2) Greinar um tónlist, viðtöl og sjónvarpsþættir
Heimsóknir
228905

Höfundaréttur © Guðmundur Emilsson. Allur réttur áskilinn samkvæmt Bernarsáttmálanum, með viðaukum.
Menntastofnunum er heimilt að nota þessa síðu sé eigenda höfundarréttar getið.

Grein Geralds Shapiros - birtist í Morgunblaðinu 1.apríl, 2014

 

Gerald ShapiroBack at Eastman in 1960 they taught us that the

first composers (meaning Western European males

who put notes on pieces of paper and signed them)

were the 12th Century School of Notra Dame masters,

Leonin and Perotin. But Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

predates them, and Khosrovidukht, an Armenian poet

and composer who died in 737 predates her. The Gregorian

Chants that preceded all of that are anonymous, but someone

must have composed them. 

We have treatises on musical theory from classical Greece, but no actual music. The

composer Flaccus is mentioned in plays from the 2nd Century BC. The prize for the oldest

known piece of written music probably goes to "The Solitary Orchid", attributed to Confucious.

Going back still further into mythic times, Jubal is the Bible's first musician, but there's no

actual music from him either. For the Greeks, it's Orpheus, son of Calliope, taught by Apollo

who some say was his father and all agree was the inventor of music. In Chinese mythology

it's Ling Lun, who made bamboo pipes and was taught by the birds. Supporting Ling's claim to

primacy, the earliest known instrument, and one of the earliest known implements of modern

man, a bird bone flute, datesfrom 40,000 ago in Southern Germany. Before flutes, people must

have sung. Among the Kaluli, a stone-age people from Papua New Guinea first contacted by

the developed world in the 1950's there were many composers, men and women alike, regularly

composing new songs for rituals and social events. Who was the first composer? The first human.

Who taught her? The birds, the wind, the heart. Music is a way of listening, not the sound which

is listened to.