Tuning and Temperament: Practice VS Science

Segreteria Gangemi Editore spa — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 14:09:46 +0000

Until now, the problem of tuning instruments has been viewed as an aspect of philologically correct performance practice. Besides several chapters dealing with this important latter aspect, the volume also devotes ample space to the evolution of the tuning problem from a purely scientific point of view, starting from the Scientific Revolution and more particularly during the Enlightenment, with the decisive development of a new science: “Acoustics”. It consists of a series of articles, most already published in Italian, presented here in English translation – revised, restructured, partly rewritten, expanded (in some cases radically) – and distributed over 21 chapters. A wide range of themes is covered. The chapters focusing mainly on ‘practice’ deal with problems such as the tuning of French and Flemish organs in the 15th century, the first applications of equal temperament to keyboard instruments in Europe, tonality expansion in keyboard compositions at the time of Frescobaldi, conflicts about pitch in 17h-century consorts, tuning in Tuscany at the time of Bartolomeo Cristofori, the querelles over pitch caused in Paris by the new double-action Erard harps, the practice of tuning and pitch at the time of Mozart, the historical evolution of piano temperaments, the persistence of unequal tunings in 19th-century Italy. In the chapters dealing mainly with ‘science’, on the other hand, historical investigation focuses on the introduction of logarithms for the calculation of frequencies, the new equaltempered wheel-harpsichords made for the Viennese court of Ferdinand III, two different methods of linear approximation of equal temperament, the Enlightenment myth of the scientific optimal meantone tuning (including a French method based on early investigations into auditory frequency discrimination), the long-standing enigma – solved in England in 1749 – of the beat-frequency calculation of tempered consonances, the application to tuning of two mathematical instruments (mesolabe and sector), the inharmonicity of musical string instruments, early methods of pitch measurement, the sonometer of the Neapolitan scientist De Luca (1828), and the activity of the composer Giuseppe Sarti on acoustics and tuning. Although mathematical and physical references are of particular relevance, the use of mathematical formulae has been minimised, seeking to supplement the discussion with references to their practical application. This work is thus addressed not only to science historians, but above all to musicians and musicologists.

PATRIZIO BARBIERI has taught history of musical theory, musical acoustics and applied acoustics at the University of Lecce, and historical organs at the Gregorian University of Rome. He has also lectured at the Laboratorio di acustica musicale e architettonica at the Fondazione Scuola di San Giorgio – CNR in Venice. He has published five books and about 140 articles, and was awarded the 2008 Frances Densmore Prize by the American Musical Instrument Society for the best article in English on musical instruments published in 2006-7.

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Hydraulic Musical Automata in Italian Villas and Other Ingenia

Segreteria Gangemi Editore spa — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 14:09:15 +0000

Collana IL GENIO DELLE ARTI: storie e interpretazioni, diretta da Marcello Fagiolo

In the past few years, a considerable re-awakening of interest has been noted in the hydraulic musical automata which, from the Late Renaissance onwards, were installed in the gardens of several noble families, first in Italy and subsequently in other European countries. The present volume aims at documenting the development of such automata, together with other kinds of ingenia, in Italy, setting them in their European context and investigating both mechanisms and their symbolism. The volume may be deemed ideally divided into two parts. The first, comprising ten chapters, deals with water organs (including the musical compositions with which they were provided) and several automata of Heronian design, such as the Fountain of the Owl, the androids of the Farnese court, the hydraulic imitation of the explosion of the Catherine Wheel, and the one illustrating the myth of Faun and the nymph Echo. The various systems for producing the pressurised air needed for their operation are also analysed from a technical and scientific point of view, and we shall see that shortly afterwards they were also adopted in industry, for forges and melting furnaces. The seven last chapters of the volume, on the other hand, deal with ingenia of various kinds which, unlike the water organs, were not always hydraulically activated or had programmable functions. This is the case of fountains and statues provided with curious acoustic effects, as well as sounding automatisms activated by thermal energy (such as, for example, sunlight), or by counter-weights. To these are added those that once figured in the Roman museum of Athanasius Kircher, those constructed for the Imperial Court of Peking (including an ingenious harpsichord-organ-viol invented by Kircher), several reconstructions of Vulcan’s forge and the creation of various sounding monsters, once very fashionable. The volume closes with Michele Todini’s famous “Galleria armonica” and with a special type of hydraulis made in Naples in the Late Renaissance.

PATRIZIO BARBIERI has taught musical acoustics at the University of Lecce and historical organs at the Gregorian University of Rome. He has also lectured at the Laboratorio di acustica musicale e architettonica of the Fondazione Scuola di San Giorgio – CNR in Venice. He has published three books and about 130 articles, and was awarded the 2008 Frances Densmore Prize by the American Musical Instrument Society for the best article in English on musical instruments published in 2006-7. In 1999-2003 he was also one of the two consultants involved in the reconstruction of the Villa d’Este water organ, at Tivoli.

L'articolo Hydraulic Musical Automata in Italian Villas and Other Ingenia proviene da Gangemi.

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Tuning and Temperament: Practice VS Science

Hydraulic Musical Automata in Italian Villas and Other Ingenia