One should not measure oneself with gods because they are miserable losers.

In any case, the satyr Marsyas, who challenges the god Apollo to a musical competition, has no chance from the start.

The winner should be chosen by the muses who are in Apollon's entourage and can at least be regarded as biased.

But when these surprisingly lean towards Marsyas, Apollo uses another trick: The satyr plays the aulos, the double flute, while Apollo plays the kithara, a stringed instrument held in his arms, so that he can decide the competition by going to the game also sings what the aulos-wind player is naturally not allowed to do.

Tilman Spreckelsen

Editor in the features section.

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It was agreed that the winner can do whatever he likes with the loser.

Apollo leaves no doubt as to what his challenger will do, a Phrygian soldier waits with a long knife before the competition, in order to later peel the skin of the satyr alive.

It shows a relief from Mantineia discovered in 1887, which is attributed to the sculptor Praxiteles and can be seen in a cast in Basel.

But it also shows a musician who backs away from his murderer, but not from the competition that has already been decided.

He will play his instrument, on which he has achieved virtuosity through long practice, he will give the muses one last concert that they will remember for a long time.

Even if it costs him his life.

In silence and yet moving

The exhibition “Of Harmony and Ecstasy” in the Antikenmuseum Basel examines the role that music played in ancient cultures and what ideas the practice of music was associated with. In contrast to a thematically similar exhibition that was shown some time ago in the Martin von Wagner Museum in Würzburg, the Antikenmuseum does not primarily focus on the real instruments and their sound, although there is one in the middle of the only room, which is otherwise only divided by printed banners self-contained sound box was built for the acoustic transmission of sound samples.

In addition, some showcases show original antique instruments, such as an Egyptian harp from the 13th century BC or an Egyptian lute that is one to three centuries older, the body of which is noticeably small, so that its tone may not have sounded very wide. Other instruments - for example a kithara or a barbitos - are shown as replicas by Conrad Steinmann, and three auloi made of wood and bone can also be seen.

The focus, however, is on pictorial and plastic representations of musicians and their listeners. The exhibits are not arranged chronologically or geographically, which would certainly have been informative in a different way, but primarily thematically. How does music accompany people of antiquity in life and death, what role does it play in love, in cult, in battle?