A01=Benjamin Wardhaugh
A01=Christopher D.S. Field
alsted
Author_Benjamin Wardhaugh
Author_Christopher D.S. Field
baroque composition techniques
Bibliotheque Royale De Belgique
Bodley's Librarian
Bodley’s Librarian
Boyle Papers
Category=AVA
Category=AVL
Category=AVLA
Christopher Gibbons
Chromatic Semitones
Compleat Scale
dedicatory
Diatonic Semitone
Dissonant Intervals
early modern music treatises research
edward
epistle
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Erycius Puteanus
heinrich
Henry Oldenburg
Item A2926
johann
John Birchensha
Letter Book Original
Manuscript Commonplace Book
mathematical music analysis
Minor Semitone
montagu
Morley's Plaine
Morley’s Plaine
music education methods
music theory history
musical ratios
Newton's Reply
Newton’s Reply
Royal Society science
Royale De Belgique
rules of composition
seventeenth century musicology
short
Simpson's Compendium
Simpson’s Compendium
Sir Robert Moray
Syntagma music
Taylor's Manuscript
Taylor’s Manuscript
title
Treble Clef
Viscount Brouncker
Vpper Part
wings
Young Man
Product details
- ISBN 9781138376212
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 19 Dec 2018
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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John Birchensha (c.1605-?1681) is chiefly remembered for the impression that his theories about music made on the mathematicians, natural philosophers and virtuosi of the Royal Society in the 1660s and 1670s, and for inventing a system that he claimed would enable even those without practical experience of music to learn to compose in a short time by means of 'a few easy, certain, and perfect Rules'-his most famous composition pupil being Samuel Pepys in 1662. His great aim was to publish a treatise on music in its philosophical, mathematical and practical aspects (which would have included a definitive summary of his rules of composition), entitled Syntagma musicæ. Subscriptions for this book were invited in 1672-3, and it was due to be published by March 1675; but it never appeared, and no final manuscript of it survives. Consequently knowledge about his work has hitherto remained extremely sketchy. Recent research, however, has brought to light a number of manuscripts which allow us at last to form a more complete view of Birchensha's ideas. Almost none of this material has been previously published. The new items include an autograph treatise of c.1664 ('A Compendious Discourse of the Principles of the Practicall & Mathematicall Partes of Musick') which Birchensha presented to the natural philosopher Robert Boyle, and which covers concisely much of the ground that he intended to cover in Syntagma musicæ; a detailed synopsis for Syntagma musicæ which he prepared for a meeting of the Royal Society in February 1676; and an autograph notebook (now in Brussels) containing his six rules of composition with music examples, presumably written for a pupil. Bringing all this material together in a single volume will allow scholars to see how Birchensha's rules and theories developed over a period of fifteen years, and to gain at least a flavour of the lost Syntagma musicæ.
Dr Christopher D.S. Field, is Honorary Fellow in Music at University of Edinburgh, UK and Dr Benjamin Wardhaugh, is a Ph.D student in History, University of Oxford, UK
