Download - Melani Shahin, FCRH 2018 Summer 2017 Research Grant Proposal · Melani Shahin, FCRH 2018 Summer 2017 Research Grant Proposal Music and Philosophy 2 Werckmeister. Most scholarly literature

Melani Shahin, FCRH 2018 Summer 2017 Research Grant Proposal Music and Philosophy

1

Andreas Werckmeister (1645-1706) was a provincial organist who spent his life in the

Harz Mountain region of Germany, but he fancied himself a musical theorist and philosopher of

the first order. Werckmeister wrote a number of treatises concerning music theory, organ playing,

and the tuning of keyboard instruments. While Werckmeister’s treatises nominally address

practical musical issues, what is most interesting about them has been neglected: his detailed

philosophical commentaries on music and the “paradoxes” of tuning. Scholars have studied the

influence of his mathematically “rational” keyboard temperament (tuning) systems on the musical

practice of eminent Baroque musicians such as J.S. Bach. But the more important questions have

been ignored: what were Werckmeister’s philosophical motivations for solving the “paradoxes”

of tuning? And why was the temperament of keyboard instruments, in particular, significant to

him? These questions have been neglected not only because Werckmeister is remembered as a

lowly organist (rather than as a philosopher), but also because his treatises complicate the

standard narrative that links eighteenth century music with scientific rationalism. Indeed,

Werckmeister’s seemingly “rational” temperament systems have their philosophical basis in the

Renaissance-era tradition which links music and number with magic. By analyzing the

philosophical content of Werckmeister’s treatises, I intend to show how ordinary musicians like

Werckmeister used “antiquated” music theory not only for practical purposes, but also as a tool

for negotiating their marginal social position -- just as scientists conducted “rational” musical

experiments to distinguish their work from alchemy practiced by magicians.

This project will be a unique scholarly contribution for three reasons: first, it will seriously

consider the philosophical content of Werckmeister’s treatises, and contextualize this content

within a broader debate about magic and rationalism; second, it will examine the professional

tensions at stake in this debate; third, it will fill a gap in English language scholarship on


2

Werckmeister. Most scholarly literature on Werckmeister is in German, and most of his treatises

are not translated into English. Existing scholarship, however, in both German and English

neglect the issues that I intend to study.

During this semester I have been conducting primary source archival research on

Werckmeister in the Drexel Collection at the New York Public Library. In particular, I have

translated sections of Werkcmeister’s Musicalische-Paradoxal Discourse (1707). In this text, he

writes about God as the creator of all harmony, secret musical knowledge, numbers, true and false

Christianity, and paradoxes of tuning. The connection between these topics is far from obvious,

and so my project focuses on locating the eclectic philosophical content of Werckmeister’s

treatise within a broader cultural and philosophical context. To that end, I have studied and

translated the historical sources to which Werckmeister refers, as well as the texts of his

contemporaries. For instance, I translated sections of Athanasius Kircher’s Latin Musurgia

Universalis (1650), as well as Andreas Hirsch’s German translation of the Mursurgia Universalis

(1662) to locate the source of Werckmeister’s idea that God created the universe according

harmonious musical proportions. I also translated portions of organist Johann Heinrich Buttstedt’s

treatise Ut, mi, sol, re, fa, la, tota musica et harmonia aeterna (1716) from German. This text

provides insight into how magical, theological approaches to music were defended against

critiques from theorists such as Johann Mattheson, who desired to rationalize music theory.

Furthermore, I have read extensively about the history of science in the early-modern period.

During the Scientific Revolution, music was considered a mathematical science, and was studied

by all major scientists including Isaac Newton. Scientists, however, studied music experimentally

in order to distance their work from the speculative philosophy of mere organists like

Werckmeister. While my current research has begun to contextualize Werckmiester’s treatises


3

within a broader discourse about music and magic during the eighteenth century, there remain

many texts and questions that I have not had the opportunity to study and investigate.

This summer I intend to extend my research into Werckmeister’s musical thinking by

continuing my primary source work in the Drexel Collection. The Drexel Collection contains, in

addition to a complete collection of Werckmeister’s treatises, primary sources of theorists

contemporary to Werckmeister as well as historical sources that he himself read. It is critical for

me to stay in New York City to conduct this research because this kind of collection is not

available anywhere else in the United States. Having an opportunity for sustained archival

research in the Drexel Collection will allow me to follow lines of inquiry I could not pursue this

semester. In addition to translating more of Werckmeister’s treatises, I intend to study more of the

magical and scientific sources he references. I will also examine more closely the critical

reception of Werkcmeister’s treatises by mid-eighteenth century theorists. By doing so, I will

clarify and expand upon my idea that music played a central role in the contentious debate

between the magical thinking and rationalism. I also intend to study the culture of organists and

organs during the late-seventeenth century to understand why keyboard temperament was such a

critical practical and philosophical issue for Werckmeister.

During the month of June, I will focus on translating Werckmeister’s treatises in order to

gain a more comprehensive understanding of his philosophical framework. In particular, I intend

to translate Chapters 1-3 of the Musicalische Paradoxal Discourse as well as pages 26-35 of

Werckmeister’s translation of composer Agostino Steffani’s treatise Sendschreiben (1700). I then

plan on writing a short paper (5-10 pages) about these translations and their significance to my

project questions. During the month of July, I will focus on studying and translating sections from

scientific texts Werkcmeister references such as Johannes Kepler’s Harmonices Mundi (1619) to


4

understand how Werckmeister appropriated scientific treatises into his magical thinking. I will

also translate sections of texts such as Johann Mattheson’s Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre (1713)

and Johann Gottfried Walther’s Musicalisches Lexicon (1732) to study the critical reception of

Werkcmeister’s treatises by theorists in the mid-eighteenth century. Again, I will write a short

paper that summarizes and contextualizes my findings. During August, I will synthesize my

translations, secondary-source research, and papers by writing an extended research paper that

builds upon ideas from the twenty-five-page research paper I wrote for my project this semester.

I request the full $3,800 for funding. $1,883 of the funding will go toward my research

stipend. $1,917 of the funding will go toward evening courses in German at the Deutsches Haus

at NYU. Although some of the sources that I will translate are in Latin, the majority of my

primary research materials are in German. Translating seventeenth-century German involves

many distinct challenges, which slow down the translation process: first, these texts are written in

Fraktur script instead of Latin script, which requires great care to decipher; second, these texts

contain spelling irregularities and archaic word usages; third, these texts contain large amounts of

Latin and Greek. I am not proposing to take these courses for academic credit; rather, continuing

to improve my German will enable me to translate in a more nuanced, efficient, and accurate way.

These classes will not be a distraction from my research, but will instead improve the quality of

my project. I spent this past year taking classes at the Deutsches Haus, in addition to a full course

load, and I found the instruction to be invaluable for my current project. Pursuing knowledge of

German at a professional level will distinguish my research as an undergraduate student, and

improve the competitiveness of my applications to PhD programs in musicology. I also request

summer housing for sessions I and II so that I can conduct research in the Drexel Collection, take

my German courses, and meet with my advisor to discuss the progress of my project.


5

Bibliography

I. Primary source material

a. Sources referenced by Werckmeister (NYPL Collection and Fordham Special

Collection primary sources in bold)

i. Augustine, St. Augustine on Music: Books I-VI, trans. R. Catesby

Taliaferro. Annapolis, MD: The St. John’s Bookstore, 1939.

ii. Boethius, Fundamentals of Music (selections). trans. Calvin M. Bower. ed.

Claude Palisca. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989.

iii. Kepler, Johannes. Harmonices Mundi libri V. Linz: 1619. [New York

Public Library, Drexel Collection, Drexel 2669.c2.]

iv. Kircher, Athanasius. Athanasii Kircheri Fvldensis e Soc. Iesv presbyteri

Mvsvrgia vniversalis : sive Ars magna consoni et dissoni, in X libros

digesta. Rome: 1650. [Fordham Special Collections, SPEC COLL S.J.

1650 1.]

v. Kircher, Athanasius. Musurgia universalis. Reprint der deutschen

Teilübersetzung von Andreas Hirsch, Schwäbisch Hall, 1662.

Herausgegeben von Melanie Wald. Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag Karl

Vötterle GmbH & Co. KG, 2006.

vi. Kircher, Athanasius. Arithmologia sive… Rome: 1665. [New York

Public Library, Science, Industry, and Business Library, OFK

(Kircher, A. Athanasii Kircheri…Arithmologia).]

vii. Maier, Michael. Michaelis Majeri ... Secretioris naturæ secretorum

scrutinium chymicum… (originally published in 1618 as Atalanta


6

fugiens) Frankfurt: impensis G.H. Oehrlingii, typo J.P. Andreæ, 1687.

[New York Public Library, Lenox Collection, KB p.v.9.]

viii. Meibom, Marcus. Antiquae musicae auctores septem. Amsterdam:

Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1652. [New York Public Library, Drexel

Collection, Drexel 2610 v1/2611 v2.]

ix. Plato, Timaeus (excerpts). Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History. ed.

Oliver Strunk. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1950.

b. Werckmeister and his contemporaries: colleagues and critics (NYPL Drexel

Collection primary sources in bold)

i. Bernhard, Christoph. “Tractatus compositionis augmentatus.” Die

Kompositionslehre Heinrich Schützens in der Fassung seines Schulers

Christoph Bernhard. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1926.

ii. Buttstedt, Ut, mi, sol, re fa, la toto musica et harmonia aeterna, Erffurt:

O. F. Werther, 1716. [New York Public Library, Drexel Collection,

Drexel 2729.]

iii. Mattheson, Johann. Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre… Hamburg, 1713.

[New York Public Library, Drexel Collection, Drexel 2692).

iv. Mattheson, Johann. Der Vollkommene Capellmeiste. Hamburg: C.

Herold, 1739. [New York Public Library, Drexel Collection, Drexel

3253-4).

v. Johann Gottfried Walther, Musicalisches Lexicon. Leipzig: W. Deer,

1732. [New York Public Library, Drexel Collection, Drexel 1125.]


7

vi. Werckmeister, Andreas. Musicae mathematicae Hodegus curiosus, oder

Richtiger musicalischer Weg-Weiser. Frankfurt and Leipzig: In

Verlegung T. P. Calvisii, 1687. [New York Public Library, Drexel

Collection, Drexel 2996.]

vii. --. Der edlen Music-Kunst Würde, Gebrauch und Missbrauch, so wohl

aus der heiligen Schrift als auch aus etlich alten und neubewährten

reinen Kirchen-Lehrern. Frankfurt and Leipzig: T. P. Calvisius, 1691.

[New York Public Library, Drexel Collection, Drexel 2353.]

viii. --. Musicalisches Send-Schreiben. Mühlhausen: J.C. Brückner, 1760.

Originally printed in 1700. trans., with commentary, of A. Steffani:

Quanta certezza habbia da suoi principii la musica (Amsterdam, 1695).

[New York Public Library, Drexel Collection, Drexel 112.)

ix. --. Cribrum musicum (1700) and Harmonologia musica (1702). The

Original German Treatises with Parallel, Annotated English Translations.

Trans. Casey Mongoven. Pendragon Press: Hillsdale, NY 2013.

x. --. Musicalische-Paradoxal Discourse, oder Ungemeine Vorstellungen,

wie die Musica einen hohen und göttlichen Uhrsprung habe.

Quedlinburg: T.P. Calvisius, 1707. [New York Public Library, Drexel

Collection, Drexel 127.]

II. Secondary source material

a. Butt, John. ‘A mind unconscious that it is calculating’? Bach and the rationalist

philosophy of Wolff, Leibniz and Spinoza” The Cambridge Companion to Bach.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.


8

b. Carter, Tim. “Resemblance and Representation: Toward a New Aesthetic in the

Music of Monteverdi,” “Con che soavita”: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and

Dance, 1580-1740, ed. Iain Fenlon and Tim Carter (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1995), 118-34.

c. Dammann, Rolf. "Zur Musiklehre Des Andreas Werckmeister." Archiv Für

Musikwissenschaft 11, no. 3 (1954): 206-37. doi:10.2307/929862.

d. Dear, Peter. Mersenne and the learning of the Schools. Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press, 1988.

e. Field, J.V. “Musical Cosmology: Kepler and His Readers.” Music and

Mathematics: From Pythagoras to Fractals. eds. John Fauvel, et al., Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2003.

f. Godwin, Joscelyn. “Music.” Athanasius Kircher’s Theater of the World.

Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2009.

g. Gouk, Penelope. Music, Science, and Natural Magic in Seventeenth Century

England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.

h. Gouk, Penelope. “Making Music, Making Knowledge: The Harmonious Universe

of Athanasius Kircher.” The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of

Athanasius Kircher. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries, 2001.

i. Snyder, Kerala J. Dieterich Buxtehude, organist in Lübeck. Rochester, NY :

University of Rochester Press., 2007.

j. Wolff, Christoph. Bach, the Learned Musician. New York, NY: W.W. Norton &

Co., 2000.


9

k. Yearsley, David. "Alchemy and Counterpoint in an Age of Reason." Journal of the

American Musicological Society 51, no. 2 (1998): 201-43. doi:10.2307/831977.

Download - Melani Shahin, FCRH 2018 Summer 2017 Research Grant Proposal · Melani Shahin, FCRH 2018 Summer 2017 Research Grant Proposal Music and Philosophy 2 Werckmeister. Most scholarly literature

Top Related