Page 7

Concerning Ornaments and Moral Consonances

The motive the author had in creating this first part.

The great philosopher Diogenes of Sinope Diogenes the Cynic, known for his biting social critiques. used to mock musicians who, while having their Vihuela, Lute, Harp, or Guitar tuned to play harmonic modes, possessed a soul that was out of tune, dissonant, disordered, and destructive of the virtues—which are the harmony of the will, that is to say, of the soul. For according to Plato's definition, Vice is a certain dissonance of the soul. original: "Vitium est quædam animi dissonantia"
What a vice is.

I say we read that he used to truly rebuke those lyric musicians of his time who, although they tuned the strings of the Lyre and accommodated the voice to the harmony, were afterwards disproportionate and dissonant in their lives and customs; and entirely discordant and removed from Platonic precepts. We see that when a perfect musician wishes to play, and the strings of his instrument create disproportion or dissonance for him, it is a heavy and insufferable thing;
It is a laughing matter to wish to be more consonant with the instrument than with one's life.

so how will it not be so for a musician who has within himself a dissonance of bad habits? Or what is worse, of bad deeds? Certainly, it is an unworthy thing, and even laughable, for one to wish to be a more perfect musician in voices than in deeds: more in singing than in practicing, and much more in the musical scales than in one's character. I say there are some singers and other composers who put all their knowledge into forming a false harmony, and in regulating the voices accepted by common ears; which they then adorn with sounds and scales, but not with works and deeds; the fabric of the voices being of one thread, and the warp of their character of another: being (I say) concerted in their voices, but disconcerted in their deeds.
Who is a Musician is stated in chapter 11 of the Curiosities.

Because of the little understanding that some musicians have (I say musicians to use the ordinary way of speaking), they are very little esteemed (even though the Music of everyone else is honored and revered) and they are reputed to be men of little significance, infamous, and of vile condition.
Musicians are held in low opinion by the people because of how they behave. Titus Livy, Book 1, Decade of Book 9.

They were also held as such by the ancients: because not only in Aulus Gellius, but also in Titus Livy, and much more copiously in the text of Ovid's Fasti, we read of the disordered life and the vile behavior of those players who served in the sacrifices in Rome. These men departed due to a slight they received from the Consul; and having gone all together in a multitude (as they say) like so many thrushes, to dwell in a city called Tivoli, the Romans could never persuade them, neither with pleas nor with threats, to return. Nor would they ever have returned if, by way of trickery and debauchery, overcome by sleep from having eaten and drunk too much, they had not been vilely placed upon carts and driven like so many animals to Rome. Although all this is a very fragrant flower compared to other traits they usually have, which I remain silent about out of politeness and so as not to exceed my limits. I only advise that whenever the sensory appetite tyrannizes the republic of the soul and oppresses the nobility of man,
Man is made in the likeness of God. Genesis, chapter 1.

made in the image and likeness of God, and holds reason trampled and dejected, it can be said with truth that he who allows himself to be tyrannized by appetite in this way turns from a man into a beast;
What a Centaur is: and its mystery.

and in this way he becomes a Centaur; a creature feigned by the ancients that was half man and half horse: by which is understood a man given over to his vices and sensualities, ruled by appetite and not by reason; who, having the figure of a man, lives as an irrational being. So, considering the behavior of some musicians, I can say with the aforementioned philosopher: That musicians know how to tune instruments, but not their defects and evil inclinations. For to be a perfect Musician, it is necessary that he who wishes to compose well be well-composed himself; and he who wishes to make harmonies be composed of harmonies: for otherwise, there can be no concerted and consonant Music in a disconcerted and dissonant instrument.
Plato described an excellent Republic.

Note that although there is not really (nor will there ever be) such a Musician as I desire him to be, he exists at least in my concept: and this in imitation of Plato, who described the most excellent Republic he could imagine, which never was, nor was meant to be.
Xenophon, a perfect Prince.

And Xenophon, an excellent philosopher and orator, painted in the Cyropaedia The Education of Cyrus a perfect Prince, such as he had never seen, nor believed would ever exist; and truly it is seen that he did not intend so much to write the history of Cyrus as to instruct a perfect Prince.
Julius and Quintilian, a perfect Orator.

If anyone wishes to know my intent in this treatise in a few words, let him know that just as Julius Likely referring to Julius Caesar or a contemporary rhetorician. and Quintilian wished in certain books of theirs to form a perfect Orator:
And the Author, a perfect Musician.

so I (with the favor of God) intend to form here a perfect Musician.

---

Valentin was born on the third of November 1717; his godfather was Juan Nieto, his brother, a tonsured cleric, and he baptized him on the 4th of said month; he was born at ten o'clock at night.