Ancient Greek Rhythm : The Bellermann Exercises.

Abstract

In the following I discuss the rhythm of the 'Bellermann instrumental pieces'. For one of these, an emendation is proposed tha avoids the philo logical and musical problems raised by the currently accepted reading. The conclusions thus reached will be related to modern folk rhythms, and put into the context of ancient Greek rhythmic theory in general. The collection of brief musical treatises known as 'Bellermann's Anony mi' stands out for its orientation towards musical, and especially instru mental, practice.1 As a kind of appendix,2 there appear, among other mate rial, six short pieces in ancient instrumental notation, furnished with rhythmical signs, and preceded by headings indicating the number of beats per 'bar'.3 The primary source for these is the codex Venetus Marcianus vi 10, f.197 verso, on which all other known manuscripts depend.4 The pitch notation of the pieces is clear enough, except for some misrep resented signs whose necessary correction is generally accepted. Ancient Greek melodic notation employs two sets of notational signs, one of which is generally used for vocal scores, the other for instrumental pieces or inter ludes5 although there are exceptions to the rule.6 Although we have some fragments of ancient instrumental music on papyrus, the Bellermann pieces constitute our only complete examples, thanks to their transmission in the manuscript tradition. Admittedly, though, hardly any of them deserve the designation of 'music'. Two of them consist merely of permutations of four contiguous notes, and one is an octave scale, ascending and descending. The main purpose of these is apparently to exemplify different possible rhyth