The second half of the 20th century saw a parallel development of science and a taste for ancient music. What could have been just a passing fad had in fact taken considerable proportions, leading musicians and musicologists to review completely the "Conditions of music" to take up André Souris's phrase.

The restoration or copy of ancient instruments, the consideration of musical rhetoric, the understanding of rhythm, the return to original editions, the theory of temperaments etc, all these are so many key points in putting ancient music back into shape. In Goût et Musicologie (Taste and Musicology), Gérard Bougeret shows how the subtle theory of temperaments seeps into musical grammar, so much so that it almost constitutes an a priori when one takes into consideration musics anterior to 1750.

This study opens up a reflection on the meaning of musical grammar, analysis and writing as they are practised a posteriori.