Article ID: CBB001422214

Hearing Pygmalion's Kiss: A Scientific Object at the Paris Opéra (2014)

unapi

In 1748, in his acte de ballet Pygmalion, composer and music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau arranged the Paris Opéra orchestra to play “nature's chord,” harmonies that reproduced the overtones an expert ear could detect in every natural musical vibrating body. The following year Rameau presented his music theory to the French Royal Academy of Sciences for their endorsement. Disillusionment with the promise of Cartesian mechanics as a source of a unified understanding of nature opened up the possibility that matter might have properties beyond extension and motion, such as aversion, desire, and memory. Speculations about this material sensibility also coincided with increasing claims about the authority of spontaneous emotion and feeling. The experience of music at the opera was a significant resource for claims about the cultural authority of sensibility.

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Authors & Contributors
Hu, Zhuqing
Beltrami, Cesare
Chowning, John M.
Bertolini, Manuel
Antonelli, Francesca
Boccadoro, Brenno
Concepts
Music
Harmony (music theory)
Musical instruments
Science and music
Music theory
Acoustics
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
Renaissance
17th century
Early modern
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
Places
France
Europe
Italy
Greece
China
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