Alex Silverman (University of Oxford)
Exploring rhythm and voice through a musical setting of the Fragmentum Grenfellianum
I propose to present a new musical setting of the Fragmentum Grenfellianum, and to discuss the process and implications of adapting such a text for musical performance. The form and content of the FG make it a compelling source for such an endeavour. It is a short dramatic piece written for a single voice, in which a woman begs her lover to take her back. The verse is distinctive for its complex metre which has been the subject of lively debate among scholars - including more recently Bing (2002), Cunningham (2004), Esposito (2005) and Battezzato (2009) - who have offered varying interpretations of the poem's metrical scheme. Wilamowitz's (1896) assertion that the piece may be identified, by virtue of its metrical complexity, as the missing link between Euripides' later choral odes and Plautus' comic cantica is now refuted. Nonetheless, the metre, form, and subject matter are strongly suggestive of a piece which is best considered as a dramatic song.
Relatively little attention has been paid to how this piece was performed in antiquity; it is possible this will be the first attempt to sing it in modernity. As such this will be a valuable opportunity to explore from a fresh perspective questions that have arisen when these verses have been studied on the page: these pertain especially to matters of rhythm, voice, and interpretation.
The fragment's metre reflects and affects the pace at which the scene unfolds. How might one represent this in a modern adaptation, and can this process help us to consider the experience of performers and audiences who encountered the song in antiquity? A composer who responds to ancient poetry may not hope to settle definitively questions of metrical ambiguity. But they do explore how different rhythmic combinations could sound - the musical potential of the source - in ways which will interest scholars who do not always work with ancient verse out loud.
We know that both men and women performed Hellenistic mime, but cannot say whether the FG was written for a male or female voice. The presentation will include a performance of the fragment by both a female and a male singer, as a prelude to an exploration of the intriguing gender identity and voice of the spurned woman in the song. This work approaches from a practical angle the ideas of Pavlovskis (1977) and Hall (2006), who have described the importance of the identifiable actor's voice, and its potential for lending additional meaning, irony, and political nuance to dramatic scenes. This will also shed light on how the piece is to be interpreted: are the text's humour and pathos affected by the gender identity of the singer? And when we tell this story in different modern voices, what mitigations are required in order to reflect or translate the tone and dramatic impact of the source?
I conclude by reflecting on the value of this creative, practical approach- long established in the field of (whole) ancient dramas - to the study of fragmentary texts.