This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Humanities  • Humanities, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Michael Praetorius (c 1571-1621), Theatrum Instrumentorum, 1620, German. Woodblock. 13.9 x 17.7 cm. Courtesy of The Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill.

The inauguration of the Globe Theatre in 1599 must have created some welcome new opportunities for the resident musicians of London. Most were still making a meager living, as they had for centuries, either by accompanying dances or by playing antiphonal music to the greater glory of God. Most were no more than idle craftsmen, and poorly paid ones at that.

But the newly discovered powers of music were concordant with early 17th-century theatrical sensibilities. Playwrights and opera composers were struck with Plato's idea that bodily humors were tuned to particular musical intervals. Music was mathematics made audible, its harmonic relations ideas in the mind of an orderly God who formed the flesh in His divine image. Thus, a brilliant sequence of diatonic notes was ordained to warm the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?