The Music of the Spheres in the Western Imagination

David J. Kendall

doi:10.5771/9781793650368

Summary

The Music of the Spheres in the Western Imagination describes various systematic musical ecologies of the cosmos by examining attempts over time to define Western theoretical musical systems, whether practical, human, nonhuman, or celestial. This book focuses on the theoretical, theological, philosophical, physical, and mathematical concepts of a cosmic musical order and how these concepts have changed in order to fit different worldviews through the imaginations of theologians, theorists, and authors of fiction, as well as the practical performance of music. Special attention is given to music theory treatises between the ninth and sixteenth centuries, English-language hymnody from the eighteenth century to the present, polemical works on music and worship from the last hundred years, the Divine Comedy of Dante, nineteenth- and twentieth-century English-language fiction, the fictional works of C. S. Lewis, and the legendarium of J. R. R. Tolkien.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-5035-1
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-5036-8
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 250
Product type: Book Titles

1. Dedication No access
2. Contents No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
1. Outline No access
2. A Note on Sources No access
3. Notes No access
1. The Long Shadow of Boethius No access
2. Musica Mundana No access
3. Musica Humana No access
4. Music Humana and Vocal Music No access
5. Musica Instrumentalis No access
6. Pythagoras and the Discovery of Numbers in Music No access
7. TowardS Systems of Perfection No access
8. Systems of Imperfection No access
9. Maior Perfectum: Greater Perfection No access
10. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Music of Creation—Narnia No access
2. Music of Creation—Middle-Earth No access
3. Dissonant Creation, or Imperfect Creators? No access
4. Water as an Echo of Creation No access
5. Consonant Light, Dissonant Darkness, and the Unmusical Void No access
6. Consonant and Dissonant Characters—Frodo No access
7. Consonant and Dissonant Characters—Sméagol No access
8. Consonant and Dissonant Characters—The Ainur No access
9. Creator and Creation No access
10. Music of Healing and Re-Creation—Maior Perfectum and the Felix Peccatum Adae No access
11. Notes No access
1. Powerful Trumpets and Horns No access
2. Music of Transport No access
3. Music of Temptation and Evil No access
4. Lúthien—The Orpheus of Middle-Earth No access
5. Notes No access
1. Musica Humana and the Judgment of the Ear No access
2. Cast out of Heaven—The Case of the Perfect Fourth No access
3. Speaking of the Devil—The Treatment of Dissonance No access
4. Celestial Warfare?—The Artusi-Monteverdi Controversy No access
5. Emancipating Dissonance No access
6. Notes No access
1. Dominion and Pilgrimage No access
2. The Ethic of Acknowledgment: Existence No access
3. The Ethic of Acknowledgment: Aesthetic Value No access
4. The Ethic of Subjugation: Subduing No access
5. The Ethic of Subjugation: Stewardship No access
6. The Ethic of Conservation: Prompting No access
7. The Ethic of Conservation: Kinship No access
8. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Bent Roads and Bent Lines No access
2. Bent People No access
3. The Bending of Sméagol, Bilbo, and Frodo No access
4. The Unbending and Bending of Dr. Elwin Ransom No access
5. Bent by Design—Victor Frankenstein’s Monster No access
6. When Bent and Unbent Meet—The Case of Billy Budd and John Claggart No access
7. When Bent and Unbent Meet—The Case of St. John Rivers No access
8. From Bent to Broken—Dr. Edward Weston: the “Un-Man” No access
9. The Process of Breaking—The Objectivity Room No access
10. Born Broken—Cathy Ames No access
11. When Broken and Bent Meet—The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde No access
12. Broken Across Universes—Jadis, the White Witch No access
13. Breaking and Repairing Circles—The Unbending of Mark and Jane Studdock No access
14. Hubris, Nemesis, and Retuning the Musica Mundana No access
15. Notes No access
1. Imperfect Composers and Imperfect Music—Choosing Our Heroes No access
2. From Genius to Abomination and Back—The Case of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky No access
3. Notes No access
1. Good Old Music No access
2. Musica Mundana and Worship in the Twentieth Century No access
3. The Problem of Association No access
4. The Dark Side of the Worship Wars—Musica Humana and the “African” No access
5. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
Bibliography No access Pages 231 - 240
Index No access Pages 241 - 248
About the Author No access Pages 249 - 250