Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Music
(9,081 words)

1. Concept and idea of music

The connotations of the Greek musikḗ [téchnē] and the Latin [ars] musica went far beyond the idea of music as an art of making sound or organizing acoustic events. As Boëthius explained in De (institutione) musica (early 6th century CE; “On Music”), the music heard on earth (musica instrumentalis) was an imitatio of the musica mundana (the universal “music of the celestial bodies” or “sphere…

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Rode-Breymann, Susanne, “Music”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 08 December 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_024353>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20200128



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