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WED 27 - Ancient Greek Instrument Orchestra
The ancient Greeks believed that music influenced the formation of the human character and that different types of music also influenced the laws by which a state was run and the rhythms of social life. Consequently, music was understood to possess a political dimension.
Through images drawn primarily from red-figure vases housed in museums in Greece and abroad, the present exhibition presents the theme of music in antiquity along three main focal lines.
The first focal line presents music as part of what was understood as a good education in antiquity. Paradigmatic figures such as Theseus, Herakles, Achilles and Paris were held up as heroes who had acquired the harmonious quality called kalokagathia (literally what is “good and beautiful”), through their formal education, which included musical training. Their training included not only learning to play an instrument, but also learning to dance. The hero Theseus, for instance, was the inventor of the dance known as geranos.
In classical Athens, students learned not only reading, writing, calligraphy, arithmetic and Homeric recitation, but they were also taught to play musical instruments (primarily the lyra and aulos) and to sing, with the aim of acquiring the social awareness and moral character required of a future Athenian citizen. In addition, young men trained in the city’s palaestrae and gymnasia with the accompaniment of music played on the aulos, in order to reinforce their physical strength, precision, coordination, sense of rhythm and the harmony of their movements.
The second focus of the exhibition is on the public events. The men, women and children of Athens were expected to participate in the many public events of a religious nature that took place in the city. The performance of music and dance were understood as offerings to the gods and served simultaneously to perpetuate the community’s long-standing institutions and reaffirm the relationship of the individual with the city.
In the great festivals (such as the Panathenea and the Great Dionysia) splendid processions were organized as ell as contests in musical performance, poetry recitation, dance and drama. These competitions evolved into important occasions for individual performers to display their virtuosity and the various art forms to be promoted and developed in new directions. Attic drama was the most outstanding artistic product of Athenian democracy and the opportunity to attend performances of drama was considered the right of every Athenian (men, women and children).
The exhibition’s third focal point is the musically educated Athenian man and woman. The private or public symposium presented an ideal opportunity for a young man to demonstrate and put to use the knowledge he had acquired through his formal education, both in the performance of musical instruments and the appreciation of musical works.
It is also clear that women too received a musical education within the context of private, rather than public, space. Women occupied themselves with both poetry and music and their involvement in these arts provide us with some knowledge of women’s education in Athens. In iconography we find such musical women likened to the Muses.