page_title: Choir
section_title: Antiquity
hierarchical_section_title: Choir / History / Antiquity
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Relief votif en marbre, trouvé au Pirée. Dionysos est montré allongé sur une couche (klinè), tenant un rhyton et une phiale. Au pied de la couche se tient une femme, Paideia, tournée vers un homme qui tient un masque de théâtre dans la main gauche. Deux acteurs sont présents, l'un tient un tympanon et l'autre un masque et un tympanon. Le relief fut dédié par les acteurs au dieu Dionysos après une représentation théâtrale, peut-être les Bacchantes d'Euripide. Vers 400 av. J.-C. Musée archéologique national, Athènes, n°1500.
context_page_description: A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm and face gestures.
  A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus. The former term is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church and the second to groups that perform in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is far from rigid. Choirs may sing without instrumental accompaniment, with the accompaniment of a piano or pipe organ, with a small ensemble, or with a full orchestra of 70 to 100 musicians.
  The term choir has the secondary definition of a subset of an ensemble; thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices or instruments in a polychoral composition.
context_section_description: The origins of choral music are found in traditional music, as singing in big groups is extremely widely spread in traditional cultures (both singing in one part, or in unison, like in Ancient Greece, as well as singing in parts, or in harmony, like in contemporary European choral music).
  The oldest unambiguously choral repertory that survives is that of ancient Greece, of which the 2nd century BC Delphic hymns and the 2nd century AD. hymns of Mesomedes are the most complete. The original Greek chorus sang its part in Greek drama, and fragments of works by Euripides (Orestes) and Sophocles (Ajax) are known from papyri. The Seikilos epitaph (2c BC) is a complete song (although possibly for solo voice). One of the latest examples, Oxyrhynchus hymn (3c) is also of interest as the earliest Christian music.
  Of the Roman drama's music a single line of Terence surfaced in the 18c. However, musicologist Thomas J. Mathiesen comments that it is no longer believed to be authentic.
caption: Relief, now in Athens, showing Dionysus with actresses (possibly from The Bacchae) carrying masks and drums
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