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| Music, Science, and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England | 
 enlarge | Author: Penelope Gouk
Publisher: Yale University Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $65.00
New (18) Used (10) from $49.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1502289
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0300073836
Dewey Decimal Number: 780.94209032
EAN: 9780300073836
ASIN: 0300073836
Publication Date: August 11, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
What influence did music have in the domains of natural magic and early modern experimental science? In this highly original book, Penelope Gouk argues that developments in sixteenth-century musical practices changed English thought on science and magic in the next century. Her exploration of the relationships among these apparently separate disciplines sheds new light on the history of each.
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| Customer Reviews:
Lutes, viols and virginals November 19, 2000
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
How changes in the theory and practice of music echoed and exemplified a crescendo of new natural philosophy, and an equal and opposite diminuendo of traditional natural magic, is the subject of Gouk's book, an harmonious work that comprises three movements. The first, 'Geographies', poses and answers such questions as how was music understood in the period; how was it taught; who performed it, and on what instruments; where was it played and appreciated; and who were its audiences. The second is an annotated 'Gallery' of illustrations -picturing, amongst other things, the Theatre of Instruments, the Division of the Scale, and the Harmony of the Spheres- taken from contemporary publications by diverse authors, among them Fludd, Kircher, Schott and Mersenne. The last part, 'Narratives' relates the history of the Royal Society's engagements with music and the new Science of Acousticks, then studies of the role of music in the lives and works of Hooke and Newton. The author shews that, over the course of the century in question, the pursuit of knowledge and truth via natural philosophy took on an increasingly public and collaborative character, and this trend had an analogue in the increasing prevalence of public performance of music that had previously been confined to the chambers of the elite: in both cases, a species of Performing Art was being redirected, outward, to a broad audience in a secular setting. This absorbing book is clearly a distillation of many years' study and thought, and the resultant brew is a potent elixir of images and ideas, which almost evokes, at times, the sound of a lute, a viol or a virginal.
Great. Please contact me! November 7, 1999
1 out of 12 found this review helpful
I haven't read the book yet but I do want to get in touch with the author, Penny Gouk. We were at university together and I am putting together a newsletter for all those of us in her year. Please ask her to contact me on: MWaller@compuserve.com
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