Английская Википедия:Delphic Hymns

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Шаблон:Short description

Файл:Delphic hymns to Apollo, 128 BC, inscription in AM of Delphi, 201386a (cropped).jpg
Fragments of both hymns in the Delphi Archaeological Museum

The Delphic Hymns are two musical compositions from Ancient Greece, which survive in substantial fragments. They were long regarded as being dated Шаблон:Circa and 128 BC, respectively, but recent scholarship has shown it likely they were both written for performance at the Athenian Pythaides in 128 BC.Шаблон:Sfnp If indeed it dates from ten years before the second, the First Delphic Hymn is the earliest unambiguous surviving example of notated music from anywhere in the western world whose composer is known by name. Inscriptions indicate that the First Delphic Hymn was written by Athenaeus, son of Athenaeus, while Limenius is credited the Second Delphic Hymn's composer.

History

Both Delphic Hymns were addressed to Apollo, and were found inscribed on stone fragments from the south outer wall of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi in 1893 by French archaeologist Théophile Homolle, while Henri Weil restored the Greek text and Théodore Reinach transcribed the music to modern notation.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp) Reconstruction of the fragments was facilitated by the fact that the First Hymn uses vocal notation, and the second one employs instrumental notation.Шаблон:Sfnp It was long believed that all that could be told of the composer of the First Hymn is that it was written by an Athenian, around 138 BC, since the heading of the inscription giving the name of the composer is damaged and difficult to read. However, careful reading of this inscription shows that it cannot be the ethnic "Athenaîos" (from Athens), but rather names "Athēnaios Athēnaiou" (Athénaios son of Athénaios) as the composer.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp The Second Delphic hymn has been dated to precisely 128 BC; evidently it was first performed in the same year. The name of the composer has also survived, both in the heading of the hymn and in a separate inscription: Limēnios, son of Thoinos, an Athenian.Шаблон:Sfnp The occasion of the performance of both hymns was a Pythaid, a special religious procession of the Athenians towards Delphi held on specific occasions, usually after certain omens.

First Delphic Hymn

Файл:First Delphic Hymn,1st & 2nd verse.jpg
First Delphic Hymn, 1st and 2nd verse

Both hymns are monophonic (consisting of a single melodic line), but are differentiated by their notation. The First Hymn is in so-called vocal notation and it is in the cretic (quintuple) meter throughout.Шаблон:Sfnp

The First Delphic Hymn falls into two large parts, a Paean (lines 1–27), in three verses, and what might have been called a Hyporchema or dance (lines 27–34). However, almost all of the last part is lost.

First verse

The image below shows the first verse of the hymn in conventional transcription. The letters above the words represent the notes of music. Various modern recordings of the music can be found in External links (see below).

Файл:Paianmittext.png
First stanza of the First Delphic Hymn. The pitch of the transcription is conventional; in performance the pitch would probably have been about a minor third lower.Шаблон:Sfnp

In this verse the singers call on the Muses (goddesses of music and dance) to leave their home on Mount Helicon and to join in the song in honour of Apollo. This part has been translated by Armand d'Angour as follows:(Шаблон:Sfnp)

Шаблон:Quote

Ten different notes in all are used in this first verse. The fourth note from the bottom, written Шаблон:Lang (Mu in the Greek alphabet, or the note C in the conventional modern transcription) is the so-called mesē, or central note, to which the music most often returns.Шаблон:Sfnp Music with this mese was said to be in the (Greek) Phrygian mode (modern Dorian mode). There are more notes above the mese than below it. F and BШаблон:Music below the mese are not used, and the lowest note, here EШаблон:Music, is used only in the first section of the hymn. The note immediately above the mese DШаблон:Music (written Шаблон:Lang Lambda in Greek) occurs only in one place in section one, in bar 24, but is much more extensively used in verse 2.

Файл:First Delphic Hymn section A pattern.png
Файл:1st delphic hymn.mid The pattern of the music in part  Шаблон:Sc of the First Delphic Hymn, clearly showing the repeated use of the mesē or central note.

According to Pöhlmann and West,Шаблон:Sfnp an archaic pentatonic effect is produced in the lowest tetrachords by avoiding the lichanos, while above the mese there is modulation between a conjunct chromatic tetrachord (C DШаблон:Music D F) and a disjunct diatonic one (D EШаблон:Music F G), extended by two more chromatic notes, AШаблон:Music and A. (A tetrachord is a series of four consecutive notes covering the interval of a fourth, e.g. C, BШаблон:Music, AШаблон:Music, G; the lichanos ("forefinger string") was the second note of a tetrachord going down; the "conjunct tetrachord" is the tetrachord whose lowest note is the mese; and the "disjunct tetrachord" is the one whose lowest note is the string above the mese).Шаблон:Sfnp

Second verse

The second verse describes the presence of the delegation from Attica and the sacrifice of Arabian incense and young bulls that they are making. It also mentions the sound of the pipes (auloi) and the kithara (lyre) accompanying the sacrifice.

The text reads:Шаблон:Sfnp

Шаблон:Quote

In this verse there is a change of key; according to Pöhlmann and WestШаблон:Sfnp it changes from the (Greek) Phrygian mode to the Hyperphrygian. There is extensive use of the notes (DШаблон:Music and D) immediately above the mese, and there is also repeated use of the note BШаблон:Music (written with the letter Шаблон:Lang Omicron in Greek notation) immediately below the mese.Шаблон:Sfnp The strings Greek kithara (lyre) were not tuned in exactly the same way as those of a modern piano, and the intervals from C to DШаблон:Music and from DШаблон:Music to D were probably less than a modern semitone.Шаблон:Sfnp Therefore, in this section the music wanders around a small group of closely spaced notes. The technical term for a group of closely spaced notes like this is a pyknon.

Файл:Delphic Hymn 1 section 2.png
The second verse of the First Delphic Hymn transcribed into modern musical notation. The fourth line, where the music wanders through the narrow range of notes of the pyknon, describes the melody of the aulos or pipe.

The photograph below shows part of verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3 on the inscription, starting from the word Шаблон:Lang Шаблон:Grc-transl "carrying arms" and ending at Шаблон:Lang Шаблон:Grc-transl "Attica".

Файл:Delphichymn.jpg
Photograph of the original stone at Delphi containing the first of the two hymns to Apollo. The music notation is the line of occasional symbols above the main, uninterrupted line of Greek lettering.

Third verse

Файл:First Delphic Hymn,3nd verse.jpg
First Delphic Hymn, 3nd verse

The third verse is rather fragmentary, with several gaps in the words and music, but enough survives to make sense of it. In this verse the singers address Apollo directly, and describe how he took over the prophetic tripod at Delphi after killing the snake that guarded it, and how once he thwarted an army of invading Gauls (see: Brennus (3rd century BC)).

This verse returns to the same key as the first. As in the first verse, the small intervals above and below the mese are once again not used. There are some octave leaps, and "the tone is bright and clear".Шаблон:Sfnp

Second Delphic Hymn

Файл:Second Delphic Hymn.jpg
Second Delphic Hymn

The Second Hymn is headed Paean and Prosodion to the God and is described as having been composed by Limēnios son of Thoinos, an Athenian.Шаблон:Sfnp It consists of ten sections in all, the first nine in cretic metre constituting the paean, while the tenth in aeolic rhythms (glyconics and choriambic dimeters) is the prosodion. Slightly more lines of the music have survived than in the first hymn, but there are also numerous gaps where the stone has been broken. The style and subject matter of the second hymn is similar to the first, but the musical notation is different. In this hymn the notes are written with the symbols used by instrumental players (see below).

Pöhlmann and WestШаблон:Sfnp divide the hymn up into ten short sections, with frequent changes of key. As in the First Delphic Hymn, the song opens by calling on the Muses to come to Delphi to join in the song in honour of Apollo:

Файл:2nd Delphic Hymn section 1.png
The first section of the Second Delphic Hymn (Limenios Paian) transcribed into modern notation. (Places where the stone is broken have been indicated by rests in the music and empty brackets "[  ]" in the lyrics.)

The first verse has been translated by J.G. Landels as follows:Шаблон:Sfnp

Шаблон:Quote

The hymn goes on to describe how the sky and sea rejoiced at Apollo's birth on the island of Delos, and how Apollo, after his birth, visited Attica; ever since which time the people of Attica have addressed Apollo as "Paian" (healer) (sections 2–5).

Just as in the first hymn, the singers then address Apollo directly calling on him to come, and remind him how he killed the Python which formerly guarded the Delphic tripod and how he once defeated an army of marauding Gauls with a snowstorm (sections 6–9).

The final part of the work is the prosodion, or processional hymn, with the metre changing from cretic (— ᴗ —, with variants ᴗᴗ ᴗ — and — ᴗ ᴗᴗ) to glyconic (×× — ᴗᴗ — ᴗ —, with variant ×× — ᴗ — ᴗᴗ —). (The symbol ᴗ stands for a short syllable, — for a long one, equal in length to ᴗᴗ, and ×× for variable long-long, long-short, or short-long). In this part, the singers beg Apollo and his sister Artemis ("mistress of Cretan bows") to protect Athens as well as Delphi, and they close with a prayer for the continued dominion of the victorious Roman empire.Шаблон:Sfnp

Файл:Delphic Hymn 2 section 10 (Prosodion).png
Transcription into modern musical notation of the last section of the Second Delphic Hymn, showing its fragmentary condition. The prayer to "increase the empire of the Romans" is in the last line.

The Second Hymn is composed in a different key from the First Hymn. The central note (mese) of the first section is D (in conventional notation), rather than C, making it the (Greek) Lydian mode.Шаблон:Sfnp Below the mese are the notes A and BШаблон:Music, and above it are E, EШаблон:Music, F, and G.

The notes used in the second section are different from the first section. BШаблон:Music is replaced by BШаблон:Music; EШаблон:Music and the top G are not used, and a bottom E and a top A are added, so the range of notes is wider. One way of interpreting this is to assume that the music has moved into the Hypolydian mode.Шаблон:Sfnp Mostly the melody moves up and down in small steps but there are some big jumps occasionally down to the bottom E.

According to Pöhlmann and West,Шаблон:Sfnp the modes of the different sections as follows:

  1. Lydian
  2. Hypolydian
  3. Hypolydian
  4. Chromatic Lydian
  5. Hypolydian
  6. Hypolydian
  7. Chromatic Lydian
  8. Hypolydian
  9. Lydian
  10. Lydian

Musical notation

The musical symbols used for the hymns can be interpreted thanks to a treatise by Alypius, a musicographer of late antiquity (3rd century AD).Шаблон:Sfnp

Two different notations of music were used: One notation was simply the 24 letters of the Ionian alphabet, one for each tone (including sharps and half-sharps). The other system was a complicated mix of special symbols, including ordinary letters, upside-down or backwards letters, letters from archaic alphabets, and broken, half-letters; with symbols for more notes it had a much wider tonal range. The first hymn uses the simple letter system; the Second Hymn uses the complicated special symbols. It was normal to use both systems in the same piece of music, both written in separate lines above the lyrics; when both were used, the special symbols were for the instrumental accompaniment, and the plain Ionic alphabet for the vocal part. Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

A suggested reason for the difference in notation in the two hymns is that the author of the first, Athenaios, is listed as a singer, while the author of the second, Limenios, was a kithara-player. One difference between the two notations is that the symbols in the first hymn are placed above the vowels, while those in the Second Hymn are mostly placed above the consonants which begin the syllables.Шаблон:Sfnp

Aftermath

These hymns were thoroughly examined by musicologists and there have been many efforts to perform them with replicas of ancient musical instruments. The first modern public performance of the First Hymn was in June 1894, only one year after its discovery, during the international athletic convention in the Sorbonne University in Paris for the establishment of the modern Olympic Games.Шаблон:Sfnp

See also

Recordings

Both hymns are performed: The first is sung by baritone Jan Jeroen Bredewold, with tympanist Annie Bélis; the second by bass-baritone Frédéric Albou, with kitharode Benoît Tessé and aulete Nathalie Berland.

References

Шаблон:Reflist

Sources

Шаблон:Refbegin

Шаблон:Refend

Further reading

External links

Шаблон:Commons category

Шаблон:Ancient music