Department of Music

Keeping China and Europe in Tune – Toward a Global History of Music Theory

Speaker: Professor Alexander Rehding, Harvard University

Date: 23 May, 2018 (Wednesday)
Time: 5:30pm
Venue: Rayson Huang Theatre, Main Campus, HKU

Abstract:

Something funny happened in 1585. A Chinese mathematician, Zhu Zaiyu ???, recalculated musical intervals to make them the same size across the board, proposing what is now known as “equal temperament.” About 15 years later, ca. 1600, the first mathematician in Europe, Simon Stevin in Amsterdam, came to the same result. This calculation marked a significant scientific and musical breakthrough: equal temperament has been hailed by sociologist Max Weber (1921) as the key to the “rationalization” and modernization of music.

But what exactly had happened? Was Chinese knowledge brought to Europe? Did both theorists make independent discoveries? Or are we even dealing here, as some scholars have darkly suggested, with a case of intellectual theft? How can we make sense of this double event?

To solve this puzzle, we have to home in on the notions of discovery, invention, intellectual property—and ultimately on the question of science and knowledge spreading across cultures: Shigehisa Kuriyama’s critical lens of “divergences” and the concept of music-theoretical instruments offer a useful pivot. The case of equal temperament can serve as part of a wider reflection on the possibilities of a transnational—or even global—history of music theory that takes into account material and intellectual dimensions of music theory and illuminates the complex movement of ideas across cultures.

Admission is free. First come, first served. Lecture will be conducted in English. Please click here to register.

For enquiry, please contact the Department of Music at 3917-7045 or music@hku.hk