{High Music}[8th November 1990]

[Redbook8:108][19901108:2233e]{High Music}[8th November 1990]

.2233

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‘The musician of antiquity. Much is known about the musician in antiquity, although practically none of the music itself has survived. There is considerable testimony to show that music itself apparently was considered amongst the highest of human accomplishments; in fact, of divine origin. The legend of Marsyas, the human being who dared to challenge Apollo to a musical contest and was flayed for his pains,* was a favourite subject of Hellenistic sculpture. The myth of Orpheus, ** whose playing on the lyre could move even inanimate things to wonder and delight, reveals the almost superstitious awe in which the Greeks held the power of the musician. Musical theory, with its close relationship to mathematics, was regarded as a branch of philosophy. The philosopher Pythagoras (flourished c530BC[E]), who saw the whole universe as a harmony of the spheres, was only one of many who gave the highest intellectual ranking to the study of music. The special status given to music in antiquity continued into the Middle Ages, when music alone, of all the arts, was ranked among the seven branches of learning.’

***

****

*{G~-R~

(cf T.XII-TXIII)}

**[Marginal sub-heading in ms, presumably from source:]’Music as the highest art’

***– ibid, [Encyclopaedia Britannica 14:] 112

****(ref Vol... (earlier)? [[Redbook8:17][19901010:1121]{The Seven Liberal Arts}[10th October 1990]])

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