New Article on Music in the Oxford Classical Dictionary!

We are delighted to announce that five new articles on Music, Wind Instruments, Stringed Instruments, Harmonics and Rhythmics are now available in the Oxford Classical Dictionary online!

This is the first post of a brief series that will present selected images from the articles in high-resolution, along with a short summary of the contents of each article.

I wish to express my deep gratitude to all who have contributed to these articles in different ways — particularly to the peer-reviewers and to the many colleagues who shared images of instrument finds and reconstructions as well as recordings!

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Summary

The ancient “art of the Muses” (Greek mousikē; Latin musica) was a multifaceted discipline that encompassed sung and instrumental music as well as other performing arts, including dance, poetry, and drama.

Figure 2. Vichten Roman mosaic, ca 240 AD. Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry, is seated next to Homer in the central medallion, and the other Muses surround them. Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Musico-poetic performances were central components of Graeco-Roman culture and society at all levels, from private recitals to public religious rituals and civic events that featured elaborate performances involving amateurs as well as professionals. Ancient music therefore came to represent, and embody, a wide range of ethical and political values, and was a key element of ancient education too.

Over time, the study of music turned into a properly scientific endeavour and was organised into a number of separate disciplines—for example, harmonics and rhythmics—that reflected the inherently multimedia nature of ancient mousikē.

Figure 4. Greek musical notation as parasēmantikē—‘the art of putting signs (sēmeia) alongside (para) lyrics—and the Seikilos song, DAGM 23. Source: Diagram by Tosca A.C. Lynch; Detail of the Seikilos stele: © DR, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

To reconstruct its defining features, it is therefore necessary to integrate different types of evidence and complementary perspectives, including:

• Greek musical scores, comprising both vocal and instrumental compositions written in melodic and rhythmical notation;

• literary and philosophical texts;

• specialist writings on music, including technical treatises as well as grammatical and historical works;

• inscriptions and non-literary documents;

• archaeological finds, including ancient instruments as well as purpose-built venues (theatres, temples, odeia);

• iconography and visual representations;

• experimental archaeology, including physical as well as virtual reconstructions of ancient instruments and performances;

• ethnomusicological comparisons.

Figure 3. The ‘Orestes Papyrus’ (3^rd–2^nd cent. BC, DAGM 3) is the earliest extant fragment of ancient Greek music, and records a choral lament from Euripides’ Orestes (338–44). Source: ONB Wien.

to find out more, visit the Oxford Classical Dictionary - Music: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.4294