Fundamentals of Music: Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

by Calvin M. Bower (Translator)

English (translation)Original Latin

Genres: Music, Philosophy

249 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1989

About the author

Professor Emeritus, Music, Notre Dame University

Professor Bower’s research focuses largely on the history of medieval musical sequence, and he has published especially on Boethius and Notker Balbulus. He is also dedicated to preserving and performing pre-1600 Western vocal music.

He founded Schola Antiqua of Chicago in 2000 and served as its director until 2008. He has received several distinguished awards over the course of his career, including a Bene Merenti Medal from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2007) and the Claude V. Palisca Award from the American Musicological Society (2017).

Reviews

[Daniel Toker · Rating 3 out of 5]

WAY beyond my limited mental capacity. I felt as if I were reading a modern musical theory textbook.

But incredible considering that this was written so long ago.

[Junqi Wan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Everything is such that it either bears its own fruit or aids others in bearing theirs. For what winter confines, spring releases, summer heats, and autumn ripens, and the seasons in turn either bring forth their own fruit or give aid to others in bringing forth their own. But these things ought to be discussed later more studiously…”

A book by a great musician, mathematician, and arguably poet, who died far too soon, leaving us with the regret of never having received the Musica mundana and Musica humana he had promised to write. His understanding of mathematics and the natural sciences in the sixth century is surprisingly accurate (or, at times, surprisingly inaccurate with his hammers) which is both incredible and unbelievable. I was in awe the entire time reading this treatise.

One little thing: Boethius wrote Books II–V as if he had suffered some short-term memory loss. There are so many materials in Book I that are repeated and rearticulated in II-V. There are also occasional logical inconsistencies. In Book I, for example, when he begins to build the greater perfect system from four strings, the strings are given in the proportions 12:9:8:6, and then he suddenly treats the same four strings as a tetrachord, without any warning or explanation.

Other than that, I have nothing to complain about, apart from his choice of profession as a “lawyer”, which ultimately led to his death while defending his client. Well, in that case, Boethius was also a good lawyer.

[Becky Carlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boethius is the last of the Roman consuls to be classically educated. His work is largely transcribed from the Greeks and is music theory in the quadrivium sense. I learned some interesting historical information for example where the names of the modes are derived, but a rereading would be warranted once I have a stronger grasp of number theory. Together with Ptolemy’s Harmonica could make a complete music theory (in the sense of the mathematical arts) course.

[James Finch · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars because Boethius.

Not exactly what I was expecting - more like music theory textbook than anything else. Lots of proofs, some of which I skimmed over. A surface level read was useful, but it would require quite a bit of time to properly follow all his logic I think.