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Music and perception: a study in Aristoxenus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Andrew Barker
Andrew Barker
Affiliation:
Selwyn College, Cambridge.
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Extract

Familiar and important though Aristoxenus is to students of Greek music, philosophers, so far as I can judge, have not always given him a fair run for his money. No one would call him a great philosopher; but his arguments illuminate important aspects of the controversies of the late fourth century, and reflect light backwards onto the different views not only of music, but also of science in general, which had been held and argued over during the previous hundred years. Nor is he merely a referee in other men's contests: his ideas have a philosophical as well as a musical originality which deserves recognition. Plainly a single paper cannot hope to cover all the philosophically important aspects of his work, and I have chosen one topic which I take to be central, his conception of the relations between music and αἴσθησις.

More precisely, I shall be concerned with his views on the role of αἴσθησις in determining the nature of ἁρμονία. ἁρμονία is not the same thing as music, but is a part of it, as for instance is rhythm: and it so happens that ἁρμονία or τὸ ἡρμοσμένον is the main subject of those passages of his work which have come down to us in completest form, under the general heading of ἁρμονικὰ στοιχϵȋα, Elementa Harmonica.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 98 , November 1978 , pp. 9 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1978

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References

1 Historians of philosophy have tended to see him primarily as a source of information about other philosophers, particularly Pythagoreans. To take a more or less random sample of the standard authors, Robin barely mentions him, Zeller gives him a few pages, couched in very general terms, and Gomperz ignores him altogether.

2 Cf. Plato, Rep. 398d 1–2Google Scholar, Aristox., El. Harm. 1Google Scholar, Ps.Plutarch, de Mus. 1142f.Google Scholar

3 The three books of the Elementa Harmonica as we now have them do not form a single unified work. For an account of opinions and arguments concerning their nature and relationships, see da Rios, R., Aristoxeni Elementa Harmonica (Rome 1954)Google ScholarProlegomena IV, cvii-cxvii.

4 Originally the tuning of the strings of the lyre: cf. Heraclitus fr. 51: derivatively, the special varieties of tuning which form different classes of scale, including those associated with the names of the so-called ‘modes’ in Rep. 398–400. Cf. Ar. Pol. 1276b8 and elsewhere. See also e.g. Henderson, I., ‘Ancient Greek Music’ in the New Oxford History of Music (Oxford 1957) i 347–9, 384 ffGoogle Scholar.

5 Numbers in brackets in the body of the text refer to sections of Aristoxenus El. Harm. The two most useful editions are by H. S. Macran (Oxford 1902) and R. da Rios, cited at n. 3 above.

6 See for instance Aristotle's rather obscure remark at Met. 1018b29. Other useful passages may be found cited s.v. in LSJ.

7 The association of pitches with ‘speeds’, as contrasted with lengths (primarily of strings) seems to originate with Archytas, who appears to have linked them with the speed of a sound's propagation (DK 47, B1, A19a). This theory is adopted at least sometimes both by Plato, (Tim. 80a–bGoogle Scholar) and Aristotle (e.g. de Gen. An. 786b7 ff.): it seems also to be one of the theories criticised by Theophrastus in his attack on the number-theorists (see Porphyry's Commentary on Ptolemy's Harmonics [ed. Düring] 61.22–65.15, especially 63.19 ff.). Their connection with speeds of vibration is apparently due to Heracleides (reported in Porphyry op. cit. 29.27–31.21). On the whole subject, the most useful discussion still seems to be that in von Jan, K., Musici scriptores Graeci (Leipzig 1895) i 134–41Google Scholar.

8 Macran 245.

9 E.g. DK 47 A16, A17.

10 E.g. Euclid, , Sect. Can. 13Google Scholar.

11 Loc. cit.

12 Lippman, E. A., Musical Thought in Ancient Greece (New York and London 1964) 150Google Scholar.

13 None of the theorists whose work we know seems to have adopted a view quite as crude as that which Aristoxenus here criticises. The Pythagoreans, despite their devotion to mathematics, were well aware of the distinctions he is making, as is shown by Archytas's work on the three γένη (DK 47 A17). But Aristoxenus wishes to emphasise his concept of δύναμις, in particular its non-mathematical basis: and he would not be the first or the last polemicist to enhance his argument by erecting straw opponents for speedy demolition.

14 Cf. e.g. Lippman 149–50.

15 Isagoge 20.33 ff. (Meibom) quoted by Macran 262.

16 Macran 262–6.

17 Cf. Euclid, Sect. Can. 15Google Scholar.