The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Inspired by Hellenic performance practice

Apollo and Diana with Greecian
instruments.– Picture Collection, NYPL

Some maverick composers of the 20th century departed from the ubiquitous 12-tone equally tempered scale, which was the basis for European art music. They revived and altered scales based on the intonation principles found in ancient Greek modes. In keeping with this back to the future movement, some of these composers wrote for, or adapted, the ancient instruments that had been originally used to perform this ancient music.

Theatre practices have also been adapted. Masks come in and out of fashion with experimental performance. American reflections of the role of the chorus in Greek theater shifted through the century. In the 1920s and 1930s, when constructivism was influential, the mass movement, single voiced chorus was expanded. Since the Poor Theatre movement of the 1960s, the actors in the chorus have been encouraged to develop individual characters and “biographies.”