John Birchensha: Writings on music
John Birchensha lived from c.1605 until probably 1681, and was known during his lifetime as a teacher of music, composer, and musical theorist. Although his contemporaries, including Samuel Pepys, Henry Oldenburg, and Robert Boyle, seem to have taken him quite seriously, his reputation since the nineteenth century has tended to see him as an incompetent or even a charlatan. This is largely due to the fragmentary and confused state of those of his writings which survive.Birchensha planned to write a major treatise on the mathematical theory of music. As far as we know this was never completed, but he left several written descriptions and synopses of it, from which we can get a good idea of its contents. We also have descriptions of his three appearances at the Royal Society, when he talked about his book and about something he called his 'grand scale'. Finally, there are three detailed sets of notes made by his composition students.
An edition is in preparation which will bring all of this material together and attempt to interpret it. It will be published by Ashgate in 2008/09, and is edited by Christopher D. S. Field and Benjamin Wardhaugh. The ten surviving texts from John Birchensha will be extensively annotated, and preceded by an introductory essay surveying Birchensha's life, theories, teaching, and posthumous reputation. The volume will appear in the series 'Music Theory in Britain 1500-1700', whose series editor is Jessie Ann Owens.
