Bouquets in the key of F

   

    I've been dipping into Jennifer Potter's comprehensively interesting book The Rose and the following passage caught my attention:

    " .... the London perfumer Septimus Piesse provoked the mirth of chemists by transcribing smells in the chromatic scales of music. After lengthy experiments, Dr. Piesse drew up a list of the volatility and strength of different odours, and produced a gamut of odours most used in perfumery. As his descendant Charles H. Piesse, explained:

    Scents, like sounds, appear to influence the olfactory nerve in certain definite degrees. There is, as it were, an octave of odours like an octave in music: certain odours coincide, like the keys of an instrument. Such as almond, heliotrope, vanilla, and clematis blend together, each producing different degrees of a nearly similar impression. Again, we have citron, lemon, orange peel, and verbena, forming a higher octave of smells, which blend in a similar manner. The analogy is completed by what we are pleased to call semi-odours, such as rose and rose-geranium for the half note: petit-grain, neroli, a black key, followed by fleur d'oranger. Then we have patchouly, santalwood and vitivert, and many others running into each other.

    According to Piesse, rose appears at the top of the bass or F-key, making a harmonious bouquet when mixed with musk, tuberose, tonquin bean, camphor and jonquil."

Comments

[Kathleen]

A symphony of scents!