Lamprus of Erythrae

Lamprus of Erythrae or Lamprus of Athens (Ancient Greek: Λάμπρος) was an ancient Greek musician with excellent skill at the playing of the lyre.[1]

Life

He was born in Athens,[2][3] alive in the early part of the fifth century B.C.E., and taught music to Sophocles according to some.[4][5] He was a teacher of the lyre[6] and dance.[7]

A teacher named Lamprus, sometime before 343 B.C.E, while in Mantineia,[8][9] is held to have taught Aristoxenus.[10][11] However, the fifth-century Lamprus would not have survived long enough to be the teacher of Aristoxenus, so that "Either this is a Lamprus of whom we know nothing else, or the reference has been added to the biographical tradition in order to emphasize Aristoxenus' connection with traditional ancient Greek music as opposed to the "New Music" of the late fifth and fourth centuries.[12]

He was noted for his sober lifestyle, choosing to drink water instead of wine; Phrynichus said of him, "that the gulls lamented, when Lamprus died among them, being a man who was a water-drinker, a subtle hypersophist, a dry skeleton of the Muses, a nightmare to nightingales, a hymn to hell."[13]

Music

The music of Lamprus is considered restrained, indicating a sober temperament, rather than wild and realistic.[14]

Plato's Socrates recognizes Lamprus as a great music teacher, although placing him below his own teacher, Connus son of Metrobius (Menexenus 236a). Lamprus was also praised by Cornelius Nepos.[15] Pseudo-Plutarch's De Musica 1142b "quotes Aristoxenus as including Lamprus among lyric composers who composed good songs."[12] Lamprus, the "most distinguished musician of his day,"[16] was a famous composer in Sophocles' day[17] and was considered by some as perhaps the greatest musician of his time.[18]

Notes

  1. ↑ H. W. Garrod The Classical Review 34: 129–136. 1920. doi:10.1017/S0009840X00014013. JSTOR 700422. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ↑ musesrealm.net
  3. ↑ msu.edu website
  4. ↑ page.123 of Mary Ellen Snodgrass & James Lamar Roberts [1988] books.google.co.uk website Retrieved 2011-12-03. ISBN 0-8220-0566-2.
  5. ↑ Copyright © 1997–2010. European Graduate School EGS egs.edu website Retrieved 2011-12-03.
  6. ↑ Bigelow, Caroline musesrealm.net website
  7. ↑ William Smith (ed) (1870) ancientlibrary.com website Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology ISBN 1-84511-002-1
  8. ↑ Thomas J. Mathiesen within website of books.google.co.uk (p.294) Apollo's lyre: Greek music and music theory in antiquity and the Middle Ages] Check |url= value (help). University of Nebraska Press ( 1999 ).ISBN 0803230796 Retrieved 2011-09-13.
  9. ↑ Lewis Rowell jstor.org website
  10. ↑ Andrew Barker ebooks.cambridge.org Retrieved 2011-12-03.
  11. ↑ Moore, K. R. (2009). Was Pythagoras Ever Really in Sparta? (PDF). rosetta.bham.ac.uk website). p. 17. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
  12. 1 2 Christopher C. Marchetti, Aristoxenus Elements of Rhythm, Diss. Rutgers 1999, p. 3, citing Laloy 1904, p. 11 for the chronological problem.
  13. ↑ Translated by C.D.Yonge (1854) (attalus.org website) from excerpts of Athenaeus : The Deipnosophists - BOOK 2 : [21.]. Retrieved 2011-09-13.
  14. ↑ Blake Tyrrell (Michigan State University) scholar.lib.vt.edu LIFE OF SOPHOCLES Retrieved 2011-09-14.
  15. ↑ J.Dymock & D.Dymock (1833) Bibliotheca classica (books.google.co.uk webite)
  16. ↑ Stanley Hochman [1984] books.google.co.uk McGraw-Hill publishing ISBN 0-07-079169-4
  17. ↑ notablebiographies.com
  18. ↑ libertyfund.org website Retrieved 2011-09-13.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, October 16, 2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.