Music in Society
In spite of the purported lack of musical originality on the part of the Romans, they did enjoy music greatly and used it for many activities. Scott recounts the obvious military uses of the tuba for signaling, as well as music for funerals, private gatherings, public performances on the stage and large gladiatorial spectacles. Music was also used in religious ceremonies. The Romans cultivated music as a sign of education. Music contests were quite common and attracted a wide range of competition, including Nero himself, who performed widely as an amateur and once traveled to Greece to compete.
There are also numerous references (cited in Scott) to the pervasive presence of music in ancient Rome, music even on a very large scale — hundreds of trumpeters and pipers playing together at massive games and festivals — and even of normally hand-held citharas built as large as carriages.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Ancient Rome
Famous quotes containing the words music in, music and/or society:
“The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I used to be angry all the time and I’d sit there weaving my anger. Now I’m not angry. I sit there hearing the sounds outside, the sounds in the room, the sounds of the treadles and heddles—a music of my own making.”
—Bhakti Ziek (b. c. 1946)
“... she was a woman. She had been taught from her earliest childhood to make use of this talent which God had endowed her, would be an outrage against society; so she lived for a few years, going through the routine of breakfasts and dinners, journeys and parties, that society demanded of her, and at last sank into her grave, after having been of little use to the world or herself.”
—Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898)