The Music of Tragedy

"Weiss offers us a new way of seeing how choruses are central characters in Euripides’ late plays, even when they seem at first glance far removed from what is going on around them. Her work is an excellent example of the current revolution in the study of ancient music, which is refuting definitively the facile assumption that tragedy's music in unknowable and therefore uninteresting."

— Bryn Mawr Classical Review

“[This] work is highly valuable. It will add depth of understanding to those interested in Euripides and Greek tragedy, and the role of mousikê in a variety of genres. It adds a new perspective on debate regarding the nature of the New music and provides extra dimension to the currently voguish focus on the role of the chorus. Most critically, it relocates the reader through time and space, allowing at least a glimpse of the immersive choral culture for which we are in want.” 

— The Classical Review

"This outstanding book is the first entirely devoted to Euripidean music."

— Greek and Roman Musical Studies

"An elegiac tone runs through NaomiWeiss’ careful, learned, and compelling book, a subtle basso ostinato suggesting that Euripides’ late tragedies can never be experienced as vividly or as urgently as they once were. I recommend her book both for its masterful display of scholarly skill and for this moving and provocative sense of loss."

— Classical Philology