Essays on the Origins of Western Music s7

Essays on the Origins of Western Music

by

David Whitwell

Essay Nr. 76: On Music of Ancient Courts

The previous essay touched on aristocratic views on music in ancient civilizations. The present essay contributes additional specific examples of the practice of music in ancient courts.

Perhaps the best known account of a musical ensemble in an ancient court is the Babylonian one of Nebuchadnezzar which is described in detail in the Book of Daniel, III, 5 and 15, of the Old Testament. This account suffers from the problem one encounters in attempting to consider the older parts of the Old Testament as literal history. The Book of Daniel was written 400 years after the events it describes and so it is prone to all the mistakes and exaggerations of oral tradition. Furthermore, the names of the actual instruments mentioned in Daniel, karna, mashrokita, kathros, sambyke, pesanterin, and sumponyah, are expressed in several languages, including Greek, and at least two of them have no agreed upon modern meaning.[1] In view of these difficulties, translators have tended to simply make up names of instruments which might be familiar to readers. Thus, the king James Version gives us a typical Renaissance band, consisting of cornett, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer! The Revised Standard Version (1952) invents a nonsense ensemble that no one would ever want to listen to: a horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, and bagpipe.

Our most descriptive accounts of the entertainments of the Persians (600 – 330 BC) are written by their rivals the Greeks and thus they emphasize the more extravagant aspects of court life. Athenaeus records two anecdotes relative to the dinner music of the court of Cyrus the Great (585 - 529 BC). First he quotes the Persian History by Heracleides of Cumae,

In most cases the king breakfasts and dines alone, but sometimes his wife and some of his sons dine with him. And throughout the dinner his concubines sing and play the lyre; one of them is the soloist, the others sing in chorus.[2]

Athenaeus does not mention how many concubine musicians performed for these dinners here, but in another place he says “300 women watch over him.”[3] Annarus, the viceroy under Cyrus, wore women’s clothes and ornaments, according to Athenaeus, and, although he himself was technically a slave of the king, his dinners were always accompanied by a 150 women, playing on harps and singing.[4]

Presumably this tradition continued for two centuries, for several accounts mention that when the Greeks finally brought an end to this empire by the defeat of Darius III in 330 BC, they carried away 329 concubine musicians from the court.[5]

It is not clear if Plutarch’s reference to these kings refers to these older ones or kings of his generation, but it sounds as if he is retelling a tale told many times and improved upon each time with the telling.

The Persian kings, when they contain themselves within the limits of their usual banquets, suffer their married wives to sit down at their tables; but when they once design to indulge the provocations of amorous heats and wine, then they send away their wives, and call for their concubines, their gypsies, and their songstresses, with their lascivious tunes and wanton galliards. Wherein they do well, not thinking it proper to debauch their wives with the tipsy frolics and dissolute extravagances of their intemperance.[6]

Another interesting comment by Athenaeus, which may apply to these people, refers to the use of music for diplomacy!

Many of the barbarians [those who do not speak Greek well] also conduct diplomatic negotiations to the accompaniment of aulos and harp to soften the hearts of their opponents.[7]

Herodotus, the great 5th century BC historian describes entertainment music of a rather high level among the ancient Greeks.

When dinner was over, the suitors began to compete with each other in music and in talking in company…. Hippocleides…asked the aulos player to play him a tune and began to dance to it.[8]

And, of course, we must assume that there was much music by the slaves and servants of the Greek nobles. Polybius tells a nice story about Cleomenes III, a king of Sparta in the 3rd century BC When one Nicagoras arrived at Alexandria by ship with a cargo of horses to sell, Cleomenes said to him,

You would have done much better to bring a cargo of male prostitutes and girls to play the harp; that is the kind of cargo to please this King![9]

Arrian, in his history of Alexander the Great, writes that he had an extra-large chariot built so that in traveling he could recline on his couch with his intimate friends listening to the music of auloi.[10]

In Egypt one can still see in the paintings on the walls of the ancient tombs numerous small court ensembles. One king, Amenophis IV (also known as Ikhnaton) seems to have been an especially enthusiastic sponsor of music. One extraordinary painting from c. 1,570 BC shows a special musicians’ house, perhaps a dormitory for female musicians, or even a school, which he built in his capitol of Amarna. Here we see pictures of a collection of musical instruments spread over four rooms, in addition to scenes of instruction and the ladies practicing, grooming, and discussing music. Another painting from his court shows a concert by a double ensemble, which includes foreign guest artists, judging by their dress.

It is during the reign of this king, by the way, in which we see court scenes with apparently blind, or blindfolded, musicians. The significance of this is not known to modern scholars, some speculating that the blindfolds prevented slave musicians from seeing what was going on in the palace, others that the musician, being of a lower social order, was not permitted to look upon a god.

This is perhaps an appropriate place to mention that history has left us several accounts of additional wonderful blind musicians. One of these is documented in Homer’s The Odyssey. The setting is a banquet, but, as this extraordinary passage makes clear, this is not the usual banquet music -- this is music to be listened to. Indeed, we are told that only when everyone stopped eating and drinking did the singer begin to play and sing. In this case the singer was the blind Demodocus, “to whom above all others has the god granted skill in song.” He is requested to “give delight in whatever way his spirit prompts him to sing.”

For him, the herald, set a silver-studded chair in the midst of the banqueters, leaning it against a tall pillar, and he hung the clear-toned lyre from a peg close above [the singer’s] head, and showed him how to reach it with his hands. And beside him he placed a basket and a beautiful table [of food], and a cup of wine, to drink when his heart should bid him. So they put forth their hands to the good cheer lying ready before them. But when they had put from them the desire of food and drink, the Muse moved the minstrel to sing of the glorious deeds of warriors....[11]

As a testimonial to the contemplative listeners, Homer tells us that Odysseus [Ulysses] is moved to tears.

This song the famous minstrel sang; but Odysseus grasped his great purple cloak with his stout hands, and drew it down over his head, and his comely face; for he had shame [that his guests, the Phaeacians, should see him] as he let fall tears from beneath his eyebrows. Yea, and as often as the divine minstrel ceased his singing, Odysseus would wipe away his tears and draw the cloak from off his head.... But as often as he began again, and the nobles of the Phaeacians bade him sing, because they took pleasure in his song , Odysseus would again cover his head and moan. Now from all the rest he concealed the tears that he shed....

Later, Demodocus is sent for again, for the purpose of having him play music for a dance. When the artist arrives however, he “struck the chords in prelude to his sweet lay and sang of the love of Ares and Aphrodite,” forcing the guests to listen rather than dance.[12]

A third time[13] Demodocus is brought before the guests to perform and again Homer notes that the performance waited until the eating had stopped. Because of the impact Odysseus experienced from the first performance, he now begs the singer to “change thy theme” and sing no more of the fate of the Achaeans, but rather of the “building of the horse of wood.” This request the singer complies with, but apparently in such a way that Odysseus was again moved to tears.

This song the famous minstrel sang. But the heart of Odysseus was melted and tears wet his cheeks beneath his eyelids. And as a woman wails and flings herself about her dear husband, who has fallen in front of his city and his people, seeking to ward off from his city and his children the pitiless day; and as she beholds him dying and gasping for breath, she clings to him and shrieks aloud, while the foe behind her smite her back and shoulders with their spears, and lead her away to captivity to bear toil and woe, while with most pitiful grief her cheeks are wasted: even so did Odysseus let fall pitiful tears from beneath his brows. Now from all the rest he concealed the tears that he shed, but Alcinous alone marked him and took heed, for he sat by him and heard him groaning heavily.

Finally this Alcinous says, “Let the minstrel cease, that we may all make merry....” Before leaving these performances by this blind poet, we must also point out that some scholars believe Homer himself was blind.

Athenaeus provides a brief description of dancing presented as entertainment during a banquet. The music is provided the dancers by the same blind poet mentioned in The Odyssey.

For Demodocus sang while “boys in their first bloom” danced, and in the Forging of the Arms a boy played the lyre while others opposite him “frisked about to the music and the dance.”[14]

Another blind poet-singer is found in an anonymous poem, c. 800 BC, called, “To Apollo.” In this poem the poet first gives us an interesting description of the talents of these poets, as well as a brief autobiographical note.

After they first praise Apollo with a hymn

and now again Leto and arrow-pouring Artemis,

they tell of men and women who lived long ago

and sing a hymn, charming the races of men.

The tongues of all men and their noisy chatter

they know how to mimic; such is their skill in composing the song

that each man might think he himself were speaking.

But now may Apollo and Artemis be propitious;

and all you maidens farewell. I ask you to call me to mind

in time to come whenever some man on this earth,

a stranger whose suffering never ends, comes here and asks:

“Maidens, which of the singers, a man wont to come here,

is to you the sweetest, and in whom do you most delight?”

Do tell him in unison that I am he,

a blind man, dwelling on the rocky island of Chios,

whose songs shall all be the best in time to come.[15]

Without any question, the most distinguished blind musician of music history was Francesco Landini (1335-1397), who became blind due to having smallpox in his youth. He was a well-rounded man, honored by king Peter I of Cyprus as a musician and poet. He was an exceptional composer, skilled in performance on many instruments, including the organ, and invented a number of instruments, including a sort of “one-man band” called the “Siren of Sirens.” Though employed in an ecclesiastical position, most of his ballate are concerned with love. He was remembered by Domenico da Prato, in his “Paradiso degli Alberti,” as a leading humanist and as a performer on the organetto “whose playing could attract the nightingale.”[16]

To return to the Middle East, we can assume that much of the ancient musical traditions of the Hebrews came from the older civilization of Egypt, as was also the experience of ancient Greece. While the years the Hebrews spent in Egypt form a critical role in the drama of the Old Testament story, few actual details of this 430 year period are supplied. It is clear that most of this time the Hebrews lived freely in Egypt and were “captives” in only the final 80 years of this period. During the first 350 years they were apparently free enough to conduct their own border wars,[17] independent of the Egyptians, enjoyed the economic freedom to maintain their own large herds of cattle[18] and enjoyed sufficient cultural respect that one of them actually married the daughter of a Pharaoh.[19] We can assume therefore that during this long period they were free to absorb much from the older Egyptian culture, including musical practices. In the case of Moses, we are told he “was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians....”[20]

The Old Testament also fails to give us much information about the period of captivity in Babylonia, after the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 537 BC. But again, it appears they were not “captives” in the modern sense of the word, for when the 42,000 of them were allowed to return they brought back with them 7, 337 slaves of their own, in addition to 245 male and female [slave] singers![21] One of the apocryphal books also mentions that they returned with all their musical instruments.[22] It is evident, in any case, that the Hebrews preserved their musical heritage during this period, as we can read in some of the most beautiful lines of the Old Testament.

By the waters of Babylon,

there we sat down and wept,

when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there

we hung up our lyres.

For there our captors

required of us songs....[23]