International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music - December 2010 [antikvár]

C. Bromberg: A Preliminary Study of the Origin of Music in Cinquecento IVIusical Treatises IRASM 41 (2010) 2: 161-183 A Preliminary Study of tlie Origin of iVIusic in Cinquecento Musical Treatises Carla Bromberg Ana Maria Alfonso--Goldfarb CESilVlA R. Caio Prado102 Sala 48 CEP 01303-000 Consolagao SAO PAULO SP Brazil E-mail: [email protected] UDC: 781.8 »15» Original Scientific Paper Izvorni znanstveni rad Received: April 19, 2010 Primljeno: 19. travnja 2010. Accepted: September 15, 2010 Prihvaceno: 15. rujna 2010. Introduction The musical treatises from the Cinquecento are works mostly based on the Pythagorean-platonic music tradition, which has been the strongest tradition transmitted through the works of Severius N. Boethius since the Middle Ages. They are works that aim at studying ancient modes or scales, definition of intervals and tuning. The Pythagorean-platonic tradition was based on mathematical principles - Music was then a quadrivium science - and as such, dealt with arithmetical and geometrical characteristics of its elements. Despite the fact that no writings by Pythagoras survived, a passage from Aristotle's Methaphysics provides the earliest and most reliable summary of Pythagorean musical theory: »Since again they saw that the attributes and ratios of the harmóniai are found in numbers; since, finally, all other things seemed to have been framed, in their whole nature, in the likeness of the numbers, and of all nature the Abstract - Résumé The origin of music was a recurrent topic in musical treatises since the Middle Ages and the certainty of its divine definition placed no further questions as to its origin. By the sixteenth century however, the stable position of music in the quadrivium became to tremble and theorists' concerns with the classification of music were increased. In this article we shall present in which way the topic of origin was important in the discussions on the nature of music and consequently in its classification within the liberal arts. Keywords: Theory of Music • Quadrivium • Classification of Knowledge • 16th-century Renaissance Music • 16th-century History of Science