Aristoxeno or Aristogenes of Tarentum ( Taranto , 354 – Athens , 300 a. N. E.) Was a musician, theorist of music and Greek philosopher, belonging to the Peripatetic school .
In ancient Greek, his name was written Ἀριστόξενος (pronounced [Aristóksenos]). In Spanish it is more common to see it written Aristógenes.
Biographical synthesis
He was born in the Greek town of Taras (southern Italy), current Taranto . He was educated by his father, Spintaro, who had been a disciple of Socrates . He also studied with Lampro from Eritrea and with Xenofilo, from whom he learned music theory. Finally he followed the philosophical teachings of Aristotle in Athens .
He was angered when, on Aristotle’s death , Theophrastus was appointed headmaster of the Aristotelian school, and not himself.
Tells Apollonius of Rhodes (295-215 a. N. E.) To Aristókseno cured with a flute to a crazy after this had been enraged to hear a trumpet.
Work and thought
His writings, which numbered 453, followed the style of Aristotle and focused on philosophy , ethics, and music . No original work of his is preserved. The empirical tendency of his thought is shown in his theory that the soul and the body are related in the same harmony as the parts of a musical instrument.
In his time the only musical theory was that of the Pythagorean school, which considered that tuning was based exclusively on harmonic numerical proportions. Instead Aristóksenos believed that what was fundamental was the auditory experience.
He contributed to the creation of Greek musical notation, which had great importance in the later development of music theory.
In music he stated that the intervals of the scale should not be calculated by mathematical proportions – as the followers of the Pythagorean school did – but by hearing. Of his musical treatises two books of the Elements of harmony are preserved, and some fragments of the Elements of rhythmic. In his writings, Aristókseno distances himself from his predecessors by questioning for the first time the subordination of music and music theory to philosophy, establishing a new imprint on the musical aesthetics of the time.
The oldest known treatise on music is Aristoxeno’s Harmonic Elements . This treatise defines the study of intervals, tetrachords and systems, separating the elements of the melody and the genes (diatonic, enharmonic and chromatic) of the tetrachords.
In his Harmonic Elements , Aristoxenos attempted a comprehensive and systematic exposition of music. The first book contains an explanation of the genera of Greek music, as well as their species; this is followed by some general definitions of the terms, particularly those of sound, interval, and system. In the second book, Aristóksenos divides the music into seven parts, which he takes to be: he generates them, the intervals, the sounds, the systems, the tones or modes, the mutations and melopoeia.
Aristoxenus rejected the opinion of the Pythagoreans that the arithmetic rules were the last order of intervals and that in all systems a mathematical match must be found before such a system can be said to be harmonic. In his second book, he states that “by resonance the magnitude of an interval is judged, and by knowledge we consider its intensity.” And later, he wrote, “the nature of the melody is better assimilated by the perception of the senses, and is retained by memory: there is no other way to come to the knowledge of music”, however, he wrote, ” they affirm that it is the study of the instruments that achieves this knowledge. This is talking violently.