Lavoisier and Music: An Analysis of Notes sur la Musique (1778) within Its Cultural Context (2018)
Antonelli, Francesca (Author)
Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza
Volume: 33
Issue: 3
Pages: 585-630
Notes sur la Musique are a set of notes devoted by the French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) to music theory and in particular to the rules for correct composition. Given its subject matter, Notes constitutes a unicum in Lavoisier’s corpus that has been little studied and never published. This essay will present the initial results of an in-depth analysis of this manuscript, followed by a transcription of the text. It will be argued that a large part of the Notes were derived from the writings of Alexandre Théophile Vandermonde (1735–1796), a mathematician who collaborated with Lavoisier on his scientific experiments, but who also developed his own system of harmony. After a brief examination of Vandermonde’s contributions to music theory, various passages from Lavoisier’s Notes will be evaluated in order to show the link between the two scientists’ perspectives on music. Some of Vandermonde’s unpublished papers will also be taken into consideration. On the basis of this analysis, hypotheses will be advanced regarding the circumstances that could have led Lavoisier to take an interest in music theory. Overall, this paper will shed light on a little-known side of Lavoisier’s cultural interests and activities and provide elements that could contribute to a better understanding of his Notes sur la Musique.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Marco Beretta;
Paolo Brenni;
(2022)
The Arsenal of Eighteenth-Century Chemistry: The Laboratories of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794)
(/isis/citation/CBB674187148/)
Article
Siegert, Bernhard;
(2013)
Mineral Sound or Missing Fundamental: Cultural History as Signal Analysis
(/isis/citation/CBB001320385/)
Article
Thomas Apel;
(2020)
‘Revolutions, Philosophical as Well as Civil’: French Chemistry and American Science in Samuel Latham Mitchill’s Medical Repository
(/isis/citation/CBB071972955/)
Book
Brindley, Erica Fox;
(2012)
Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China
(/isis/citation/CBB001214779/)
Article
Sullivan, Charles R.;
(1997)
The first chair of political economy in France: Alexandre Vandermonde and the Principles of Sir James Steuart at the Ecole normale of the Year III
(/isis/citation/CBB000079396/)
Book
Cesare Beltrami;
John M. Chowning;
(2020)
Il suono da Giuseppe Tartini a John M. Chowning
(/isis/citation/CBB918557123/)
Book
Day-O'Connell, Jeremy;
(2007)
Pentatonicism from the Eighteenth Century to Debussy
(/isis/citation/CBB000830148/)
Article
Darrigol, Olivier;
(2007)
The Acoustic Origins of Harmonic Analysis
(/isis/citation/CBB000772559/)
Article
Fabio Bellissima;
(2019)
Guida alla lettura del "Tentamen novae theoriae musicae" di Eulero
(/isis/citation/CBB702093931/)
Book
Charrak, André;
(2001)
Raison et perception: fonder l'harmonie au XVIIIe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB000501924/)
Book
(1994)
Leçons d'histoire de géographie d'économie politique :édition annotée des cours de Volney, Buache de La Neuville, Mentelle et Vandermonde
(/isis/citation/CBB000061200/)
Article
Hecht, Jacqueline;
(1989)
Vandermonde et l'héritage des économistes à l'École normale
(/isis/citation/CBB000028870/)
Article
Lambert, Kevin;
(2014)
Hearing Pygmalion's Kiss: A Scientific Object at the Paris Opéra
(/isis/citation/CBB001422214/)
Book
Dillon, Emma;
(2012)
The Sense of Sound: Musical Meanings in France, 1260--1330
(/isis/citation/CBB001201434/)
Article
Richards, Annette;
(2013)
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Portraits, and the Physiognomy of Music History
(/isis/citation/CBB001320653/)
Article
Bret, Patrice;
(2012)
Lavoisier, Guyton de Morveau e Berthollet, químicos e correspondentes (1772--1822): formas e usos da correspondéncia científica em torno da Revolução
(/isis/citation/CBB001212603/)
Thesis
Palmer, Louise Y.;
(1998)
The early scientific work of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier: In the field and in the laboratory, 1763-1767
(/isis/citation/CBB001566120/)
Book
Sandro Tirini;
(2021)
Vita di Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, contessa di Rumford
(/isis/citation/CBB882603015/)
Article
Lehman, Christine;
(2014)
Pierre-Joseph Macquer: Chemistry in the French Enlightenment
(/isis/citation/CBB001550419/)
Article
Beretta, Marco;
(1993)
Chemists in the storm: Lavoisier, Priestley and the French Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB000044966/)
Be the first to comment!