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3 unusual facts about John Birchensha


Arca Musarithmica

It has been speculated that Pepy's music teacher, John Birchensha was influenced by Kircher's combinatorial techniques, as his own "Rules of Composition" bear some similarities.

John Birchensha

The son of Ralph Birchensha, an English official in Ireland, and his wife Elizabeth, he lost both his parents while still quite young, and was in the household of George FitzGerald, 16th Earl of Kildare, up to the Irish rebellion of 1641.

This was at a time when other music theorists were codifying the rules of counterpoint, and writing about other rule-based and combinatorial systems to aid in the composition of music, such as the Arca Musarithmica of Athanasius Kircher.



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