The Anonymous Writings on Music, Bellermannian are three short anonymous Greek treatises on music, transmitted together and named after Friedrich Bellermann, who first published them in 1841. Their date is uncertain, and much of their matter goes back to Aristoxenus and his followers. The three overlap in places.
The first, headed Art of Music, deals with rhythm, made of arsis, thesis and empty time, the signs for long notes, and the melodic figures, each with its notation and sung syllables, and ends on the diastolē, the sign that divides phrases. The second defines music as the science of perfect melody and divides it into six branches, harmonic, rhythmic, metric, instrumental, poetic and that of the performer, then treats the genera, the classes of instrument, note, interval and system, modulation, and the tonoi of each class of player. The third and longest defines music as a science of melody aimed at forming character and lists the seven topics of harmonics; it treats the movement of the voice and its range, gives notated rhythmic exercises arranged by number of time units with the signs for rests, and closes on the ratios of the octave, fifth, fourth and tone.
Contents
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Τέχνη Μουσικῆς Anonymous I
Headed Art of Music, this section begins with rhythm, made of arsis, thesis and empty time, and the signs for long notes of two to five time units. It then names and defines the melodic figures, prolepsis, eklepsis, prokrousis, ekkrousis, ekkrousmos, kompismos, melismos and teretismos, each with its notation and sung syllables such as tōntō and tanta, and closes on the diastole, the sign that divides phrases in songs and in written instrumental music.
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Βʹ Anonymous II
Music is defined here as the science of perfect melody and divided into six branches: harmonic, rhythmic, metric, instrumental, poetic and the art of the performer. The treatise covers the melodic and rhythmic genera, the classes of instrument, the note, interval and system, and the character of each genus. It ends with the kinds of modulation and the tonoi of each class of player, naming Marsyas, Hyagnis and Olympus as the Phrygians who invented wind music.
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Γʹ Anonymous III
The longest of the three sections defines music as a science of melody aimed at forming character and lists the seven topics of harmonics, from notes and intervals to melodic composition. It treats the movement of the voice, the four regions of its range and the kinds of modulation, then turns to practice: notated rhythmic exercises arranged by number of time units, the signs for rests, and the ratios of the octave, fifth, fourth and tone.