Kircherian Harmonics Week
Two weeks ago, we celebrated Visionary Architecture Week at the Kircher Society. This week, we turn our attention to visionary musical instruments. We start, of course, with an idea from Father Kircher, the arca musarythmica:
a device by which a non-musician could compose a piece of four-part music using prearranged musical fragments inscribed in wands arranged in columns inside the box. Each type of wand corresponded to a particular metrical unit e.g. 4, 5, or 6 syllables, and on each wand there were examples of florid counterpoint on one side and more simple note-against-note settings on the other. Once the phrase to be set had been analyzed into its fundamental syllabic units, each of these could be set to an example taken from a wand of the appropriate type. There are many arcas still extant, including one in the Pepys Library of Magdalene College Cambridge.

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