Music and the Making of Modern Science

The Dream of Oresme 31

ciel ) that he strongly held to the inaudibility of cosmic harmonies, which put him

on Geometry ’ s side on this issue, at least. Even stronger evidence comes from Oresme ’ s

Livre du ciel , particularly the musical judgments he expresses there, which align strongly

with Geometry ’ s position on cosmic inaudibility and the impossibility of astronomical

recurrence.

Oresme makes a point of connecting cosmic music with the essential irreversibility of

events. Referring to his own earlier arguments on this subject, Oresme proceeds on the

assumption that celestial motions are incommensurable, again showing his agreement with

the position of Geometry. If so, “ the heavenly bodies are continually and always in new

positional relationships with one another so that it is naturally impossible that these posi-

tions ever repeat themselves again. ”^16 He immediately interprets this musically: the heav-

enly bodies “ are continuously producing new but imperceptible music: canticum novum ,

a new song, such as never existed before. ”^17 He goes on to clarify his scriptural reference:

“ And Holy Scripture often speaks of the divine music of the angels and blessed souls

caused by God Himself: They were singing a new canticle [ canticum novum ] before the

throne, ” citing a phrase from the Book of Revelation that also figures in several psalms.^18

Oresme specifically praises the newness of the song, its continual novelty; though an

opponent of astrology, he saw Heaven and Earth as connected, causally and musically:

Since the bodies of our world are governed by heavenly bodies and by their natural movements, as

Aristotle says in the first book of Meteors , it follows therefore that terrestrial bodies are continuous

in new and different arrangements such as never previously existed and that human affairs, except

those that depend upon the will as opposed to natural inclination, are continuously different and

such as they never were before in any way at all. Just as change cannot exist unless it is for better

or worse — although both better and worse are sometimes for the best — and just as choral singing

[ chant de pluseurs voiez ] by excellent voices is not so good if the voices always sing in absolute

harmony, in the same way things here below are sometimes in better state than at other times,

depending upon the variations in the imperceptible music of the spheres; accordingly, sometimes

we have peace, sometimes war, as the Scripture says: A time for war and a time for peace ; one time

sterility, another time fertility, and so on with all the other changes.^19

This striking passage opens many doors. His reference to “ choral singing ” is one of the

rare contemporary mentions of the novel practice of polyphonic music, so significant a

musical development that it deserves treatment elsewhere in its own context.^20 Here we

stress its novelty: the prevalent practice of monophonic music, such as the single melodic

line of Gregorian chant or troubadour song, in the centuries before Oresme had been joined

by variegated and exuberant experiments in many-voiced music, from organum and the

School of Notre Dame (in the twelfth century) to the ever more complex motets of ars

antiqua and ars nova in Oresme ’ s own time.

Indeed, Oresme ’ s celebration of the “ new song ” is arguably an indirect reference to

the musical ars nova not only because of the common theme of “ newness ” but because

Oresme was directly connected with the most important master of this new style, his elder