DESCARTES René Musicae Compendium.

Guibert, p. 182.

First edition of Descartes first written work.

“Descartes avait fait la connaissance en 1618, à Breda (Hollande), d’un étudiant nommé Beeckman dont il devint aussitôt l’ami. Il lui confia son travail sur la musique écrit en latin, le Compendium Musicae, qu’il avait rédigé quelque temps auparavant. Beeckman conserva ce manuscrit jusqu’en 1629. Cette année-là, Descartes le lui réclama. Beeckman qui avait pris l’habitude de tenir un registre de toutes les actions et de toutes les pensées de sa vie avait fait recopier le manuscrit sur son registre. Cette copie bien que fidèle n’était pas des plus parfaite. Il n’en demeure pas moins que c’est ce travail qui fut imprimé pour la première fois à Utrecht et corrigé par les éditeurs des fautes et des imperfections les plus voyantes” (Guibert).

The Compendium, Descartes’ first book, was written at the age of 22 and published a few months after the author’s death on the original manuscript that Isaac Beckmann had kept for 11 years. It is a remarkable work and one of the first attempts to define the relationship between physical and psychological phenomena in music. Descartes presents himself as a link between the musical humanists of the 16th century – he was influenced in particular by Zarlino, whom he quotes – and the scientists of the 17th century, and in his book we discover observations that are important for the history of music and that were at the origin of Rameau’s theoretical thinking.

“Descartes divided music into three basic component parts, each of which can be isolated for study: the mathematical-physical aspect of sound, the nature of sensory perception and the ultimate effect or such perception on the individual listener… Among his scientific contributions to music theory the following are of note: an early concern with definition of period structure in musical form; an expression of the later theory of a conditioned reflex in animals; a hint at the theory of harmonic inversion; and a detailed review of the physical nature of sound” (The New Grove Dictionary of Music, V, p. 387).

Nice copy.