@Aaron @AndyBonner Our Western father Plato was a music critic, even to his last moment !, criticizing a flute music performance. I wonder what was the mode of that music 😊.

@GratefulDisciple Lol, I love the notion that someone is such a crank that their dying breath is "Your rhythm is off."

"Maybe I would have pulled through... IF YOU COULD COUNT"

@AndyBonner Hehehe... but to give him benefit of the doubt of also being a most profound thinker, maybe he gave a grandfatherly advice to a budding musician. Anyway, I asked the question, hopefully it is "on-topic".

@GratefulDisciple Sadly I don't think that's on topic here. It may be on topic at Music Fans. @Dom , what do you reckon?

It would be more on-topic on music fans as it would be approached from a critic's perspective.

@GratefulDisciple I think the only problem is that "What were Plato's ideals regarding music" is too broad. We do have a LOT that he wrote on the topic. And "what was it about that flute performance that he didn't like" might be too simple; from what I can tell it was just that it was inexpertly executed.

@AndyBonner I'm still figuring out this site. My aim is Plato's views as a music aesthetician similar to how Johann Joseph Fux wrote his treatise on counterpoint: Gradus ad Parnassum. Is it on topic if I ask Fux's ideas (i.e. dogmas) on counterpoint? If so, can I then ask a question on Plato's "dogmas" on classical Greek music? Is that still too broad?

I'm not sure I would consider Fux's Counterpoint aesthetics. There's a very clear goal of counterpoint and while it is true some of it relays on cultural views of consonance and dissonance, the core ideas are applicable anywhere for making voices independent.

Yeah, one of the reasons Gradus is still in use in theory courses today is that it's a very practical "step by step" instruction manual

@Dom @AndyBonner I see. I guess I'll have to read it for myself (found a copy here). If Aristotle's Poetics could serve as theory AND a guide to write good tragedy/comedy, I assumed Fux would do the same. If not him, who would be a Baroque era figure who wrote on musical aesthetics?

Well, there's a lot!

Cassini's "Nuove Musiche" is a big treatise about vocal practice

And personally I've always enjoyed Johann Johachim Quantz' On Playing the Flute. It reads easily and is full of universal musical advice that's surprisingly relevant even to modern musicians.

Both those are more practical than abstract aesthetics though, I suppose

In general, we see more of that; there are a lot of baroque treatises on the execution of certain instruments, and fewer on composition itself

Mersenne's Harmonie Universelle probably gets more at what you're thinking of though

It's a massive accomplishment, essentially a music encyclopedia

@AndyBonner Thanks for all those references. Will keep me busy :-).

An even more comprehensive encyclopedia is Praetorius' Syntagma Musicum. I'm pretty sure its first volume has some aesthetics. I've mainly concerned myself with his second volume, a description of every kind of instrument he can think of, with fun illustrations

BTW, one of my kids is learning violin and recently joined a church orchestra. I'm present during the lessons; so much nuances you can make with a violin (plus all those exercises to make you proficient)! No wonder violin can be so expressive.

@GratefulDisciple There's kind of where I'd say distinction is. I'd say that writing a tragedy or comedy isn't really a defined goal like Fux's counterpoint would be. There's a lot more subjectiveness and creativity to be applied.

A lot of potential pieces can fulfill that in many different ways.

@Dom Fux, I think, is wholly about aesthetics, if not always explicitly so. The clear motivation he articulates at the beginning is that he considers Palestrina to be "real" art (my term) and that "modern" music (again, my term) is taking things to far, so to speak. The entire text, about how to properly handle dissonances, create melodious tunes, and create compelling rhythms, is all based in a very specific musical aesthetic.

@GratefulDisciple This is a really interesting discussion you've kicked off. Plato, as Michael Curtis points out in his answer, was concerned less with the specifics of musical aesthetics and more concerned with its role and impact in society. Tangential to this topic, Satie's Gymnopedie were his imagining of the artistic dances Greek boys would do.