Flacus ( Latin Flaccus ) is a Roman composer of the second century BC. Information about it that has come down to our time is scarce. He was a freedman or a slave of one of the patrons of Terence and wrote scores for his comedies (composing and performing music was considered an occupation unworthy of a free citizen). Terence mentions him in introductions to all his comedies. Flac is the only ancient Roman composer whose music has survived to this day. The musical phrase accompanying one of the lines from the play Terence Mother-in-law was copied (finding it in the manuscript of the tenth century) by the Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli . However, according to musicologist Thomas J. Mathiesen, this phrase is no longer considered authentic.
Literature
- Warren Anderson and Thomas J. Mathiesen. "Terence", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxv, 296.
- Guenther Wille: Musica Romana: Die Bedeutung der Musik im Leben der Roemer (Amsterdam: Schippers, 1967), 158ff, 308ff
- Egert Pöhlmann, ed. Denkmäler altgriechischer Musik: Sammlung, Übertragung und Erläuterung aller Fragmente und Fälschungen (Nuremberg, 1970). ISBN 3-418-00031-2 (1971 edition)
- This book contains the single neumed line of music.