Author: Doni, Giovanni Battista - manuscripts of italian music theory ...

in the second, and something of the Melopoeia in the third one (as this is not the place
to talk about it fully). However, since it will be often necessary to mention the basic
rules and foundations of the ancient theorists, namely, Pythagoras, Aristoxenus and
Ptolemy, it will not be inappropriate to say something about their schools and
opinions before we move on, ad then to carry on with the rest. Since the art and
science of music had been dealt with by so many different minds and with great
subtlety, it has happened in it what has happened in the other main professions, such
as Philosophy, Medicine, and (in Roman times) Law, namely, it has spawned many
and very different schools, each one of which had many followers and produced
various published works, which have been consumed and annihilated completed by
time which devours everything, so that we have a record of them only in Porphyry's
commentary on Ptolemy. [--] The most important and universally known of
these were two. One was the Pythagoreans' one, who were mainly philosophers and
were very dedicated to the musical speculation, but hardly at all to the practice, and
since they introduced and practised the Canon or Harmonic rule very often, exercising
themselves all the time in the numbers and in their proportions, they were also called
Canons. [It is also true that Ptolemais of Cyrene, as Porphyry states, who wrote an
Introduction to Pythagorean music, wanted that they derived the name of Canons not
from the Instrument called Canon, but from the straightness of the line which they
considered in abstract in their musical speculation. in marg.] Their first Teacher was
the famous Pythagoras, very esteemed and honoured by the ancients. The other
School was the one of the followers of Aristoxenus, otherwise called Harmonics,
because they based their speculation on the simple Harmony without any concern for
the numbers. [They were also called simply Musicians, as Ptolemais herself says add.
supra lin.] Their first founder was not Aristoxenus, since there were some before him
who wrote about music, some of whom he mentions in his Harmonic Elements, but he
was the most authoritative instead [so much so that Saint Jerome, naming many Greek
authors who wrote lives of illustrious men, states that Aristoxenus was the most
learned among them in marg.] and the most lauded writer as he wrote a large number
of books on music, apart from other works that he wrote about philosophy and other
subjects. Moreover, from what one gathers from the authors who came after him, he
explained and ennobled all the parts of music with his writings. Aristoxenus was
emulated and competed with Theophrastus, [and, just as he was add. supra lin.] he
was a student and a pupil of Aristotle's. They lived both at the same time, which was
during the century of Alexander the Great. The main difference that one notices
between these two sects consists [--] in the judgment of the intervals and of the
sounds, because the Pythagoreans, who in their practice took into account the sense of
hearing as they were completely intent on it judged that the numbers alone and their
proportions provided the rule to the musical intervals and they did not admit any other
consonances than those which are contained in the number six and which have a
multiple or superparticular proportion, rejecting all the superpartient proportions and
the Diapason Diatessaron. This opinion was then completely refuted by Ptolemy.
Therefore, their authority was very important either because of the antiquity and
reputation of Pythagoras, or because they were the first to speculate around music. As
far as we know, their fundamental concepts have been universally embraced, such as
the fact that they do not recognise any other consonances than the Diapason, the
Diapente, the Diatessaron and their compound consonances. In fact, the fact
Aristoxenus himself and his other followers, like Aristides, do not mention
themselves any other consonances is derived more likely from what I have said,
namely, that in many matters they followed the Pythagoras' doctrine and principles,