Lharmonie universelle de marin mersenne biography

The book covers topics including the nature of sounds, movements, consonance, dissonance, genres, modes of composition, voice, singing, and all kinds of harmonic instruments. This article about a music publication is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools.

Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Redirected from Harmonie Universelle. It was around this time that Mersenne started to become a coordinator for all European scholars. From he began to make a careful selection of savants who met at his convent in Paris or corresponded with him from all across Europe and even from as far afield as Constantinople and Transylvania present-day Romania.

He set up meetings of scholars from around Europe during which they would read and review scientific papers, both national and international, exchange contacts with other scholars and plan and discuss experiments and other work. It was notably one of most resourceful centres of research at that time, meeting weekly at members' houses and later in Mersenne's cell due to his weakened health.

The list of Mersenne's correspondents kept increasing and Mersenne himself did not hesitate to travel to meetings with scholars all around Europe. Mersenne had a strong interest in music and spent a lot of time researching acoustics and the speed of sound. In this work he was the first to publish the laws relating to the vibrating string: its frequency is proportional to the square root of the tension, and inversely proportional to the length, to the diameter and to the square root of the specific weight of the string, provided all other conditions remain the same when one of these quantities is altered.

Mersenne had already started encouraging the talents of others and helped them to share their ideas and results with other scholars. When Roberval arrived in Paris, after joining Mersenne's circle of scholars, his talent was soon recognised by Mersenne who encouraged him to work on the cycloid. The period between and was a transitional period in Mersenne's life.

During this time he travelled to Holland for several months between and His main reason was to seek a cure for an illness with the help of spa water but he used the opportunity to visit scholars in the surrounding areas. In October Mersenne travelled to Provence and Italy where he learnt of the barometer experiment from Torricelli. On his return to Paris, he reported this news to encourage French scholars to carry out the experiments too.

Lharmonie universelle de marin mersenne biography

Throughout his lifetime Mersenne helped many potential scientists by steering them in the right direction and advising some on the next step to take. He became a role model for Huygens whom Mersenne took under his wing and through his encouraging letters inspired Huygens ' Theory of Music. Huygens had intended to move to Paris in to be near Mersenne in order to enable them to contact each other more easily, however Huygens did not move until several years after Mersenne had died so they never met.

Galileo also has to be grateful to Mersenne for making his work known outside Italy. Mersenne insisted on publishing Galileo 's work and without this Galileo 's ideas might never have become as widely known. Continuing his travels into his old age, in Mersenne set off on a trip to Bordeaux. There he met Pierre Trichet whom he helped make his mark.

He returned to Paris in Mersenne fell ill after his visit to see Descartes in July and, unfortunately, his health never improved. This, by the way, is a veryinteresting sentence, revealing Mersenne as a modern "matter-of-fact"scientist clearly abandoning the traditionalnominalismstill fashionable at his time. Mersenne explains the constructionof the keyboardof the harpsichord; what would the reader make of the following translations?

And in the chapteron horns, a pavillon of a horn p. Here Mersenne simplyrefersto the Geigenwerkor cimbalo con ruote,a keyboardinstrument in the shape of a harpsichord, with rotatingwheels' that set the stringsvibrating. It is describedin the greatestdetail and illustratedby Praetoriusin his Organographia and by others; one beautifullypreservedspecimenis in the Mahillon collection at the BrusselsConservatoire,another was in the instrumentcollectionof the Medici entrustedto the care of BartolomeoCristofori.

When Mersenne refersto the Cistresanciens used in Egypt,he does but sistra, not mean "citterns" p. And why, in view of the still existinginternationalconfusionof does not the translationuse good old English names for instruments, terms whereverthey exist, for example "recorder" instead of "block flute"! Sometimes general and specific terms are confused: Mersenne speaks of bagpipes in general and explains several special formssuch as the musette,the cornemuserurale, and the Italian sourdeline.

And even more confusedis the summaryof contentsprovided by the translatorin his introduction p. Should not the translatorhave helped the reader by a footnoteat least, instead of retainingthe word lyrethroughout? Mersenne used engravingsas well as woodcuts; the formerachieve a much higherdegreeof accuracy,not necessarilya resultof the technique employed,since Praetorius'swoodcuts-he used only woodcuts in his Theatrum Instrumentorum-are admirably precise.

The woodcut of the harp, Fig. In the woodcuts-not in the engravings-frequentlyseveral instrumentsor parts of instrumentsare depicted with no regard to theirrelativesize. A warning to this effectwould have helped the reader. Mersenne, it seems, made no effortto supervisethe draftsmanor draftsmen,quite unlike Praetorius,who must have sat at the elbow of his woodcutter,if he did not actually make the designs himself: so accurate and well even to the smallestmouthpiece,crook, or proportionedis everything, tuninghammer.

Mersenne did not furnishcaptions for the illustrations. The translator does, but they are frequentlyincorrector in contradictionto Mersenne'stext. One can hardlyunderstandwhy the translatordid not simplyfollowMersenne'sreferencesto those illustrationsin the text. It is one of the long-neckedlutes still used in the Near East, and Mersenne himself,familiar with Oriental instruments,calls it Turkish in the text.

The "Indian instrument" is not incorrect since Mersenne'stext calls caption it "Indian"; but unfortunately thetranslator refers to it in hisintroduction as "a complex Indian wind-stringed[! The proofreadingleaves much to be desired. There are numerous misspellingsand a disturbingly parsimonioususe of the umlaut. Also le cabinet de IllustrissimeRosinus Venetien is hardly adequately rendered by "the collectionof the most illustratiousVenetians,Rosinus" p.

Footnote 8 on page should read footnote1, to mention only one of these little errors. The example illustratingthe tuning of the "lyre" actually a lironeor lira da gamba; p. An introductionof fivepages summarizescursorilythe contentsof the seven books on instruments. The student would have benefitedfrom an evaluation of Mersenne against the backgroundof his time and his role and historicalinfluencein organology.

Also, since the books on instrumentsconstituteonly a part of the Harmonie Universelle,an explanation of their relation to the central ideas of the treatisemight have been useful; likewise referencesto the other untranslatedsections,which deal not only with problemsof acoustics in general, harmony,and composition,but also with matterscloselyrelated to instruments, as in the sections on mechanics, the behavior of chords, etc.

One may also have expecteda comparisonof Mersenne's treatisewith Praetorius'sOrganographia,which, preceding the Harmonie by only seventeenyears,has a quite differentapproach to the same problems: it is more systematicin its organization and terminologyand speaks chieflyto composers and performers,while Mersenne gives more advice to instrument builders.

The translationis followed by three short appendices: one gives the units of weights and measures used by Mersenne, another is entitled "Glossary of Terms and Words" but contains actually only 11 terms. A fourthand substantial of the musical examples in the text,but appendix gives transcriptions it is not free fromerrors: for instance,Ex.

Reviews of Books There is, incrediblyenough for a book of this kind, no index of and of the numerousreferencesto tuning, any sort. A list of instruments pitch,bowing,breathing,embouchurewould have greatlyincreasedthe from usefulnessof a book of pages with so many cross-references to Also a of and modern list the ancient authors, proposition proposition.

Althoughthe book has a bibliography,the reviewercould not detect the principlesunderlyingits compilation. There is merit,of course, in citing the literatureon Mersenne, such as H. Lenoble on Mersenne as a scientist,and Eitner's list of Mersenne's writings,and also a tinyfractionof the vast literatureon Mersenne's friend Descartes. But why include Glenn's Mathematics Dictionary, , the InternationalIndex to Periodicals, and general dictionariessuch as Webster's,Larousse, the Catholic Encyclopedia,Littre'sDictionnairede la langue frangaise,Hatchette sic , the Catalogue ge'ne'raldes livresimprimesde la BibliothdqueNationale, and the 45 volumes of the Biographieuniverselle,ancienne et moderne?

There is only a random sprinklingof old and modern books on organology: Virdung's Musica Getutschtis mentioned,but neitherSchlick's Spiegel der Orgelmacher,nor Martin Agricola's Musica Instrumentalis. Kircher's Musurgia is included, but not his Phonurgia,nor Buonanni's GabinetoArmonico,whichin factillustratestheinstruments of theMuseo Kircheriano.

Curt Sachs is representedby his Historyof Musical Instrumentsand the Real-Lexikon du [sic] Musikinstrumente; but his ingenious Handbuch der Instrumentenkunde, which throughoutrefersto Mersenne, is not mentioned. And in view of Mersenne's great interestin pitch, Arthur Mendel's recent and importantcontributionto this subject? In short, would it not have been much more usefulsimplyto copy the excellent bibliographyfromBessaraboff'sAncient Musical Instruments,a standard work,by the way, also not mentionedin Mr.

The French version of the flageollet is very similar to the recorder:. This is an English flageolet. Its sound is very similar to that of an Irish tin whistle. The precedent image can be found in Mersenne's treatise. The letters and numbers contained in it are there to help the reader to understand what Mersenne wrote: "Even if some people prefer to put this kind of flute in the same category of the Flageollet because they both have six holes to be stopped with the fingers, I chose not to do the same because the embouchure hole is not located in the A B region as it can be observed in the flutes of the other kind , but in the I hole The embouchure is achieved by placing the inferior lip by the border of that hole and pushing the air rather softly into it.

The author sustains that the embouchure needed to play the transverse flute is more difficult to learn than the embouchure needed to play the flageolet and other similar flutes. Mersenne also talks about which materials could be used to make transverse flutes. Wood was more commonly employed, especially that of the plum and cherry trees. Ebony was also appreciated.

Besides wood, glass and crystal could be used, even though more rarely. Still on the subject of the physical characteristics of the flute, Mersenne provides us with measurements for the holes' diameters, for the distance between them, and for the tube's diameter.