Author(s): Geoffrey Hill

Presentation: oral

In 1776, English musicologist Charles Burney (1726-1814) completed the first volume of A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages to the Present, a survey of music in Europe from the time of Ancient Greece to Burney's modern day. In the opening section, “A Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients,” Burney makes the claim – using a dialogue on music by Plutarch as his only guide – that the fabled music of Ancient Greece bears a striking resemblance to Scottish and Chinese tunes of Burney's present. In taking the discussion further, he suggests that for this reason, the three musics must have all evolved from a common natural source. By examining intellectual currents in mid-to-late eighteenth century Europe, as well as Burney's personal connections with other Enlightenment thinkers, this study will explore the rationale which made his musical comparison and common-origin theory logical and legitimate. Ultimately, it asserts that Burney's musical comparison is an attempted "musical reconstruction” of Ancient Greece in the spirit of late-eighteenth-century Neo-classicism, which had otherwise been dominated by a fixation with Ancient Greek literature, art, and architecture - forms which, unlike music, had survived from antiquity into the present.

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