(fl 3rd–4th century ce). Writer on music. He was the author of a Harmonic Introduction (Harmonikē eisagōgē), an eclectic mixture of Aristoxenian and Pythagorean theory, together with a treatment of notation. The statesman and writer Cassiodorus knew his treatise in a Latin translation credited to Mutianus (otherwise unknown). He cites Gaudentius both at the very beginning of the section on music (Institutiones, ii.5) and at the end, where he singles him out for special praise: ‘if you read him over again with close attention, he will open to you the courts of this science’ (quem si sollicita intentione relegatis huius scientiae vobis atria patefaciet). Cassiodorus clearly made significant use of Gaudentius's treatise in his own treatment of consonances.
The treatise is transmitted in 31 manuscripts, the earliest of which is I-Rvat gr.2338 (RISM, B/XI, 234), dating from the late 12th century or early 13th. Its eclecticism is unusual: it begins as if Gaudentius were an Aristoxenian, moves abruptly in the middle section to the story of Pythagoras's discovery of harmonic phenomena, returns to a discussion of the various species of consonant intervals and concludes with a section devoted to a description of ancient Greek musical notation. This last section breaks off in the middle of the Hypoaeolian tonos, but it is probable that the treatise originally included all 15 tonoi of the ‘younger theorists’ in each genus. As the treatises survive today, only the tables of Alypius – an author also mentioned by Cassiodorus – provide a more complete representation of ancient Greek notation. The consistency of the notational symbols as they appear in surviving pieces of Greek music and in the treatises of Alypius, Aristides Quintilianus, Bacchius and Gaudentius attests the importance of musical notation in antiquity.
The treatments of various topics in Gaudentius's treatise parallel for the most part treatments found in other treatises, but there are a few unique or unusual features. His definition of paraphonic notes (§8) is distinct from the definitions of Bacchius and Theon of Smyrna; and he recognizes (§19) the possibility of 12 different species of the octave through the various combinations of the individual species of the 4th and the 5th, although he concludes that only the traditional seven species of the octave are ‘melodic and consonant’ (emmelē kai sumphona). Gaudentius regards the 11th as a consonance (§§9–10); while this is not unprecedented, it is unusual in a treatise showing some adherence to the Pythagorean tradition. Finally, his incisive explanation (§20) of the purpose of musical notation and the reason why there cannot be just a single sign for each note-name (e.g. proslambanomenos, hypatē hypatōn etc.) is not found in any other treatise.
Gaudentius must have been known throughout the Middle Ages only as a shadow in the references of Cassiodorus. In the 16th century, however, the treatise was known to Giovanni Del Lago, Gioseffo Zarlino (Istitutioni harmoniche, iii.5), Girolamo Mei, Francisco de Salinas (De musica, ii.9) and others. Meibom included the treatise in his collection of 1652, after which it became generally known.
StrunkSR2, i, 66–85 [Harmonic Introduction]
M. Meibom, ed. and trans.: ‘Gaudentii philosophi: Harmonica introductio’, Antiquae musicae auctores septem (Amsterdam, 1652/R), i [separately paginated; with parallel Lat. trans.]
K. von Jan, ed.: ‘Gaudenti philosophi harmonica introductio’, Musici scriptores graeci (Leipzig, 1895/R), 317–56
C.E. Ruelle, trans.: Alypius et Gaudence … Bacchius l'Ancien (Paris, 1895)
L. Zanoncelli, ed. and trans.: ‘Gaudenzio, Introduzione all'armonica’, La manualistica musicale greca (Milan, 1990), 305–69 [incl. commentary]
C. Dahlhaus: ‘Ein vergessenes Problem der antiken Konsonanztheorie’, Festschrift für Walter Wiora, ed. L. Finscher and C.-H. Mahling (Kassel, 1967), 164–9
A. Barbera: The Persistence of Pythagorean Mathematics in Ancient Musical Thought (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1980)
A. Barbera: ‘The Consonant Eleventh and the Expansion of the Musical Tetraktys’, JMT, xxviii (1984), 191–224
A. Barbera: ‘Octave Species’, JM, iii (1984), 229–41
T.J. Mathiesen: Ancient Greek Music Theory: a Catalogue Raisonné of Manuscripts, RISM B/XI (1988)
T.J. Mathiesen: Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NE, 1999), 498–509
THOMAS J. MATHIESEN