Ancient Greek and Latin Poetry in Modern Musical Settings

• Applicant: Dr. Markus Georg Stachon
• Subject Area: Greek and Latin Philology ; Musicology
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 430431000

When Chr. Zgoll published his Roman verse metre manual in 2012, he supplemented his book with musical recordings of compositions by a musically talented student of his. Half a millenium earlier, K. Celtis similarly asked his student P. Tritonius to set certain Horatian odes to music in a strictly metrical manner so that he could use these settings in his lectures. Since then philologists, musical theorists, and composers had been arguing about appropriate techniques to transform ancient poetry into music. Involved in this debate we find L. Senfl, H. Glarean, Fr. W. Marpurg, G. Hermann, C. Loewe, Fr. Nietzsche, U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, and J. Novák presenting their arguments in form of theoretical treatises or musical pieces respectively. At the same time there have always been settings of ancient poetry (e.g. by O. di Lasso, M. Reger, and C. Orff) that do not treat Greek and Latin any differently than modern national languages. The most comprehensive collection of musical settings of ancient literature that has been undertaken so far is that by J. Draheim who founded an extensive archive of documents concerning musical reception of ancient sources in the library of the University of Heidelberg Classics Department in the 1970s. Unfortunately, this archive which seems to be unique in the world is not yet searchable in any modern way. Therefore, one alphabetical and several systematical bibliographies shall be compiled as part of the present project. In case of rediscovery of rare and not easily accessible pieces, their re-publication is provided, in order to secure their not being forgotten by future researchers. A first precious find that deserves a new edition are Ch. Salaman’s ‘Musical Settings of the Ancient Lyrics’, composed in the style of Romantic lieder for piano and voice. The main part of the project, however, shall be dedicated to compiling a history of Greek and Latin in secular music with a focus on the interactions between scholarly developments in Classics and in Music Theory throughout the past five centuries. Taking the dominant tradition in philological and musicological scholarship regarding plain documentation of antiquity related pieces a step further, the present project shall critically analyze the works under question from a linguistic, literary, and musicological viewpoint. Thus, on the one hand, fresh impulses for pedagogical mediation of ancient literature shall be offered by introducing classicists to lesser known composers, and, on the other hand, a commonly underrepresented genre of classical music shall be rescued from oblivion. As soon as this project’s outputs will make the discussed or even re-published works accessible for scholarship and practical purposes, the ancient language musical pieces might even find their way back into contemporary concert halls.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants