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Informationen zum Autor EDWARD NOWACKI is Professor Emeritus of musicology at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. Klappentext Long recognized as a foundation of musical composition, criticism, pedagogy, and appreciation, the literature of ancient and medieval music theory has maintained its strong position in the academic curriculum up to the present day. Now blessed with fine English translations of many of the ancient and medieval authors, modern students of music theory have advantages that their predecessors lacked just a few generations ago. Yet the ancient writings by themselves do not yield to easy comprehension. They need expository help. In this collection of fifteen topical essays, the author offers a contribution to that educational goal. Covering a dense theoretical literature from the classical period of ancient Greece to the sixteenth century of the Common Era, these essays present a detailed examination of subjects of concern not only to specialists in the history of theory, but to scholars of the general history of ancient Greek music and the liturgical plainchant of the medieval West.More than just a collection of specialized studies or a syllabus of obligatory learning, these essays present a persistent reflection on the timelessness of theoretical questions that engaged our musical forebears and that still engage us today. The author's approach is perennialist. It teaches us things about our musical heritage that never go away.EDWARD NOWACKI is Professor Emeritus of musicology at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. Zusammenfassung A long-needed overview of, and guide to, the principles behind the treatises on music theory written in ancient Greece and Rome and continuing through the Middle Ages. Inhaltsverzeichnis IntroductionPart I: The Ancient Greek Tradition in Practice and TheoryThe Ancient HarmoniaiThe TonoiAlypian NotationPart II: Mathematical FoundationsPythagorean Harmonic Ratios from the Octave to the Comma by Continuous SubtractionBoethius's Error in the De institutione musica 4.6Aristoxenus's Proof That the Perfect Fourth Is the Sum of Two Tones and a SemitoneAristoxenus's Anticipation of the Logarithmic Logic of Musical CognitionThe Three Mathematical Means in the Theories of Euclid, Boethius, Glarean, and ZarlinoGuido and the MonochordPart III: Emerging Theories of the Ecclesiastical ModesTransposition and the Doctrine of Modal AffinityThe Misunderstood Confinalis Reading the First Quidam of the Alia musica The Prologus in tonarium of Bern of Reichenau: A TranslationReading HermannusIdealist and Empirical Perspectives in Theories of the Ecclesiastical ModesGlossary of TermsNotesBibliographyIndex...
