Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

North, Francis, 1st Baron Guilford

(b Kirtling, Cambs., bap. 2 Nov 1637; d Wroxton, Oxon., 5 Sept 1685). English lawyer, amateur musician and philosopher, elder brother of Roger North. He was educated at King Edward VI Free Grammar School, Bury St Edmunds, and St John's College, Cambridge (1653), where he learnt to play the viol, possibly with John Lilly, whom he later patronized in London. Admitted to the Middle Temple (1655) and called to the bar (1661), he was King's Counsel (1668), Solicitor General and Knight (1671), Attorney General (1673), Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas (1675) and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal (1682). Roger North and John Evelyn both characterized him as skilful in languages, music, painting and the ‘new’ (i.e. experimental) philosophy. As well as being a competent viol player, he enjoyed singing, and apparently transcribed and studied a number of Italian songs. He also composed some music, some of which survives (consort music, a 3, GB-Ob, b pt only; other consort music, Thomas North's private collection, Rougham, Norfolk). He appears to have known Purcell, with whom he made music on at least one occasion.

During his lifetime the science of musical acoustics emerged gradually from the coincidence theory, which provided the first physical explanation of consonance and dissonance based on the coincidence of motion of vibrating strings. In his version of this theory, North was concerned with the coincidence of motion (pulses) in the air and as perceived by the mind. He devised an ‘ocular scheme’ to represent the dependence of pitch on frequency. He also provided hints for a new theory of harmony, afterwards developed by Roger North, showing that individual chords function in relation to a chord root or ‘fundamental’ and within a tonality or ‘key’. These contributions are preserved in his A Philosophical Essay of Musick Directed to a Friend (London, 1677; pubd anon.), a short tract printed under the auspices of the Royal Society. The tract was advertised in the society's Philosophical Transactions by its president, William, Viscount Brouncker, who probably was the ‘so great a Philosopher and Musician’ and ‘Friend’ to whom the tract was addressed (the two men adopted similar divisions of the monochord).

Prior to publication, North, through his father, sent a query ‘about motion’ to Robert Hooke, who replied directly to North on 12 and 26 November 1676. Hooke was already working on an experimental device for creating a frequency, and he used this device to provide an aural demonstration of North's ‘ocular scheme’. After publication and in compliance with a request from North's brother, John, Isaac Newton gave his opinion of the tract in a letter dated 21 April 1677. Newton identified the central problem of the coincidence theory: that it does not consider phase relations of the sounding ‘waves’. He also dissented from North's assertions that sound is produced in ‘the Torricellian vacuum’ and that the medium of sound is not the gross particles of air but particles of a middle nature between those of the air and the ether. The wider context of these assertions, which have implications for musical acoustics, is to be sought in the controversies that began in the 1600s over interpretations of barometric and hydrostatic phenomena.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

W. Brouncker: ‘A Philosophical Essay of Musick …’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vii (1677), 835–8

R. Hooke: The Diary … 1672–1680, ed. H.W. Robinson and W. Adams (London, 1935), 211, 223, 256, 259, 274–5

J. Evelyn: The Diary, ed. E.S. De Beer (Oxford, 1955), iv, 299

I. Newton: The Correspondence … Volume II 1676–1687, ed. H.W. Turnbull (Cambridge, 1960), 205–8

R. North: The Life of the Lord Keeper North (MS, GB-Cjc 613, vols.1–4); ed. M. Chan (Lewiston, 1995)

L.F. Chenette: Music Theory in the British Isles During the Enlightenment (Ann Arbor, 1967)

P.J. Willetts: ‘Autograph Music by John Jenkins’, ML, xlviii (1967), 124–6

P. Holman: ‘Suites by Jenkins Rediscovered’, EMc, vi (1978), 25–35

M. Chan, J.C. Kassler and J.D. Hine: Roger North's The Musicall Grammarian and Theory of Sounds: Digests of the Manuscripts with an Analytical Index of 1726 and 1728 Theory of Sounds (Kensington, NSW, 1988), 57–9

J.C. Kassler: ‘Chronology of Events in the Life of Roger North’, in M. Chan and J.C. Kassler: Roger North: Materials for a Chronology of His Writings (Kensington, NSW, 1989), 1–46

J.C. Kassler: Inner Music: Hobbes, Hooke and North on Internal Character (London, 1995)

MARY CHAN, JAMIE C. KASSLER

North, Nigel

(b London, 5 June 1954). English lutenist and guitarist. He attended the GSM from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1975, and the RCM from 1971 to 1974. He studied the classical guitar with John Williams and Carlos Bonell, the viol with Francis Baines and the lute with Michael Schäffer in Germany (1976). Since 1973 he has performed with many leading ensembles, including the Early Music Consort of London, the Academy of Ancient Music and the English Concert. His distinguished solo career began with a Bach recital at the Wigmore Hall in 1977, and Bach's music has remained central to his repertory; a series of solo Bach recordings made in the 1990s has been particularly influential. North is equally well known as an accompanist and continuo player, and his book Continuo Playing on the Lute, Archlute and Theorbo: a Comprehensive Guide for Performers (London, 1987) is considered indispensable. He was a professor of lute at the GSM and has published editions of lute music by Byrd and Ferrabosco.

STEPHEN HAYNES