of professionalism in many

branches of the arts, and especially the music of the theatre.”38

Politics aside, music for Plato was a reflection of a higher order that went back

to the origins of the world itself. In Timaeus, the title character describes a sequence

of numerical formulas – based on the Pythagorean concept of number as the source of

33
See Csapo, “Politics,” 236, for a list of Euripidean reforms that Plato opposed.
34
Republic, Book 3, 395d. English translation from Plato, Republic, trans. Tom Griffith (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 84.
35
On character generally see Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Stephen Halliwell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1995), 53 (1450b9) & 79 (1454a18-20). For ethics in melody, see for example
Barker, Greek Musical Writings, 2.89 (high voices associated with weak/effeminate characters). See
also Greek Musical Writings, 1.197-198 (Pseudo-Aristotelian Problems 19:27): the “moral character”
of melody consists of its being a series of notes in action, i.e., played in succession, while a momentary
mixture of notes – harmony – lacks character, being a static phenomenon.
36
Republic, 399c-399e.
37
Republic 398c-399c.
38
“Politics,” 236.
 13

all things – which correspond to specific notes on a stringed instrument.39 Timaeus’

numerical ratios reveal the World Soul as a sort of diatonic modal genus; in other

words, musical intervals in both Pythagoras’ and Plato’s systems are merely the

audible form of the ideal intervals that constitute the World Soul. The tension

between Euripides and Plato, then, also occurred at a higher level where aesthetic and

philosophical values clashed head-on.

The impact of this musical debate in Byzantium is reflected in the

conservative musical culture that prevailed in Church circles well into the Middle

Byzantine period. Egon Wellesz notes the formative influence of the Pythagorean

and Platonic approach to music, rooted as it was in a belief that music participated in
40
the spiritual realm.

Part 5: Music in Early Christian Era.

The centuries between Euripides’ time and the first extant Christian hymn

with musical notation saw substantial changes in musical tastes. Aristoxenus implies

that already during the Hellenistic period, composers began to favor the chromatic

modal genus over the enharmonic.41 And by the dawn of the Roman Empire the
42
diatonic modal genus had become the rule. Ralph Mathiesen points to a remark by

Gaudentius, a contemporary of Constantine the Great, who describes the three modal

genera but confines himself to diatonic harmoniai because “the use of the remaining

two genera seems to have lapsed.”43

39
Timaeus 34c-36e. See also Barker, Greek Musical Writings, 46-52, for a comparison of Plato’s
divisions with those of the Pythagorean Archytas, Plato’s contemporary.
40
Egon Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography, 2nd ed. (New York: Clarendon
Press, 1961; reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 46-52.
41
See Barker, Greek Musical Writings, 2:141-142. West finds that composers from this period came to
prefer the chromatic and diatonic modal genera (Ancient Greek Music, 381-385).
42
The devolution of musical culture as it becomes internationalized remains a problem to this day; the
Euro-Vision song contest consists of 30 countries competing with the same limited repertoire of
melodic and rhythmic models, with a heavy reliance on clichéd English lyrics.
43
Apollo’s Lyre, 502. Mathiesen notes that Gaudentius does address the chromatic genus later on.
 14

In Gaudentius’ time, Christian composers were trained in Ancient Greek

music and used the old notation system. When he wasn’t singing pagan airs on his

lyre, Bishop Synesius of Cyrene claims he composed hymns to the accompaniment of

a kithara.44 The acceptance of Greek music by educated Christians had its limits,45 but

Greek music theory provided Christians with a way to articulate which harmoniai and

modal genera were acceptable. Hence Clement of Alexandria’s rejection of tunes in

the chromatic modal genus;46 hence, too, the use of a diatonic, Hypolydian harmonia

for the earliest Christian hymn.47

The preference for the diatonic modal genus among the Church Fathers, then,

was rooted in contemporary Roman tastes and did not represent a major change in the

musical culture. Even the harmoniai, it seems, remained largely unchanged. It is in

this context that sixth-century Patriarch Severus of Antioch codified a cycle of eight

echoi for liturgical performance.48 A common feature of both the Octoechos and the

Ancient Greek harmoniai is that each echos had a unique melodic formula, and each

formula had specific ethical (or, in Severus’ case, spiritual) associations.

What happens next remains a mystery: although the development of

Byzantine musical notation from the tenth through the fifteenth centuries is well

documented the period between the fourth and the tenth centuries, when the new

notation begins to emerge, is little understood. Papyrus fragments from the sixth or

seventh century CE indicate that hybrid forms of diastemic musical notation were

44
Wellesz, Byzantine Music, 151-152. Given the Church’s rejection of pagan musical instruments,
however, Synesius’ reference to a kithara may be metaphorical.
45
See Wellesz, Byzantine Music, 79-97, for condemnations of pagan music, and theatrical music
especially, by the Church Fathers.
46
As cited in Byzantine Music, 93 & n. 2.
47
Wellesz (Byzantine Music, 152-156 insists it was an orientalized hymn, while West’s later analysis
(Ancient Greek Music, 324-326) finds it is only slightly more elaborate than its immediate Greco-
Roman predecessors.
48
See Wellesz, Byzantine Music, 44 & n. 3.
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used in Egypt,49 but not enough material has survived to account for what may have

been a fertile period of experimentation. It is also unclear whether diatonic harmoniai

were the only ones used in liturgical performances: John Chrysostom hired a castrato

in a transparent attempt to compete with Arian antiphonal chant,50 which implies that

the Patriarch may have sanctioned more subtle melodic stylings.51

What remained constant, however, was an interest in Ancient Greek music,

and the music of the Dionysia in particular. Photius’ Bibliotheca, etymological

dictionaries and the Lexicon of Suidas offer a number of musical references, tragic
52
composers included. Suidas’ Lexicon combines brief biographies of composers with

a detailed discussion of their music. And there is evidence that performing ancient

music remained a popular pastime in some circles: in a broadside written by

Archbishop Arethas of Caesaria against the diplomat Leo Choirosphactes, he

sarcastically encourages Leo to make a fool of himself with his old music:

Practice your skill on the flute; then go on to the cithara . . . after that display
your ability to an audience, to actors of mime and pantomime . . . if you want
to pride yourself on your Dionysiac festivals and your pagan deities. No one
will prevent you now that you have once fallen from grace.53

Being fond of the classics himself, Arethas’ criticism is not directed at Leo’s

knowledge of ancient literature but his interest in ancient music.54 It remains to be

49
See Ioannis Papathanasiou and and Nikolaos Boukas, “Early Diastematic Notation in Greek
Christian Hymnographic Texts of Coptic Origin: A Reconsideration of the Source Material,” in
Paleobyzantine Notations III: Acta of the Congress held at Hermen Castle, The Netherlands, in March
2001, ed. Gerda Wolfram (Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2004), 1-25.
50
For a history of this kind of liturgical chanter see Neil Moran, “Byzantine castrati,” Plainsong and
Medieval Music 11.2 (2002): 99-112.
51
But see also Wellesz, Byzantine Music, 147, for bans on private compositions and 149, for the
competition between Bardesanes and St. Ephrem.
52
Mathiesen openly acknowledges his debt to these three sources; see Apollo’s Lyre 643, n. 109.
53
See Arethae scripta minora, ed. L. G. Westerlink (Lepizig, 1968), 1.204.30-205.1. Translation from
N. G. Wilson, “Books and Readers in Byzantium,” in Byzantine Books and Bookmen, eds. Ihor
Ševčenko and Cyril Mango (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1975), 15, ellipses mine.
54
Robert Browning finds “Ce qui semble être décrit dans ce texte peu clair est une sorte de cercle, où
l’on lisait des tragédies classiques, et où peut-être on essayait d’en donner une représentation
dramatique rudimentaire” (“Ignace le Diacre et la Tragédie Classique à Byzance,” Revue des Études
Grecques 81 (1968): 403). But Nigel Wilson concludes this passage is “simply a scornful invitation to
Choerosphactes to display the musical skill of which he is so proud by giving performances in a music
 16

seen whether Choirosphactes’ secular experiments reflected similar trends in sacred

chant, especially in the capitol where court composers doubled as choir leaders in

Hagia Sophia.

Part 6: Psellos, Mesarites, and the Graeco-Byzantine Revival

The introduction (or standardization) of new systems of musical notation in

the tenth century meant that Byzantine composers could now record the performance

dynamics of a melody with a higher degree of accuracy.55 The development of the

somata, pneumata and eventually the hypostases are usually seen as signs of

increasing musical complexity;56 but given the evidence for continuity in Ancient

Greek musical theory and practice, the new notation system may simply reflect an

effort to codify a pre-existing tradition of sophisticated chant.

The diatonic and chromatic modal genera are the ones most commonly

associated with Byzantine chant, and there is tantalizing evidence that enharmonic

harmoniai were, at the very least, the subject of experimentation. In his Syntagma

(“Compendium”) on the four sciences, Psellos reveals his personal bias for the

diatonic modes, and his dismissal of the enharmonic as “the most un-singable” of
57
them all gives the distinct impression that enharmonic melodies were still in vogue.

And it was Psellos, or someone from his circle, who wrote a brief account of Greek

tragedy58 – further evidence that knowing how the enharmonic music of Ancient

hall” (N. G. Wilson, “Books and Readers in Byzantium,” in Byzantine Books and Bookmen, eds. Ihor
Ševčenko and Cyril Mango (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1975), 14-15).
55
See Wellesz, Byzantine Music, 261-310, for one account of the development of Byzantine musical
notation.
56
See Kenneth Levy, “Le “Tournant Décisif” dans l’Histoire de la Musique Byzantine 1071-1261,” in
XVe Congrès International d’Études Byzantines, vol. 3, Art et Archaéologie, ed. Maria A. Gavrilis
(Athens, 1976), 281-288. Levy addresses the radical changes from the oldest form of musical notation,
little more than an aide-de-memoire for orally-trained singers, to a more pitch-specific notation.
57
See Anonymi Logica et Quadriuium, cum Scholiis Antiquis, ed. J. L. Heiberg (Copenhagen: Host &
Son, 1929), 72.3-6.
58
See Robert Browning, "A Byzantine Treatise on Tragedy,” in ΓΈΡΑΣ: Studies Presented to George
Thomson on the occasion of his 60th birthday, ed. L. Varcle and R. F. Willetts (Prague: Charles
University, 1963), 67-82; unfortunately R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Browning’s musical editor,
 17

drama would have sounded remained an important issue among educators throughout

the Middle Byzantine period.

At the turn of the thirteenth century, Nicholas Mesarites describes an upper-

level music class at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.59 Although no

fan of classical education, Mesarites manages to give an accurate account of a typical

lesson in Ancient Greek music theory as taught on the eve of the Fourth Crusade. The

Church of the Holy Apostles hosted one of the most distinguished schools for the

male elite in Constantinople; some of these students were being groomed to become

court composers, while their classmates, as imperial officials, would have

commissioned musical compositions and assumed the role of Byzantium’s arbiters of

musical taste.

Part 7. Late Byzantine Reform & Theory

The Latin Conquest of 1204, if anything, intensified Byzantine scholars’

interest in their musical heritage. Among the first to write a musical treatise after the

restoration of the Byzantine Empire in 1261 was the classicist and patriarchal cleric
60
George Pachymeres, whose Syntagma was the first to state explicitly that the

Ancient Greek harmoniai were equivalent to the Octoechos.61 A contemporary,

anonymous dialogue the Eratopokriseis goes even further by claiming that the ordinal

names of the echoi (First, Second, etc.) are merely their bathmoi or “intervals” in the

modal system, while their real names are the ancient ones.62 In spite of these claims,

“corrected” the word ditonōn (“two tone,” a euphemism for the enharmonic genus) to read diatonōn,
creating the false impression that tragedy used the diatonic genus (“Byzantine Treatise,” 74-78).
59
Wellesz (Byzantine Music, 63) dismisses the class as “almost entirely nonsensical,” and as proof that
“Greek musical theory had no connexion [sic] whatever with Byzantine ecclesiastical music.”
60
See Christian Hannick, “Byzantinische Musik,” in Die Hochsprachliche Profane Literatur der
Byzantiner, Herbert Hunger ed. (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1978), 188-191. See also R. P. Laurent’s
Preface to Paul Tannery’s Quadrivium de Georges Pachymere (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, 1940), xxiv-xxxiii.
61
See Tannery, Quadrivium, 146, lines 29-32, and Hannick, “Byzantinische Musik,” 190.
62
“See Die Erotapokriseis des Pseudo-Johannes Damaskenos Zum Kirchengesang, Christian Hannick
and Gerda Wolfram, eds. (Vienna: Osterreichschen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997), 597-600.
 18

however, there were disputes over which ancient harmonia corresponded to which

Byzantine echos. The correspondances differ radically from each other; while some

turned Pachymeres’ correspondence table upside-down – as in the Hagiopolites

treatise63 – others like the Papadiki turned it inside-out.64

There are several ways to account for the confusion: to begin with, there had

always been a subjective element in determining a melody’s ethical associations. And

although there had been some continuity in musical practice, re-creations of ancient

music would have been circumscribed by contemporary tastes and resources. Third,

as a practical matter, Byzantine musical theorists could group the ancient modes by

either tonal position, ethos, or (to speak in ancient terms) by the mese’s dynamic or
65
thetic position in a given harmonia. This is made plain in the Hagiopolites, where

the author explains why he does not give the Dorian mode (Plato’s favorite) a

prominent position in his tables:

We do not name the quantity of sounds, but the quality . . . Thus, the
designations of the Echoi are not made for counting purposes but to represent
the sound quality of the Melos [harmonia]. This is also why the Dorian Melos
did not receive the place of honour among the Echoi [i.e., the position of First
Authentic]; this place was given to the Hypodorian, because it is better than
66
the other Echoi . . .

The author of the Hagiopolites stresses the need to classify the eight echoi in

accordance with their ποιότητα. The puzzles surrounding these correspondence

tables remain unresolved, but future studies would help to determine whether they

relied on direct applications of ancient theory, personal tastes, or on the experience of

63
See Jørgen Raasted, “The Hagiopolites: A Byzantine Treatise on Musical Theory,” Cahiers de
l’Institute du Moyen-Ǎge Grec et Latin 45 (1983).
64
See Lucas Richter, “Fragen der spätgriechisch-byzantinischen Musiktheorie: Die Erforschung der
byzantinischen Musik,” in Byzantinische Beitrage, ed. J. Irmscher (Berlin, 1964), 195, for a
comparative chart of Pachymeres’ eight ancient harmoniai, compared with three distinct Byzantine
variants, as well as the western eight-tone system.
65
As Mathiesen puts it, “Pachymeres’ treatises emphasized the continuity of Greek culture, an
important value during the Palaeologan renaissance” (Apollo’s Lyre, 657). For a standard de-bunking
of these correspondences see Peter Jeffery, “Octōēchos,” Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed
28 February 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com. As with other areas of Byzantine musicology, further
inquiry is needed to determine how these correspondences were crafted.
66
Raasted, “Hagiopolites,” 38-39.
 19

Ancient harmoniai as performed during this period.67 However these puzzles are

resolved, it is clear that the study of Ancient Greek music was regarded as essential to

understanding and performing Late Byzantine sacred chant. Just as the heavenly

bodies continued to revolve around the Earth according to Ptolemy’s theories, the

melodies of the Byzantine world continued to play out according to the ancient

precepts laid out by Ptolemy and his predecessors.

Koukouzeles’ Reforms, and the Hesychast Movement

By the late thirteenth century, when Pachymeres and Bryennius were active,

one composer is credited with inspiring Byzantine chant’s last great aesthetic leap

forward. Ioannes Papadopoulos, better known as Koukouzeles, is credited with

68
creating and codifying some of the most elaborate hymns of his time. His career

appears to coincide with the introduction of the “Great Hypostases” into musical

notation, which gave composers even greater artistic control over performances of

their work.69

Koukouzeles wrote manuals explaining his system and created a wheel or

70
trochos illustrating modulations among the modes. The most popular method of

modulation in Koukouzeles’ time was παραλᾶγή, “alternation,” which involved

moving to the mese of the echos you wished to modulate into. This was regarded by

Koukouzeles and his successors as crude: the preferred method was the one

67
For the summation of Late Byzantine music theory see The Harmonics of Manuel Bryennius, trans.
G. H. Jonker (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1970); on Bryennius’ work see also Hannick,
“Byzantinische Musik,” 192-194, and Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 657-667.
68
See Edward V. Williams and Christian Troelsgård, “Koukouzeles,” Grove Music Online, ed. L.
Macy (Accessed 28 February 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com. See also The Oxford Dictionary of
Byzantium, s.v. “Koukouzeles, John,” 2.1155 (by Dimirri Conomos). Some date Koukouzeles’ career
two centuries earlier: see Ioannis Papathanasiou, “The Dating of the Sticherarion EBE 883,” Cahiers
de l’Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin 66 (1996): 35-41.
69
See Gregory Stathis, “Summary: Ioannes Koukouzeles’ “Method of Theseis” and its Application,”
in Byzantine Chant: Tradition and Reform, ed. Christian Troelsgård (Athens: Danish Institute, 1997),
203. Stathis notes that Koukouzeles’ mentor Ioannes Glykys is credited with developing the method of
signs later perfected by his student.
70
See Jørgen Raasted, Intonation Formulas and Modal Structures in Byzantine Musica Manuscripts
(Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1966), 51, for a facsimile of this chart.
 20

established by Aristoxenus, but now known as phthora, “dissolution,” and involved

selecting a common note other than the center as the site for modulation.71

The most striking genre associated with Koukouzeles and his school was the

kratema, a passage of pure music sung with nonsense syllables, so called because it

“holds back” the progress of a hymn’s lyrics and melody.72 In a liturgical context the

kratema derives its effect from its rejection of conventional discourse; the chanter

moves into a purely musical realm, and congregation is invited to let the music

communicate by itself.

As Diane Touliatos points out, songs with nonsense syllables had long been
73 74
popular – they figure prominently in the Byzantine Gothic Dance, for example – so

it is not clear when and how they were introduced into the Liturgy. But the kratema’s

form suited the aesthetics of wordless prayer advocated by the Hesychast movement.

Hesychasm, as established by Gregory Palamas, was based on the doctrine of the

inexpressibility of God.75 It was possible to commune with the Almighty without

words, by virtue of emanations of his divine “energy” (ἐνεργεία) that encompassed

all of Creation. God was understood to exteriorize himself through his ἐνεργεία and

thus participate in the natural world. For Palamas, liturgical performances participate

71
See Raasted, Intonation Formulas, 44-45, for an explanation of the two methods. On the art of
παραλᾶγή see also The Treatise of Manuel Chrysaphes, the Lampadarios, trans. Dimitri E. Conomos
(Vienna: Verlag der Österreichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1985).
72
See Touliatos, “The Byzantine Amamos Chant of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries” (Ph.D.
diss.,Ohio State University, 1979), 33 & n. 20 for a brief description of the kratema. Dimitri Conomos
notes that the origins of wordless chant goes back to Christianity’s earliest days (Byzantine Trisagia
and Cheroubika of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Thessaloniki: Patriarchal Institute for
Patristic Studies, 1974), 273).
73
See Diane Touliatos, ‘Nonsense Syllables in the Ancient Greek and Byzantine Traditions,” Journal
of Musicology 7.2 (1989), 231-243.
74
See Albert and Charles Vogt, eds, Le Livre des Cérémonies (The Book of Ceremonies) (Paris: Les
Belles Lettres, 1935), 1.182-185. On its origins in Early Byzantium see Eugenia Bolognesi Recchi
Franceschini, “The Iron Masks: The Persistence of Pagan Festivals in Christian Byzantium,”
Byzaninische Forschungen 21 (1995): 118-122. Franceschini argues for its origins as early as the late
fourth century.
75
The following analysis will be based in part on Fr. Basil Krivosheine, “The Ascetic and Theological
Teaching of Gregory Palamas,” The Eastern Churches Quarterly (1938; Reprint, London: Geo. E. J.
Coldwell Ltd, 1954).
 21

in and distribute divine ἐνεργεία among performers and congregation. It is not clear

whether Palamas’ theology was inspired by the musical reforms of his day, but it is in

the kratema that Hesychasm found a means of expressing its key concepts as part of

the Liturgy.

With the codification of kalophonic chant and the kratema, moreover, the

history of Greek musical culture can be said to have come full circle: from its

sophisticated beginnings at the Great Dionysia, through its degradation during the

Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine periods, Greek music had regained its

sophistication and created a new, subtle system of musical notation. Composers once

again relied on Aristoxenus’ theory of modulation, worked in different modal genera,

and – in an echo of Euripides’ work – rediscovered the value of pure musical

expression. The purpose of the kratema is, of course, distinct from Euripides’

nonsense syllables at the Dionysia; but both represent a break from conservative

traditions which privileged reason and the spoken word, and both explore the fullest

emotive potential that music has to offer.

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