Description

John Birchensha (c.1605-1681) is chiefly remembered for the impression that his theories about music made on the mathematicians, natural philosophers and virtuosi of the Royal Society in the 1660s and 1670s, and for inventing a system that he claimed would enable even those without practical experience of music to learn to compose in a short time by means of 'a few easy, certain, and perfect Rules'. His great aim was to publish a treatise on music in its philosophical, mathematical and practical aspects entitled Syntagma musicÃ]. Unfortunately, the book never appeared, and no final manuscript of it survives. Recent research, however, has brought to light a number of manuscripts which allow us at last to form a more complete view of Birchensha's ideas and to gain at least a flavour of the lost Syntagma musicÃ].