One may add here that Jairo Moreno has discussed this matter in other terms, placing such tendencies ("appetite for comic incident") as a requirement for intertextual processes, establishing interplays onto the listening subject's perception as tropes of mediums--a syntax that explores a more complex palette of emotions where irony and ambivalence may flourish (Jairo Moreno, Musical Representations, Subjects, and Objects: the Construction of Musical Thought in
Zarlino, Descartes, Rameau, and Weber [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004], pp.
E, nessas relacoes entre as vozes, o contraste (aspecto a que aludiremos bastante nesse trabalho) causado pelo uso de sons dissonantes entre si era um elemento importante para dar "maior beleza e charme" (
Zarlino, 1968, p.
A obra de Gioseffo
Zarlino, Istitutioni harmoniche, de 1558, sistematiza esta oposicao, propondo dividir todos os estudos teoricos da musica em duas partes: a historia e o metodo.
His father Vincenzo was also a music theorist, and wrote prolifically on the problem of tuning in his Dialogo della musica antica, et della moderna (Galilei, 1581) and the Discorso intorno all'opere dimesser Gioseffo
Zarlino (Galilei, 1589).
He sometimes misses obvious references to other important figures in the history of music theory (some of Vallerius's claims come from the work of Gioseffo
Zarlino, albeit perhaps filtered through Descartes).
Under the circumstances, it is useful to recall another issue, also involving the timbre parameter of the sound, and that has inflamed the world of music theorists for over three hundred years, since the discovery of overtones as constituents of a complex sound (first mentioned by Gioseffo
Zarlino, in his Le istitutioni harmoniche, 1558).
He is the author of several works on early music theory including Music Theory from Boethius to
Zarlino (co-authored with David Russell Williams; Duckles Award, 2009) and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Music History Pedagogy.
Music Theory from Boethius to
Zarlino. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2007.