Music, Morals and the Body: An Academic Issue in Turku, 1653-1808

Abstract

This book focuses on five dissertations on music produced between 1653 and 1808 at the Royal Academy of Turku (also known as the University of Aura), a small but nevertheless fascinating body of texts that Sarjala uses to open up a window onto early modern thinking about music and its effects. Despite the fact that music did not enjoy much formal status (the institution was divided into four faculties of Theology, Law, Medicine and Philosophy) it nevertheless appeared in sections of other theses presented at the Academy, a bastion of Lutheran orthodoxy designed to raise the educational level of the clergy and to fit young gentlemen to their future roles in Finnish (or rather Swedish) public life. In other words, Sarjala is not concerned with composers and their works, or the relationship between music teacher and student, a body of practical knowledge (musica practica) that was mostly transmitted orally rather than written down. Rather, Sarjala is examining the assumptions held by academics who sought to understand music's powers in the broader context of science and philosophy, the realm of music theory or speculative music (music theorica).