Table of Contents

Prelude 1
I Polyphony Emergent 13
1 Global Contexts and Ancient Origins 15
2 Dispassion and Deification 31
3 The Music of the Blessed 47
4 Oresme and the "New Song" 67
5 Polyphonic Controversies 85
II Polyphony Triumphant 99
6 E pluribus unum 101
7 Polyphony and Power 119
8 Controlling Dissonance 131
9 Contrapuntal Science and Art 149
10 In Bach's Hands 163
III Polyphonic Horizons 181
11 Polyphony Extended 183
12 Contrapuntal Radio and Polyphonic Fields 209
IV Polyphonic Brains 227
13 Polyphonic Selves 229
14 Tuning the Brain 245
15 Music of the Hemispheres 259
Postlude 273
Notes 277
References 299
Illustration Credits 317
Acknowledgments 319
Index 321

About the Author

Peter Pesic, writer, pianist, and scholar, is Director of the Science Institute and Musician-in-Residence at St. John's College, Santa Fe. He is the author of Abel's Proof- An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability; Seeing Double- Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature; Sky in a Bottle; and Music and the Making of Modern Science, all published by the MIT Press.