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Page 33
Meanwhile, as might have been expected, instrumental music
became more and more independent, and musicians, especially
the flute players, prospered; for we read in Suidas that they
were much more proficient and sought after than the lyre and
kithara players. When they played, they stood in a conspicuous
place in the centre of the audience. Dressed in long, feminine,
saffron-coloured robes, with veiled faces, and straps round
their cheeks to support the muscles of the mouth, they exhibited
the most startling feats of technical skill. Even women became
flute players, although this was considered disgraceful.
The Athenians even went so far that they built a temple to the
flute player Lamia, and worshipped her as Venus. The prices
paid to these flute players surpassed even those given to
virtuosi in modern times, sometimes amounting to more than
one thousand dollars a day, and the luxury in which they lived
became proverbial.
During this period, Aristophanes of Alexandria (350 B.C.),
called "the grammarian," devised a means for indicating the
inflection of the voice in speaking, by which the cadences
which orators found necessary in impassioned speech could be
classified, at least to some extent. When the voice was to fall,
a downward stroke [\] was placed above the syllable; when the
voice was to be raised, an upward stroke [/] indicated it;
and when the voice was to rise and fall, the sign was [/\],
which has become our accent in music. These three signs are
found in the French language, in the accent _aigu_, or high
accent, as in _pass�_; the accent _grave_, or low accent,
as in _sinc�re_; or _circonflexe_, as in _Ph�on_. The use of
dots[08] for punctuation is also ascribed to Aristophanes;
and our dots in musical notation, as well as the use of commas
to indicate breathings, may be traced to this system.
As I have said, all this tended toward technical skill and
analysis; what was lacking in inventive power it was sought
to cover by wonderful execution. The mania for flute playing,
for instance, seemed to spread all over the world; later we
even hear that the king of Egypt, Ptolemy Auletes (80-51 B.C.),
Cleopatra's father, was nicknamed "the flute player."
In Rome, this lack of poetic vitality seemed evident from the
beginning; for while Greece was represented by the tragedy
and comedy, the Romans' preference was for mere pantomime,
a species of farce of which they possessed three kinds:
(1) The simple pantomime without chorus, in which the actors
made the plot clear to the audience by means of gestures and
dancing. (2) Another which called for a band of instrumental
musicians on the stage to furnish an accompaniment to the
acting of the pantomimist. (3) The chorus pantomime, in
which the chorus and the orchestra were placed on the stage,
supplementing the gestures of the actors by singing a narrative
of the plot of the pantomime, and playing on their instruments.
The latter also were expressive of the non-ideal character of
the pantomime, as is indicated by the fact that the orchestra
was composed of cymbals, gongs, castanets, foot castanets,
rattles, flutes, bagpipes, gigantic lyres, and a kind of shell
or crockery cymbals, which were clashed together.
The Roman theatre itself was not a place connected with the
worship of the gods, as it was with the Greeks. The altar
to Dionysus had disappeared from the centre of the orchestra,
and the chorus, or rather the band, was placed upon the stage
with the actors. The bagpipe now appears for the first time in
musical history, although there is some question as to whether
it was not known to the Assyrians. It represents, perhaps, the
only remnant of Roman music that has survived, for the modern
Italian peasants probably play in much the same way as did their
forefathers. The Roman pipes were bound with brass, and had
about the same power of tone as was obtained from the trumpet.
It is easy to see that an orchestra thus constituted would
be better adapted for making a great noise than for music,
while the pantomime itself was of such a brutal nature that
the degradation of art may be said to have been complete. As
the decay of art in Egypt culminated under Ptolemy Auletes,
so in Rome it culminated in the time of Caligula (12-41 A.D.),
and Nero (37-68 A.D.).
The latter, as we learn from Suetonius, competed for prizes
in the public musical contests, and was never without a slave
at his elbow to warn him against straining his voice. In
his love of magnificence he resembled a Greek flute player,
with unbounded means to gratify it. His palace, the "Golden
House," had triple porticos a mile in length, and enclosed
a lake surrounded by buildings which had the appearance of a
city. Within its area were corn fields, vineyards, pastures,
and woods containing many animals, both wild and tame. In
other parts it was entirely overlaid with gold, and adorned
with jewels and mother-of-pearl. The porch was so high that
a colossal statue of himself, one hundred and twenty feet
in height, stood in it. The supper rooms were vaulted, and
compartments of the ceiling, inlaid with ivory, were made to
revolve and scatter flowers; they also contained pipes which
shed perfumes upon the guests.
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