The Structure of Harmony in Johannes Kepler’s Harmonice Mundi (1619)

Abstract

In surveying the development of the history of western music, two different currents can be singled out in the way it is understood; they take alternate predominance but also pervade and stimulate each other. On the one hand, there is a mainly mathematical-speculative understanding that does not place its main emphasis on the sound of tones but on the rational activity of speculation. From this point of view, the quality of the sound of music stretches beyond itself and serves to realize a supramusical order and regularity. It finds fulfillment in the imitation of this intelligible order. On the other hand, there is a conception of music which, by contrast, places its emphasis on the quality of sound and aims to enquire into real music, with its laws and effects on man. In order to define Kepler’s concept of music within these two main currents of musical conception better, we shall first try to clarify them.¹

From Michael Dickreiter, Der Musiktheoretiker Johannes Kepler, Chapter II A: Die Klassifikation der Harmonie (Bern und Münich: Francke Verlag, 1973), pp. 49–61.