Abstract
Even if Stevin had been less versatile, it would not have been surprising that he wrote a book on the theory of music. In the seventeenth century musical theory did not contain much more than the mathematical doctrine of intervals, and it was generally regarded as falling within the competence of mathematicians. The traditional connection between music and arithmetic, which had existed in the mediaeval quadrivium, still survived. It was by no means necessary for a writer to be musical in the emotional sense of the word in order to feel interested in intervals.
Cf. Principal Works, Vol. V, pp. 413–464.
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© 1970 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Dijksterhuis, E.J. (1970). Music. In: Simon Stevin. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3207-0_12
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