The Music of Tragedy: Implications of the Reconstructed Orestes Papyrus

Abstract:

Evidence for the musical and dance elements of Attic tragedy is extremely scarce. However, a papyrus fragment dating from around 300 bc contains a section of a chorus from Euripides’ Orestes with musical notation (possibly the dramatist’s own); it may be analysed, both in its lacunose state and in a proposed reconstruction for performance, to throw light on these very elements. The papyrus markings and associated commentary offer clues to the melodisation of Greek poetry, performance effects in choral song, the nature of dochmiac rhythm, and the kind of dance movements that might have accompanied vigorous passages in tragic lyric.