What Johann Mattheson Said about the French Royal Academy of Sciences in Das forschende Orchestre to Vindicate his Practical and Aesthetic Approach to Musicianship for the Galant Homme

Of the more than three-hundred and forty authors mentioned by Johann Mattheson in his music treatise Das forschende Orchestre (1721), five are given considerable attention as members of the French Royal Academy of Scienc es, including Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, Denis Dodart, Joseph Sauveur, Pierre Sylvain Régis, and Nicolas Male-branche. Although musicology has begun to examine the increased number of French authors cited by Mattheson in Das forschende Orchestre, compared to his two previous publications Das neueröffnete Orchestre (1713) and Das beschützte Orchestre (1717), it has not looked closely at what Mattheson said about the work of the Academy in this treatise nor has it explained in sufficient detail why he used its work to vindicate his new practical and aesthetic approach to musicianship for the galant homme. However, the Baconian view of science, Cartesian theories of perception, and physiological and acoustical experiments expressed and reported by members of the Academy are essential to Mattheson’s argument against the prevailing conception of music derived mainly from mathematics, and his motivation for citing the Academy’s philosophical and scientific innovations can only be understood fully in the broader context of his dichotomous life as an opera singer and church musician. Objavljeno u Hamburgu 1721, djelo Das forschende Orchestre posljednje je od triju rasprava Johanna Matthesona koje se bavi orkestrom za ‘galantnog gospodina’ (galant homme). U tom djelu on objašnjava razloge za promicanje novog praktičnog pristupa muziciranju i brani stvaranje estetičkih i emocionalnih sudova o glazbi na temelju uporabe sluha. U usporedbi s djelima Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre (1713) i Das beschützte Orchestre (1717), Das forschende Orchestre sadrži velik broj citata iz djela francuskih autora. Među tim autorima su sljedeći članovi francuske Kraljevske akademije znanosti: pjesnik i znanstvenik Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757), botaničar i fiziolog Denis Dodart (1634-1707), matematičar i fizičar Joseph Sauveur (1653-1716), filozof Pierre Sylvain Régis (1632-1707) i filozof i fizičar Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715). Djelo Das forschende Orchestre upotrebljava Fontenelleove Poesies Pastorales. Avec Un Traité Sur La Nature De l’Eclogue,Une Digression Sur Les Anciens Et Les Modernes, Et Un Recueil De Poesies Diverses, objavljene 1688, kako bi umanjio važnost tradicionalnog skolastičkog mišljenja i ponudio u zamjenu praktički baconovski pogl