User:Diegetic/Notes from Montgomery

Montgomery, H. C. “Some Later Uses of the Greek Tragic Chorus.” The Classical Journal, vol. 38, no. 3, 1942, pp. 148–60. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292138.

Page 149
 * The Greek playwrights of the fifth century paid homage to the chorus' musical and choreographic origins, incorporating dance and sung odes into their work.
 * For example, Aeschylus and Euripides either composed accompaniments to their own tragedies or had accompaniments commissioned, and Sophocles accompanied at least one of his plays on the cithara, a lyre-like instrument.

Florentines
 * Renaissance already at least 200 years old when some Florentine nobles wanted to recreate Greek classic tragedy with music
 * Included Giovanni Bardi (the Conte di Vernio), Piero Strozzi, Vincenzo Galilei (scientist Galileo Galilei's father), and Jacopo Corsi, associated with poet Ottavio Rinuccini and musicians Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini
 * Wanted to revive Greek drama with music to express poetic intension, but Greek music had almost been completely lost at that point.
 * Instead, they started the opera. However, this then caused the opera to go down one path and traditional tragic theater continued on without the chorus.

Schiller Pages 150-151:
 * Friedrich Schiller understood the importance of the chorus in Greek theater and tried to bring it back in his play, the Bride of Messina.
 * Schiller thought the old poets' choruses were inspired by nature, but modern artists had to introduce the chorus in a more poetic manner. He felt that the French tragic playwrights had misunderstood the ancients when they failed to include choruses.
 * To him, the chorus' job was to be "an ideal person" that would enhance the plot and lyrical flair.
 * After it was performed in March 1803 at Weimar, the performance was celebrated by students but denounced by critics, who specifically critiqued the use of the chorus.
 * German poet Schiller Carlyle said that "the chorus retarded the plot, dissipating and diffusing the sympathies."

Wagner Page 152:
 * Richard Wagner was interested in Greek mythology
 * Wrote a letter to Nietzsche saying "No boy could have had greater enthusiasm for classical antiquity than myself."
 * Tried reading Sophocles in the original Greek in 1830, but failed.

Page 154:
 * Wrote his longest work, the Ring, as a trilogy, just like the Oresteia
 * Wrote 1851 essay Opera and Drama, where he pays tribute to Greek drama.

Page 157:
 * Wagner's Use of the orchestra similar to Greek chorus because both generally conclude the drama, "bridg[ing] the space from the dramatic action back to every-day life."