Musical Education in Aristides Quintilianus’ “On Music” Cover Image

Музыкальное воспитание в трактате Аристида Квинтилиана „О музыке“
Musical Education in Aristides Quintilianus’ “On Music”

Author(s): Lyudmila Alexandrova, Nadezhda Lyamkina
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Music
Published by: Издателство НМА „Проф. Панчо Владигеров”
Keywords: Aristides Quintilianus; “De musica libri tres”; musuc education; theory of memory; theory of mimesis

Summary/Abstract: Aristides Quintilianus is a scientist from the Greek Late Antique period. He is the author of the treatise On Music, in three volumes. This is the most complete treatise, systematically describing music science survived to our time. While Quintilianus is wholly based on his scientific predecessors (frequently citing “ancient” and “divine” sources related to the “musicing science”), he is able to construct his own scientific concept and system. In his First Book, he writes about the place and meaning of music among the other arts and sciences, and its epitome of space law (as defined by the demiurges), as well as the technical side of music – harmony, rhythm, meter. In the third book, Pythagorean music mathematics is displayed – treated by Quntilianus within the context of Neoplatonic cosmology. This article deals with education and ethics, as presented in his Second Book. He is analyzing the soul and its structure, and focuses more on education. Thorough analysis also includes all components of music science, as related to students’ ethic characteristics. This particular case is based mainly on Plato’s concept of the soul; according to it the soul comes to Earth while it has preserved in itself knowledge of the ideal world. In Quintilianus’ scientific narrative one could see a synthesis of the theories of Aristoxenus, Plato and the Neoplatonists.