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short extract from the 1st chapter of the lectures-concerts from Marseilles to Tunis, from Tangier to Limassol

ONE - Origins of Music. First Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Notes on Hebrew and Christian liturgical chant.

... The sounds of prehistory would belong to Nature; and Nature would also provide them with a definite character that had the function of penetrating the essence of things and animals. The rustling of the trees in the forest, moved by a sweet breeze, had a very different character from the snapping of branches or the wind howling in a storm. Even the swish of the backwash on the beach, on a warm sunny day, must have been more pleasant than the roar of the stormy sea, not to mention the frightening rumble of thunder that comes with lightning. And it was to imitate and evoke inexplicable natural phenomena or to deflect their effectiveness, that the making of sounds was born.

But why did human beings, at some point, start to feel the need to imitate nature?

.... the greatest natural phenomena would evoke so much fear (or joy) that humans started to pray to them in order to pacify them or, conversely, to instigate them. And the first myths were born: the sea, the rain, the sun, the moon, volcanic eruptions; the wind, the flight of the birds, more or less wild animals and whatever else (already) fervid human imagination thought it could stimulate for good or for bad...

MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATION
... The Sumerians were the first civilization to tackle music and to use it with full awareness; its practice was connected to the symbolism of nature and to religious activity which, being based on animism, interpreted nature as the expression of the gods. Such was the regard for music and the importance attributed to singers and musicians that they would sit next to kings. The Assyrians even placed court minstrels above scholars and had them preceded only by gods and kings...

...the study of musical matters as a true philosophical discipline was extremely deep and elaborate. Indeed, it soared to such articulate and complex levels that their school stood as an unreachable precedent for successive civilizations....

"A simple comparison between the advanced structure of Mesopotamian musical instruments (...) and that of the Greeks, shows the great superiority of the former" and musical theory in Mesopotamia may have been the real starting point of the current European musical system. One only has to consider the huge variety of mediums through which music was expressed, in the shape of: liturgies, breviaries, psalms and chants (...) a complete index of this material could rival, in terms of the number of entries, the lists of Roman or Anglican devotional books....

EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION
.... The relationship of the Egyptian civilization with the African continent was more substantial and productive than any European knowledge of Africa in the 19th Century. This may provide an indication of the importance of Africa for the Egyptians. The images left by the ancient Egyptians are numerous. One in particular, that of a pygmy, symbolizes Bes, the god of music and dance, proving the important African contribution, in terms of music, to the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean. Moreover, the finding of specific documents referring to dance further confirms the influence on Egyptian civilization of African cultures; the first in history to base ritual, regal and daily customs on dance, and therefore on music...

.... What is left from Egyptian civilization, certainly constitutes the most imposing remains in the Mediterranean area and stands as an unmistakable testimony to its iconography and its architectural splendour. We also have a large quantity of finds, both images and literary references that bear witness to its music. However, not one note survived the millennia and we can only use our imagination to flesh out whatever archaeology has transmitted to us. Numerous documents tell of large orchestras and endless choirs; some texts speak of a choral group of six hundred men including three hundred harpists all playing instruments made of gold.

GREEK CIVILIZATION
.... It's difficult to analyse the music of the Greek (and Hellenistic) civilization in depth. We would have to deal with other branches of science, since music (as a cosmological phenomenon) descended from them in a straight line. Even the very term "music" has often been used (even after the Roman conquest) synonymously with a branch of mathematics. We must confine ourselves, therefore, to a description of music as it existed in the classical period, roughly up to the 4th century BC, because in later periods the study and practice of music, as we understand it today, was abandoned, more or less gradually, reducing its presence to superficial daily events and to a "background noise" in more or less important occasions.

.... The depth of music studies in Classical Greece lead scholars to elaborate a notation system (Major Perfect System and Minor Perfect System) based on the Greek alphabet and on other symbols connected to more ancient periods. The Greeks had a good understanding of acoustics and pitch was determined by the position of the symbol inside the alphabet...

.... Besides this system, there was a series of so called "tonoi" or "harmoniae", which were simply scales, i.e. a series of notes at regular intervals. They were transposed (but not exactly like today) on the main system, creating a sort of enharmonic system similar to our own. It would appear that the system was quite accurate and advanced, although there was some confusion due to the lack of absolute terms; for instance, for the manufacture of instruments, the manufacturers of "aulos" would keep some model instrument as a point of reference to tune up other "aulos". This shows that the Greeks had a relative concept of intonation. Despite this confusion, our European system based on the diatonic scale (made up of intervals of tones and semitones inside an octave) dates back to the Greek system. The Greeks gave the names of certain populations to their scales....

... they were made up of series of tones and semitones in descending order....

... Some further confusion, later on, was to determine a historical error: the first Christian theoretical musicians, influenced by Greek culture, adopted Greek scales, but, for some obscure reason, they had them ascending rather than descending and called them modes. They also changed the initial note denominations to Mi, Fa, Sol. So, in the Middle Ages, the Doric Greek scale became the Phrygian mode, the Phrygian scale became the Doric mode and so on. These are the so-called authentic modes, which correspond to the principal Greek scales...

ROMAN CIVILIZATION
.... The Romans, at the beginning of their ascent, were under the cultural influence of the Etruscan civilization but, by the 3rd century BC, they had started to regard Greek and Hellenistic culture as the most elevated in the ancient world. However, unlike the ancient Greeks who had developed a branch of philosophy around music, the Romans did not carry the torch of research and used music in a more superficial, purely practical manner. It was only later on that the Roman Christians, in order to underline the sense of mysticism and solemnity in their clandestine gatherings, went back to an elevated use of music....

.... Nevertheless, the Imperial period was rich in music. The government increased its use as a complement to military parades, banquets, ceremonies, public games and theatre works, not so much out of love of music as a science, but for less cultural aims: "...in 284 AD Carinus organized a series of games for the Romans. These were accompanied by a hundred trumpets playing all together; in addition, there were a hundred horn players and about two hundred players of various wind instruments. This was the most sensational event of the year." The craving for novelty and for grandiose performances was encouraged by the rulers, who regarded it as a means to distract the attention of the masses from political events...

NOTES ON HEBREW AND CHRISTIAN LITURGICAL CHANT
.... The Mediterranean Sea, despite the decline of the Roman Empire, remained a rapid and safe means of communication both for commercial and cultural exchanges and musical culture continued to be heavily influenced by the East. However, in a short period of time, fragmentation would set in: it was the beginning of the Middle Ages. At the time, society, although less civilized, was still essentially secular, and religions would only interfere marginally with everyday life and what was left of the political life....

... If we try to imagine what the musical scene would have been in those days, we find a large number of Christian factions in Italy. They would be in disagreement not only about the scriptures, but also about the interpretation and the very choice of songs to be selected for the gathering of the faithful and for the spiritual elevation of the soul. Celsus himself (an opponent of the Christian faith who lived in the 2nd century AD) observed sarcastically that the Christians were separated in many factions, each siding with itself. Around the year 187, Ireneo listed around twenty varieties of Christianity; in 384, Epifanio listed eighty....

.... In the famous edict of Milan, dating back to 313, the then emperors Constantine and Licinio sanctioned all the liturgical rivalry that had accumulated among the various factions that had come into being since the very birth of Christianity. They also put a stop to a long series of persecutions. In this new state of freedom, each faction gave free rein to its drive to conversion....

.... Gregorious Magnus (pope from 590 to 604) supported a reform of liturgical chant in the Church of Rome. When he started to collect ancient and new chants in the Antiphonarius Cento, the problem was to create a music that was decidedly Christian which, while different enough to be identifiable as such, could command submission and have a more solemn character, in contrast with the more joyful and less rigid melodies (hymns and giubilates) coming from Syria and Asia Minor....

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