Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/251

 musicum (3 vols., 1615-19, appendix, '20) is a mine of information. Vol. i. treats of sacred music from the earliest times and of ancient music in general; Vol. ii., of every kind of musical instrument then in use or historically known, with carefully executed illustrations; Vol. iii., of all the recognized forms of composition and of technical signs and terms, with details about the training of choirs and bands; and Vol. iv. (not completed) would have discussed the whole art of counterpoint. In scope and execution this work is one of the monuments of musical scholarship.

Marin Mersenne (d. 1648), a monk at Paris, pursued similar lines. His Harmonie universelle (1627, enlarged, 1636-7) deals with acoustics, singing, harmony and counterpoint, instruments, etc. He also discussed Hebrew music (1623), and supplemented his magnum opus by several lesser works (1634-48).

Johann Crüger (d. 1662), for 40 years at Berlin (see sec. 95), published several useful treatises on composition (from 1624?), besides important chorale-collections (from 1640).

Notable among works on ancient music were those (from 1635) of Giovanni Battista Doni (d. 1647), the distinguished Florentine. Before this, Joannes Meursius (d. 1639) had published texts by Aristoxenos, Nikomachos and Alypios (1616), besides writing on ancient dancing (1618). The monumental work (1652) of Marcus Meibom of Upsala and Utrecht (d. 1711) gave texts and translations of Aristoxenos, Euclid, Nikomachos, Gaudentios, Bacchios, Aristides Quintilianus and Capella. At intervals followed still better works by John Wallis (d. 1703) of Oxford, giving texts of Ptolemy, Porphyry and Bryennios, with discussions (1657-99).

Athanasius Kircher (d. 1680), a Jesuit at Rome, put forth several volumes (from 1641) as the results of his antiquarian studies, partly valuable, partly grotesque. The chief of these was the Musurgia (2 vols., 1650), treating of ancient music, acoustics and general composition. Other books dealt with the medical use of music, Egyptian music and still further with acoustics. His handling of ancient music was sharply challenged by Meibom.

Technical treatises were numerous in the middle and later parts of the century, such as from 1640 by Lorenz Erhardi of Strassburg and Frankfort; in 1640-66 by Otto Gibel of Minden (d. 1682); in 1642-53 by Johann Andreas Herbst of Frankfort and Nuremberg (d. 1666); from 1646 by G. G. Nivers of Paris (d. after 1701); in 1648 by J. R. Ahle of Mühlhausen (d. 1673); from 1649 by King João IV. (d. 1656); posthumously by Gerhard Johann Voss of Leyden and Amsterdam (d. 1649); in 1654 by John Playford (d. 1693), the London publisher; in 1657 by Giovanni d'Avella of Naples; in 1658-67 by Christopher Simpson of London (d. c. 1677); in 1665-79 by Jean Jacques Souhaitty of Paris; from 1656 by Lorenzo Penna of Mantua and Parma (d. 1693); in 1673 by Matthew Locke of London (d. 1677), the first English work on figured bass; in 1673 by G. M. Bononcini of Bologna (d. 1678); in 1673, also, a notable treatise on Plain-Song by Pierre Benoit de Jumilhac of Rheims (d. 1682); in 1681-93 by Angelo Berardi, successively of Viterbo, Tivoli, Spoleto and Rome; in 1683 by Francesco Gasparini of Venice (d. 1727); from 1687 by J.G. Ahle of Mühlhausen (d. 1706); and in 1696 by Étienne Loulié of Paris.