ABSTRACT
Music’s moral, emotional, and physiological effects both fascinated and worried medieval writers on music. The question remained, for writers in Latin, Arabic, and Persian alike: how can listeners ensure that the effects it produces are directed to a right and proper end? One set of answers, shared across linguistic and cultural domains, was grounded in the regulative power of the harmony of the spheres, a pure and quasi-divine music to which sublunary musical practices, performance, and listening, could aspire.In three case studies, this chapter demonstrates different applications of these cosmic, inaudible harmonies.
