Things that Sing: objectified music in archaic and early classical Greece
By Deborah Steiner (Professor, Columbia University, Department of Classics)
At the outset of Olympian 7, Pindar figures the ode currently being performed to the sound of the ‘sweet-singing phorminx and the many-voiced equipment of the pipes’ as an all-gold phiale ‘plashing within with the dew of the vine’ (1-12); on a second occasion, the poetic voice addresses his chorodidaskalos as a ‘sweet krater of loudly-sounding songs’ (Ol. 6.91).
Thamyris, Odysseus, and the Perils of thespesios
By Stamatia Dova (Professor and chair, Hellenic College, Brookline, Classics and Greek Studies)
This paper offers a comparative analysis of the soundscapes of Thamyris challenging the Muses (Il.2.594-600) and Odysseus facing the Sirens (Od.12.158-200) in Homer and in archaic and classical vase-paintings. Modified by the adjective thespesios, "divinely sounding," the two musical images demarcate a poetics of vocalization and instrumental music that encompasses the binary human-divine (Anderson, West).
Mark the Words: Early Music’s Representation in Writing
By Ronald Blankenborg (Assistant professor, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands)
This paper argues for the interpretation of the words on well-known Attic red-figure column crater Basel, Antikensammlung und Sammlung Ludwig BS 415 (CVA Basel 3, 22) as the markers not only of the song’ content, but equally of its musical notation. Predating the reform ascribed to Damon (Wallace 2015; West 1992, 246-9), the inscribed syllables reflect language’s priority over music, as opposed to Damon’s alleged reversal of these priorities (Brancacci 2018; Blankenborg 2021).
Sympotic Metamorphoses: Seeing, Hearing, and Becoming the Poets in Athenian Vase-Painting
By Carolyn M. Laferrière (Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for the Premodern World, University of Southern California)
When modern viewers encounter Greek scenes of music-making, the images remain stubbornly silent, offering a mere trace of the vibrant musical culture of late Archaic Athens. Yet, the powerful reactions exhibited by the men and women who are shown listening to the performances of poets, symposiasts, or hetairai suggest a pervasive attempt to make visible the sounds of the instruments.