La musique des sphères dans l’Angleterre prémoderne : permanence et questionnement d’un héritage théorique

Abstract

This paper studies the erosion of the theory of speculative music as an epistemological frame in early modern England, focusing specifically on a selection of treatises of music theory ranging from the late 16th century to the end of the 17th century, in particular Robert Fludd’s Utriusque Cosmi, 1617, Thomas Morley, A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall Music, 1599, and Thomas Mace, Musick’s Monument, 1676. The treatises show that, as elsewhere in Europe, English music theorists were questioning speculative music, but that some of them also constituted the rearguard of this theory.

Keywords

• music of the spheres
• Neoplatonism
• Early Modern England
• history of ideas
• music theory
• Fludd (Robert)