Music in Roman Comedy
This section deals with the types of verbal music and instruments used in
Roman comedy.
The vocal component of Roman comedy consisted of three elements:
dialogue, song, and recitative. Dialogue was a normal spoken exchange
between characters, and songs were performed by the actors with musical
accompaniment. Recitative was, "a technique of reciting verse with
instrumental accompaniment....One would guess that the verses were
recited in a more stylized manner...than in ordinary dialogue scenes.
Perhaps 'chanted' would be a more appropriate term. (West, 40)" Music
thus pervaded Roman comedy. Much work has been done to determine the
natue of the music, though the rhythms seem best preserved in the
original meters of the plays. Very little melodic notation survives from
antiquity, and none of it from Roman comedies.
One might wonder what exactly is meant by musical accompaniment. An
important insturment on the Roman stage is the Phrygian pipes, also known
as elymoi. The Phrygian pipes were a pair of uneven pipes in which one
of the two, usually the left, "was a hornpipe, having a cow-horn attached
to the end of the pipe and curving upwards from it." Ancient sources
describe them as made of boxwood and having a deeper pitch than their
Greek equivalents. "Latin poets describe their sound as raucous." (West,
91-2) West also mentions the organ and after a lengthy discussion of the
mechanics (and their evolution) of the organ, he says that the organ "was
more commonly to be heard ... in the Roman theatre or amphitheatre. (West
381)"
In the light of these facts, one may now consider Roman comedies musicals
rather than simply plays, keeping in mind the consistency with which
musical instruments were played and how often people sang and performed
their parts in recitative. Music was an integral part of Roman comedy.
"Raucous" pipes, loud, booming organs accompanied the actors as they took
their parts. For a much more extensive discussion of ancient music, one
may wish to read M. L. West's book, Ancient Greek Music. Oxford
University Press: New York, 1992.
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