We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from Part I - Enlightenment Perspectives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 July 2022
Telemann’s Beschreibung der Augen-Orgel oder des Augen-Clavicimbels (Hamburg, 1739) has generally been interpreted as a commentary on the “clavecin pour les yeux” invented by the French Jesuit mathematician and philosopher Louis-Bertrand Castel (1688–1757). This publication was widely received as an influential contribution to one of the liveliest debates of the Enlightenment – the intense controversy over Castel’s theories of sound-color analogy. A look into the genesis and influence of Telemann’s Beschreibung reveals the source of its text and exposes a bilingual tableau of intellectual loyalties and rivalries. Among the luminaries who weighed in were Voltaire, Rameau, Mizler, and Mattheson, whose unpublished manuscript on the subject includes the same French letter that inspired Telemann. This essay confirms that the letter’s author was Castel himself. Telemann’s text was a fairly literal translation, but it was quickly and anonymously translated back into French by Castel, who deceptively published it as though it had Telemann’s imprimatur. Due to the composer’s celebrity, this text, as erroneously attributed to him, appeared in no fewer than eight versions between the years 1739 and 1757 in French, German, and Latin.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
