Ajschylos
Euripides, *ca 480 BCE Salamis, †406 BCE Pella (Macedonia), Greek tragedian. Author of 92 plays, of which 17 tragedies and one satyr-play (The Cyclops) have survived (excluding fragments). He was an anti-traditionalist fighting for a new social structure and a new morality, he was also an innovator in the form of tragedy and its mode of expression, opposing the classical art of Aeschylus and, above all, Sophocles. He employed strong contrasts, used sudden shifts in the plot, and introduced unexpected divine intervention in the conclusion (theós apo mēchanēs). He limited the role of the chorus, using it episodically (the so-called embolima) or alternating it with a soloist (the amoebean style), and significantly expanded the monodic parts (solos and duets); particularly characteristic of Euripides’ technique are the great monologues (often of tragic female characters: Alcestis, Andromache, Electra, Medea, Iphigenia, and others), ridiculed by his contemporaries (e.g., by Aristophanes) but admired by later generations. He wrote most often in choriambic dimeter (with a preference for the glyconic verse) and in meters deliberately combined in contrast (dochmius, iamb, anapest) to achieve a particular expressiveness. Over the years, he increasingly moved away from the enshrined in tradition responsorial structure of stanzas (the correspondence between strophe and antistrophe), shaping his works on the principle of monodic narration (astrophia). A fragment of the first stasimon from Euripides’ Orestes (408 BCE), recorded on papyrus around 200 BCE, is considered the oldest of the dozen or so known examples of ancient Greek music.
Euripides’ tragedies aroused great interest among composers, primarily as the basis for opera librettos. In the 18th century, the two tragedies about Iphigenia gained the greatest popularity among opera composers: Iphigenia in Aulis (among others, D. Scarlatti 1713, C.W. Gluck 1774) and Iphigenia in Tauris (A. Campra, with H. Desmarets, 1704, D. Scarlatti 1713, T. Traetta 1763, Ch.W. Gluck 1779). Alcestis was frequently adapted (Ch.W. Gluck 1767, R. Boughton 1922, E. Wellesz 1934), Medea (L. Cherubini 1797, D. Milhaud 1939), and The Bacchae (E. Wellesz 1931, F. Ghedini 1948), which also served as the basis for the libretto of A. Bruneau’s ballet (1912). Other sources of inspiration were Hecuba (G.F. Malipiero 1941), Hippolytus (W. Sienilov 1915), and The Trojan Women (S. Barber’s Andromache’s Farewell for soprano and orchestra, Op. 39, 1962; J. Bruzdowicz 1972).
Literature: Musici scriptores Graeci, ed. K. v. Jan, Leipzig 1895, reprint Hildesheim 1962 (transcription in enharmonic notation of an excerpt from Orestes); E. Martin Trois documents de musique grecque, Paris 1953; D.D. Feaver The Musical Setting of Eurypides’ “Orestes”, “American Journal of Philology” 1960; L. Richter Die neue Musik der griechischen Antike, Beihefte zum „Archiv für Musikwissenschaft” 1968 Nos. 1 and 2 (analysis of an excerpt from Orestes); L. Richter Uwagi na temat fragmentu muzycznego z tragedii Eurypidesa “Orestes”, “Muzyka” 1969 No. 4.