CHAPTER VII

Summary

No subject connected with ancient music has been discussed with more earnestness, or at greater length, than as to whether the Greeks did, or did not, practise simultaneous consonances, and intermix them with discords; thus making harmony in the modern technical sense of the word.

The great discussion arose in the seventeenth century, from the discovery that the Greek word, Harmonica, is not a synonyme for simultaneous concordant sounds; although the world had been taught to regard it in that light, and had incorporated it into modern languages in that sense. So far the discoverers were right, for Symphonia is the Greek word for consonance. But then, instead of pursuing the inquiry by comparing Greek definitions of Harmonia, some of the disputants jumped to the hasty conclusion that the word had, at no time, the sense of simultaneous consonances, but meant only “a succession of intervals, in single notes, according to their scale.” Next, they denned Melodia as “a succession of sounds, according to time, measure, and cadence;” and, thirdly, Symphonia as “differing only from Harmonia and Melodia in that its sequences were limited to such intervals as would make up Fourths, Fifths, and Octaves; and that it did not permit any intermixture of Seconds, Thirds, Sixths, or Sevenths.” So they denied simultaneous consonance even to Symphonia.