Andreas Werckmeister's Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse: A Well-Tempered Universe trans. by Dietrich Bartel (review)

Dietrich Bartel's refined translation of Andreas Werckmeister's Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse appears as part of a series titled Contextual Bach Studies and edited by Robin A. Leaver. Other volumes in the series include studies of specific compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach (the "Leipzig" Chorale Preludes and The Art of Fugue), explorations of Lutheran theology manifest in Bach's compositions, the composer's incorporation of Polish musical styles, settings of the Crucifixus, and Lutheran church music by Johann Matheson and Christoph Raupach. At first glance, one might wonder how this particular volume fits into such a series, since the author, to our knowledge, never met Bach. While Werckmeister did teach the German master's cousin, Johann Gottfried Walther, the more substantial connection lies in the content of the treatise, which is the work of a contemporary devout Lutheran and, in the words of Bartel, "provides a more comprehensive or enlightening discussion of the theological foundation and interpretation of all aspects of music theory" than any other extant baroque treatise (p. 13).

One of the great strengths of this volume is its effective and informative introductory section. Werckmeister, like many authors of his time, tends to assume a great deal of knowledge on the part of his reader. He takes for granted a fluency in biblical scripture as well as a working familiarity with both Latin and Greek and makes frequent passing references to treatises and publications in other disciplines, such as theology and philosophy, among others. In addition to the necessarily brief biography and summary of Werckmeister's earlier publications, Bartel contextualizes Werckmeister's musical understanding. Discussions of the musical philosophies of Pythagoras, Plato, Boethius, and Augustine present the divine order and origin of music that would have been at the forefront of the German baroque musician's mind, living as he was on the cusp of a radical shift in musical thought. While Werckmeister's musical world was a "universe ordered and well-tempered by the hand of God," his successors would subscribe to an aesthetic rooted in Enlightenment philosophy, valuing reason (ratio) above all else, even in music (p. 6). Bartel's pragmatic preface introduces the readers to Werckmeister's worldview by presenting the books and treatises that would have been stacked on the composer/theorist's own library shelves.

Furthermore, in his preface Bartel introduces the form and content of the treatise, summarizing the main points and key evidence presented in each chapter of the Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse, Werckmeister's ninth and final publication, printed posthumously in 1707, a volume that builds on many of the crucial ideas and concepts that were at the center of his earlier works. While the introduction to the main themes is welcome, the real value in this section is in the robust explanatory footnotes, in which Bartel provides details regarding the key historical figures referenced by Werckmeister throughout the treatise and explains the basic premise of every source the author cites. In addition to identifying the original authors of the texts Werckmeister cites, Bartel names their key contributions to their field, provides original-language excerpts, and, in some cases, explains how Werckmeister would have come the know the source. These footnotes are invaluable in illuminating the nuanced references that pepper Werckmeister's text. One might wish, however, that these references were included in the translation of the treatise itself rather than appearing only in the prefatory material.

Several noteworthy threads run through the content of Werckmeister's treatise, a translation of which makes up the second half of this publication. First, he wishes to establish that the innate qualities of music prove that it was indeed created by God. Similarly, observable "harmonic" characteristics of humans demonstrate that they, too, are God's creation. After establishing necessary knowledge by relating to the reader the difference between numbers indicating scale degrees...