The Musical Library of Johann Adam Hiller (1768)
Keywords:
History of the book, Ideal of the Perfect Library, Musical styles of the 18th Century, Johann Adam HillerAbstract
The search for the accumulation of knowledge, through the written modality, crossed the history of the West under the record in several supports, such as parchment and paper, whether in roll or in codex (both manuscripts and printed). The constructions of meaning inscribed in book format in different areas of knowledge paved the way for the development of Arts and Sciences from Antiquity to the present day. However, at this same juncture, there is a yearning for a library that would bring together all the knowledge and all the books ever written – the ideal of the Perfect Library. This principle, already intended by Alexander the Great and later aligned and mediated by the Ciceronian model of the Perfect Orator – emulated by authors from the Middle Ages to the 18th century (from Jacobus Leodiensis to Johann Mattheson) – was recovered by eighteenth-century thinkers in the constitution of the concept of the Perfect Library. In this text, we will discuss the works on practical music presented by Johann Adam Hiller (1728-1804) in his Critical Sketch for a Musical Library (1768).