Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet

Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet

Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet (31 July 1841–7 August 1912) was an English scientist and music theorist, and brother of Admiral Sir Day Bosanquet, and philosopher Bernard Bosanquet.

Bosanquet was the son of Rev. R. W. Bosanquet of Rock Hall Alnwick, Northumberland. He was educated at Eton College, and took first class honors in Natural Science and Mathematics at Balliol College, Oxford, and later became a fellow of St. John's College. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn, London but worked mainly tutoring at Oxford, notably for the Natural Science School, and later was a professor at the Royal College of Music. He was a musician and an authority on organ construction, and published a number of experimental and theoretical papers on acoustics, electromagnetism and astronomy, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Astronomy Society in 1871 and the Royal Society in 1890. In 1890 he retired to Tenerife, spending summers in England. He died at home at Castello Zamorra, Tenerife in 1912.

Bosanquet developed classes for musical tunings used mapping pitches in a coordinate arrangement he called a "generalized keyboard", contrasting with Henry Ward Poole's and Colin Brown's keyboards which were based on symmetry of key relationships. The keyboard was demonstrated in two instruments loaned permanently to the South Kensington Museum in 1876: a 4 1/2-octave harmonium tuned in 53 equal temperament with 84 keys per octave built by T. A. Jennings in 1872-3, and a 3-octave generalized keyboard organ built in 1875 with 48 notes per octave tuned to Hermann von Helmholtz' approximate just intonation (schismatic temperament) or 36 notes per octave tuned in quarter-comma meantone selected by means of draw stops. In 1877, speculating on papers about Indian śrutis, he relaxed the arrangement to permit mapping 22 equal temperament. He also invented a sensitive polariscope working independent of direction.

References

* [http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0073//0000202.000.html Obituary] . (1913) Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, volume 73, page 203
*Helmholtz, L. F., and Ellis, Alexander, "On the Sensations of Tone", second English edition, Dover Publications
* [http://geocities.com/threesixesinarow/onthethe.htm On the Theory of the Division of the Octave] . (1874) Journal of the Royal Musical Association.
* [http://tardis.dl.ac.uk/FreeReed/organ_book/node16.html#SECTION000162000000000000000 Bosanquet's enharmonic harmonium] "Allan, R. J. (2004). The Free-Reed Organ in England". (This instrument was restored to playable condition by [http://tardis.dl.ac.uk/FreeReed/organ_book/node3.html#SECTION00034000000000000000 Phil & Pam Fluke] in 2006)


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet — (* 31. Juli 1841 in Rock Hall bei Alnwick, Northumberland; † 7. August 1912 in Castello Zamorra, Teneriffa) war ein britischer Astronom und Musiktheoretiker. Bosanquet war der Sohn eines Pfarrers, besuchte das Eton College und die Universität… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Bosanquet — ist der Familienname von: Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923), britischer Philosoph Day Bosanquet (1843 1923), britischer Admiral, 1909 bis 1914 Gouverneur von Südaustralien Esther Cleveland Bosanquet (1893–1980), Tochter des US Präsidenten Grover… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Bernard Bosanquet — Bernard Bosanquet. Bernard Bosanquet (* 14. Juni 1848 in Rock Hall bei Alnwick; † 8. Februar 1923 in London) war ein britischer Philosoph. Bosanquet lehrte an der Universität in Oxford; 1903 1908 war er Professor der Moralphilosophie in Saint… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Lincoln's Inn — The Honourable Society of Lincoln s Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray s Inn. Lincoln s Inn is… …   Wikipedia

  • Hans Luedtke — was a German inventor in the field of music. Biography Organist, musicologist and inventor Hans Luedtke developed special [http://archives.pipechat.org/pipechat/2000/December/digest1735.html#Anchor4 Oskalyd] extended organsref|oskal and keyboards …   Wikipedia

  • Среднетоновый строй — (нем. mitteltönige Stimmung, англ. meantone tuning) или среднетоновая темперация музыкальный строй (темперация), основанный на последовательной цепи квинт, каждая из которых темперирована (уменьшена по сравнению с акустически чистой[1]) …   Википедия

  • Harmonic seventh — Inverse Septimal major second Name Other names Septimal minor seventh, Subminor seventh Abbreviation m7 Size Semitones …   Wikipedia

  • Струнный орган — Основная статья: Орган (музыкальный инструмент) Струнный орган представляет собой музыкальный инструмент со струнами в качестве звучащих тел, где они издают непрерывные (без затухания) тоны, свойственные органу.[1][2] Известные воплощения Эолова… …   Википедия

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”