Arti musices, Vol. 39 No. 2, 2008.
Original scientific paper
Aristotle's Musical-Theoretical Writing Περι άκουστων / De Audibilibus (in Frane Petrić's Latin Translation)
Krešimir Čvrljak
; Odsjek za povijest hrvatske književnosti HAZU, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
In the paper Περι άκουστων / De audibilibus / On audibilities, Aristotle questions from various aspects underlying musical-theoretical characteristics and the distinctive features of voices, sounds and musical instruments, that is, the quality, position, pitch, depth and colour of sounds and voices, as well as the sound and quality of musical instruments. The paper abounds in medical-philosophical, but also in purely medicinal and natural-scientific elements. Thus, the Philosopher also threads through the paper his philosophical reflections, by which he generalizes the particular and directs from the lower to the higher. Only by careful reading of the paper does it become clear that the reader is faced with an interdisciplinary, polyvalent piece of writing, as befits the ancient encyclopaedist Aristotle the Philosopher. Everything found in Nature, handicrafts, agriculture, and the animal kingdom could serve Aristotle as a good comparison, an explanatory example and as strong confirmation for everything whose rudiments, origin, essence and purpose he wanted to indicate. He also called on his predecessors in order to support and verify his statements. It is clear then that, whenever he thought it might be advisable, Aristotle would more clearly explain his argumentations by scenes from life: lungs / bellows, the expiratory blow / a thrown-out object, a narrow windpipe / sea straits etc. The given paradigm consists of Aristotle's argumentative patterns for the explicability of everything with the help of nature. Thus, the Philosopher has expanded his peripatos to encompass all of nature. Occasionally one can observe a contextual incoherence in Aristotle's reflections, which sometimes stand more in a digressive than in a contextual correlation. However, only for a moment it may appear as if a particular explanatory elaboration has escaped Aristotle's control. Sometimes he embarks on elaboration and only seemingly digresses notably in his analysis in order to outline his final thought in the way in which he intended: with lively exemplification, more strongly confirmed and absolutely clearly presented. Along with other translators, Petrić contributed to the full justification for including Aristotle in the history of music. The translation of the paper De audibilibus gave him the chance additionally to convince the experts already familiar with his work that music, compared to philosophy, in his case was neither Tacitus's «terra incognita» nor unessential. In principle, we take the same view of Petrić as we do of Aristotle: in the immensely rich traditional heritage he did not leave unused the other oar on the philosophical ship on Thales's water: Music.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
31023
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2008.
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