記述理論から規範美学へ

メーイの旋法体系と古代音楽像

抄録

Ptolemy’s system of tonoi as Girolamo Mei in his chief treatise De modis (1567-73) interprets it is an amalgamation of both octave-species and pitch-keys. While they affect the listener in either terms, it is by different pitches that Mei most often talks of as the way they work. The correspondence of the pitch at which a melody lies with the emotion it excites was, according to him, arranged by “nature” itself, but has been developed by human usage. This speculative hypothesis is supported by Aristides Quintilianus’ and Plato’s evidence which Mei cites for ancient practice. The result is a grand theory, however sketchy it may be, of ancient music’s strong emotive power. Aristotle’s Poetics functioned as catalysis for this theory. For Mei assumed a crucial role of music in the overwhelming passions (pity, fear and catharsis) of ancient tragedy, which he interpreted from the Poetics as sung from beginning to end. Viewed from a historical perspective, Mei joined the two formerly unrelated traditions, of the mathematical theory of harmonics and of literary criticism prompted by the Aristotelian Poetics, for the first time in the history of Western music and philosophy. With him, music theory became aesthetics of music.