1

Plato, one of our Western philosophical fathers, turns out to be a music critic even in his dying moments criticizing a flute music performance he enjoyed in his last evening!

A passage deciphered from the scroll shows that the philosopher spent his last evening listening to flute music played by a Thracian slave girl. ... Not only did the translation of the scroll tell us what HE was listening to during his final moments, but it also tells us that he was critical of the musical performance ...

While the above is just an anecdote, because Plato's ideas are so wide ranging I wonder whether he has written on how to form a musician or his ideas on what makes a beautiful music, similar to how he was famous for his idea for the ideal State and how elite men are to be educated to become ideal Statesmen.

Which led me to ask: based on the extant information, what kind of music does Plato consider beautiful in terms of its modes, instrumentation, harmony, rhythm, genre, etc?

I construe this question similar to how one would ask what were Johann Joseph Fux's main ideas on counterpoint since he wrote the famous treatise Gradus ad Parnassum.

Improve this question
1
  • I think this is a valuable question to formulate and also strongly suspect it cannot be answered with what we currently (don't) know about Ancient Greek music. Briefly, there is existing writing from Ancient Greece that is almost certainly written music, but music historians and musicologists haven't been able to certain how the writing was interpreted and played. So even if there are words from Plato about liking a particular piece, we probably don't know how that piece actually sounded. There might be opinions about meters of song, that might be the best we can do.
    – Todd Wilcox
    Commented Apr 30 at 18:15

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Plato does not write about what makes music beautiful for its own sake, just what makes music philosophically consistent with the needs of creating and maintaining his ideal society.

Plato, insofar as his known writings, concerns himself with the role of music in society. To this end, he is quite restrictive in the instruments, rhythms, modes, and lyrics that can be permitted in his ideal society, but he takes a functional approach rather than an aesthetic one. In some cases, he indicates the existence of musical aspects that fit his expectations, but either takes their definitions as commonly understood or leaves their definition to others (specifically, Damon, who was an Athenian musicologist, though there seem to be no extant writings).

For a representative sampling of Plato's music-related writings, see "Plato on Music" (link opens a DOCX file).

Improve this answer
2
0

Fux wrote for musical instruction, Plato did not. You will not be able to get a musical treatise, not in the sense of Fux's treatise, from Plato. What I know of Plato comes from The Republic and The Symposium. Plato believed music could effect people's emotions and behavior. He recommended censoring music for the sake of morals and the state.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.