The Temple of Music of Robert Fludd
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The Temple of Music of Robert Fludd
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The Temple of Music of Robert Fludd
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OBER FLUDD (1574-1637) IS WELL KNOWN among historians o science and philosophy or his intriguing work, Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia Te Metaphysical, Physical and echnical History o both Major and Minor Worlds, in which music plays an important role in his system o neoplatonic correspondences: the harmony o the universe macrocosm as well as the harmony o man microcosm. ‘Te emple o Music’ 161718 is one section o this treatise, and deals with music theory, practice and organology. Many musicologists today have dismissed Fludd’s musical ideas as conservative and outmoded or mainly based on antasy; only the chapters on instruments have received some attention. However, reading Fludd’s work on music theory and practice in the context o his own time and comparing it with other contemporary treatises, it is apparent that much o it contains highly original ideas and cannot be considered old ashioned or conservative. It is evident that Fludd’s music philosophy inuenced and provoked contemporary natural philosophers such as Marin Mersenne and Johannes Kepler. Less well known is the act that Fludd’s music theory reveals aspects o the development o new concepts that may have inspired contemporary writers on music such as John Coprario and Tomas Campion...
Extract rom Peter Hauge, “‘Te emple o Music’ by Robert Fludd” in Music Teory in Britain, 1500–1700: Critical Editions 2011
HE EMPLE, PRESIDED OVER by Apollo the god o rational music and Talia the joyous muse, contains within its structure representations o the various aspects o musical knowledgea clock representing the durations o musical time, a monochord tower signiying the proper divisions, a lower vestibule showing Pythagoras and the smithy, grati on the walls presenting musical notation, two entryways representing the portals o the ears, and a spiral near the top signiying air set in motion by sound. Te temple serves as a mnemonic device to structure both the treatise and one’s comprehension o music. As the treatise proceeds, Fludd examines the temple in detail with illustrations o enlarged portions o the structure serving to guide his discussion. Fludd divides his treatise into an introduction and seven books. Te introduction describes the temple briey. Te rst book introduces the subject o music with denitions and etymologies. Tis book introduces the quasi Porphyrian trees that serve to structure much o the inormation Fludd presents this compendious method o presentation was employed earlier by Artusi in his summary o Zarlino’s work. Te second book briey discusses the hexachords arid the third addresses the ratios o the intervals via the monochord. Te ourth book deals with rhythmic concerns; the h provides an introduction to composition; the sixth addresses organology; and the seventh presents an automaton or music making o the author’s invention thus tying this book into the seventeenth century craze or automata. Extract o a review by Chadwick Jenkins, City University o Arno York o Peter Hauge’s “‘Te emple o Music’ by Robert Fludd” in Music Teory in Britain, 1500–1700: Critical Editions 2011 rom Notes, June, 2012, the quarterly journal o the Music Library Association.
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The Temple of Music of Robert Fludd
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HILE FLUDD CERAINLY BELIEVED that the whole cosmos was generated through numbers and proportions and was thereore inherently musical, this should not lead us to discount his treatment o ‘real’ music.
Fludd’s ‘emple’ has been overlooked by musicologists mainly because a it is in Latin, unlike most other seventeenthcentury English music theory, and b it is embedded within his monumental history o the macrocosm and microcosm, a publication that led him into vituperative controversy with two prominent Continental natural philosophers, Johannes Kepler 1571–1630 and Marin Mersenne 1588–1648. As the authors respectively o Harmonices mundi libri V Linz, 1619 and Harmonie universelle Paris, 1636, Kepler and Mersenne, no less than Fludd, understood the universe to be harmonically constructed. But or reasons that lie beyond the scope o this review, these critics judged his entire philosophical method as alse and his adherence to the Pythagorean division o the monochord as essentially outmoded. Tis opinion soon became orthodoxy, and while they have become icons o the Scientic Revolution, Fludd has been typecast as a misguided supporter o magical and mystical thinking that was swept away by the Enlightenment. Tis appraisal was urther reinorced by the eighteenthcentury music historian John Hawkins’s discovery that much o the ‘emple’ was copied verbatim rom the ourteenthcentury English Quatuor principalia musicae rather than being original to Fludd, and thereore deserved no interest p. 7. However, Fludd’s tendency to cut and paste material without attribution was absolutely normal or his time... [He] also applied the same bricolage techniques to visual inormation, copying earlier images or adapting them or his own use... it is revealing to learn that the mnemonic image o the ‘emple’ was derived rom a variety o sources and built around a common ramework, and is thereore not quite as original as has previously been thought. Te composition o the ‘emple’ as a whole, however, was something new, and shows Fludd’s skill in using graphic images as a tool or communicating and memorising complex inormation. Tis was a pedagogical method that was becoming more widespread thanks to print technology, the disadvantage being as the ‘emple’ shows that errors could be made in production that rendered such images distinctly problematic. Despite its aws, the ‘emple’ adds up to something more than the sum o its various parts, and throws light on an aspect o early modern European musical culture, including what was classied as speculative music or harmonics, that thanks to our ocus on practice has efectively been lost rom view by music historians. Extract o a review by Penelope Gouk University o Manchester o Peter Hauge’s “‘Te emple o Music’ by Robert Fludd” in Music Teory in Britain, 1500–1700: Critical Editions 2011 rom Music and Letters, Volume 93, Issue 3, pp. 401404.
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The Temple of Music of Robert Fludd ROBERT FLUDD’S TEMPLE OF MUSIC Translated by Todd Barton, M.A.
Tis description which accompanies the rontispiece o Fludd’s emple o Music is taken rom the Utriusque Cosmi Historia , ractate II, Part 2, p 161162.
HE POES, WHOSE EFFORS ARE ACCUSOMED to be assiduously engaged with ables and images, would be singing about the buildings and wonderul sight o this temple. Indeed, they may have pursued this subject with even greater acumen since, aer all, music derived its name rom their goddesses, the Muses, just as is evident rom its etymology. I beseech, thereore, that I may ask pardon rom them i I permit mysel to be led very much without measure by the invention and stimulus o poetical madness in the description o this temple. Tus let us imagine this emple o Music to be built on the top o Mt. Parnassus, the abode o the Muses, adorned in every part with eternally green and owering woods and elds, and pleasantly surrounded by crystal ountains owing here and there in diferent directions whose murmur oen brings a peaceul sleep to passersby. Birds requent these parts and inhabit the woods pouring orth diverse consonances o sound in greater symphony. Tey seem diligently to lay the basis or oundation by means o their higher, more piercing song ; through their melody the Nymphs themselves around the temple, the Satyrs led through the woods by Sylvanus and the shepherds led through the elds by Pan, are all moved to engage in choral dances. Among these delights, thereore, that divine gi o Apollo is established, preserved and indeed worshipped by the adoration o all souls. All o its constituent parts are given up to peace and concord, in the mysteries o harmony and symphony, including the concords o heaven and the elements, so mutually bound to each other that it would be necessary or the whole world to perish and be reduced to nothing by the stries o discord beore these consonances would either disappear or be destroyed. Tereore, the protectress or goddess o this temple is Concordia, Inefable Concord, great ofspring o the Being o Beings, by whose adoration little things grow, and by whose contempt great things all to pieces. Its guardian or priestess is Talia, most delightul o the nine Muses, by the example o whose harmony the occult mysteries are explained to pilgrims who suppliantly seek her oracles. Tereore a man with a keen eye or knowledge will pay attention to any part o this structure and not disdain the smallest portion, because it is moved by that harmonic soul o Apollo in each part as in its whole. Tat spirit o music, aer the manner o a zephyr, is accustomed to blow through all the sinews o this building, soothing and gladdening the souls o living beings, carrying away with itsel the lusts o man, and restraining the madness o evil demons as i imbuing them with a certain humanity. 5
The Temple of Music of Robert Fludd You should eagerly contemplate the spiral revolution o the larger tower o the temple, which denotes the motion o air, aer it is caused to resound by sound or voice. Te two doors represent the ears, the organs o hearing, without which the emitted sound cannot be perceived, nor may one enter this temple except by them. In the ollowing place you will see its three smaller towers representing the arrangements o notes, rotundum, quadrature and naturalis. And with the observation o these, three rectangles must be careully examined in order to determine the diverse natures, names and places o the aorementioned notes in the demonstrated system anything placed under any tower is naturally related to that tower. Te pipes or organs o these rectangles, distinct in their height, denote the diference o voices and sounds o any rectangle. Indeed, the division o the column o this temple must not be disdained, since it will delineate the true proportions and diverse species o consonances. Te clock must also be zealously pondered lest time waver unexpectedly or advance with too slow a pace, that is, one which does not observe proportion or measure. And so, this clock is a sort o guardian o the regular times o notes and a most ample mirror o their simple value. Why then will not the triangle o proportionate quantity have to be inspected, which probes into the diversity o the proportion o tines in diminution as well as in augmentation and clearly shows the perection and imperection o notes ? Also the triangle o the system o harmonious intervals, as it were the end o all the remaining mysteries, ought to be looked into with no little care, since through it and rom it all the concord o music are produced, without which no harmony is made. Beyond this triangle is depicted the story in which the discovery o its consonances is told, namely the observations o Pythagoras, who passing by a certain blacksmith’s shop by chance hearing an agreement rom the striking o our hammers, ordered the hammers to be weighed, and rom the diference o their weights he discovered the three musical proportions o consonances ; diatessaron, diapente, and diapason which we have very plainly explained by the letters and connection o letters in the three windows o the temple which are equally o use in the composition o musical harmony and the harmonical triangle. Tereore, eager reader, i you keenly examined these parts o the temple, you will be a partaker o all o its mysteries and a great master o this excellent science.
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