Melanippides

Ancient Greek Musician, Poet. A celebrated kithara player of the 5th Century BC, he is said to have spearheaded Greece's "New Music" revolution. Melanippides was born in the Aegean island of Melos (now Milos). It appears he made his home in Athens while touring other city-states as a kitharode; he was certainly there in the early years of the Peloponnesian War, which began in 431 BC. His greatest student was Philoxenus of Cythera, whom he purchased as a young slave and later freed. Melanippides was in Athens no later than 415 BC, when the Athenians conquered his homeland of Melos and killed or enslaved most of its population. He died in Pella around 410 BC, while serving at the court of Archelaus of Macedon. As a composer Melanippides was famed for his innovative dithyrambs, choral hymns to the wine god Dionysus. Plutarch described the dithyramb as "full of passions and a modulation that has a certain wandering and dissipation", qualities that made it ripe for experiment. Under Melanippides its poetic language and musical elements grew more elaborate. He replaced the traditional aulos (flute) accompaniment with the kithara, increasing its number of strings to 10 for greater complexity, and did away with the strict antistrophic form by including extensive lyric solos. Some critics complained he robbed the dithyramb of dignity and opened the door to its further "debasement" by later "New Music" composers, such as Timotheus of Miletus, Euripides and Philoxenus. But their efforts revitalized the genre, and for the rest of antiquity Melanippides was honored as a master of music. Fragments of three of his works, "Marsyas", "Danaides" and "Persephone", have survived, none with their music.