A proposta tessaradecatónica de Sampaio Bruno

Abstract

Sampaio Bruno (1857-1915) was a Portuguese philosopher and writer who proposed, in the early years of the twentieth century, a heterodox tuning system that divides the octave into fourteen parts. To test this system, which was presented in a booklet called Théorie exacte et notation finale de la musique, at least one instrument will have been done. Aiming above all to provide some light on some distinctive idiosyncrasies of such octave division, the present article addresses three main topics. First, it exposes some investigation focusing on documentation and the musical instrument. Second, it tries to start filling a gap in the study of the proposal itself from a music theory point of view. Finally, an effort is made to understand possible philosophical implications from this theory, in a spirit of broadening angles that may or may not be useful to a wider disciplinary spectrum.