Giuseppe Tartini - Lettere e documenti / Pisma in dokumenti / Letters and Documents - Volume / Knjiga / Volume II

404 enlightenment. I must furthermore confess that they are still too scantly developed for composition to profit from them; and only the most excellent composers, being superior to the vulgar rules, are capable of continuing the theory with the practice. ? wb 18 121. Tartini to L. Euler Among my many and serious obligations towards the Signor Conte Algarotti, I rank in first place that of having obtained the examination of my book on music by the most learned man in Europe and, as a consequence, obtaining the honour of writing both to thank you as much as I can and I am able for your contribution, and to entreat you to continue with the same kindness with the examination of what I have considered after reading your most learned dissertation, which I here set out. I firstly grant the great difficulty of uniting in a single subject all the needs of physics, geometry and music with the aim of establishing a foundation of the science of harmony sought after by musical practice. If physics and geometry alone were sufficient, the man of the century, that is yourself, is up to the task. I shall say more than that. If in your musical research you had had by your side a musician, to correctly inform you of the true need of our art, you would have certainly grasped the point. It amazes me, and will do so for all centuries, that a man who is indeed the most learned of our times, but not a musician, if not with regard to a disinterested pleasure, has expounded so profoundly and so closely to the truth on those principles which cannot be conceived if not as most difficult to develop, since many other learned men, for many centuries, have devoted themselves to this subject with much greater involvement and much smaller results. So I entreat you (and the whole profession with me) to cordially take an interest in the whole development of our need, which is not (if not partially) as it was perhaps presented to you by some of our experts, but which I shall here present in a sincere and precise manner. We experts all admit that the principles of harmony consist in the real perception of the ratios that exist between sounds. But this physical principle is too remote for us, and is not, nor can it be, the immediate one for our needs, as it is common to any perception created in us through the senses. Our need consisted and consists precisely in finding out whether in nature there are (or not) physical-sonic phenomena from which, immediately and with no need of the formulae of science, one can infer harmony, its nature and its laws. This pursuit is so reasonable that it tolerates neither difficulty nor objection: it being more