De institutione arithmetica & De institutione musica
| Authors | Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus |
| Publisher | B. G. Teubner |
| Published | 31 dic 1866 |
| Date | 07 mag 2016 |
| Languages | lat |
| Identifiers | uri: https://archive.org/details/aniciimanliitor01friegoog |
| Formats | DJVU |
Description
cf. this MusicaSacra.com forum discussion
Barbour's Tuning and Temperament: A Historical Survey (p. 2-3):
Just intonation, in either the Ptolemy or the Didymus version, was unknown throughout the Middle Ages. [The martyr] Boethius discussed [in De institutione musica] all three of the above-mentioned authorities [Pythagoras, Aristoxenus, Ptolemy] on tuning, but gave in mathematical detail only the system of Pythagoras. It was satisfactory for the unisonal Gregorian chant , for its small semitones are excellent for melody and its sharp major thirds are no drawback. Even when the first crude attempt at harmony resulted in the parallel fourths and fifths of organum, the Pythagorean tuning easily held its own.