A Musical Quarrel Between Ancients And Moderns In Ancient Greek: A Study On Plutarch’s On Music

In the history of ancient Greek music which lasted over a thousand years,Plutarch’s On Music is undoubtedly a distinctive text. In chronological order, it is themost recent one in the musical literature of this period. According to its content, it isa comprehensive overview of the history of ancient Greek music. There are not anysimilar systematically discusses before it. What’s more noticeable is that it is aliterary dialogue on a drinking feast, which has a totally difference from the formalacademic researches on music. The text gave us a suggestive idea that it is imitatingPlato’s dialogue, and it also is an echo of Plato’s question.In the musical literature of ancient Greek, the scholars interpreted music orharmonics as a pure science. They employed technological forms to study thereasons and regular patterns in music science, which did not include moral judgments.Plutarch’s On Music are not in this research tradition. The author thought that thetechnological research of music could not solve a more fundamental theme of music:what is the judgmental standard of good music. On Music changed the technologicalpoint of view into the pursuing of the noble moral values.In the musical development of ancient Greek, the musicians recognized music’sgoodness as technology development and innovation. They tried to create new formsto be distinctive from their predecessors. The regular forms of music were broke andsubverted. The musicians were too extravagant to pursue the complexity andunconventional approach. This did not make the music better, but to make musicbecome excessive confusion. People lost resolution and evaluation criteria, andfinally pushed music to the dead end. This modern concept of musical developmentshould not be a standard of good music. However, many wonderful music and noblevalues did exist in ancients’ wisdom and their music. The author invited us to study ancient music and seek the real musical standard in them. On Music opened up amusical quarrel between ancients and moderns which is also a debate between valueand technology. The author abandoned the modern concept of musical development,and released the music from the limits of acoustic science. In this way, the goodquality of music was kept apart from the excessive expansion of technology, and italso kept the chances for music to pursue beauty and noble values.Ancient music gave more attention to the musical quality and the spiritualpursuit. Ancient musician spent more efforts on the relationship between music anduniverse, music and human soul. Music students could not study acoustic science andtechnology only, to understand the real standard of music. In addition to a systematiclearning of harmonics and musical technology, students should be familiar with allthe outstanding musical works, what’s more, philosophy and moral education areindispensable. After a comprehensive musical education, musicians could be hostileto vulgar music and poor taste. Finally they would perceive the beauty and the realstandard of music, and establish a reverence for the noble values. Philosophy andpious deity achieve their perfect unity at the highest music.