Book Review: The Music of the Spheres: Music, Science, and the
Natural Order of the Universe by Jamie
James (1993 – Springer-Verlag 1995)
I really enjoyed this one. It is a history of music, a
history of science in relation to music, but mostly it is history of the “great
theme” - the Music of the Spheres. From Pythagoras to Plato, the Neoplatonists,
Boethius, to rediscovery in the Renaissance by Marsilio Ficino, Vincenzo
Galilei, Pico della Mirandolla, and on through Fludd, Kepler, Newton, and
Mozart to its demise amidst the Romanticism of the 19th century, and
finally to a few revivals in the 20th century. The author is a
journalist of both music and science and so is quite at home with these
subjects. Before the Industrial Revolution and its artistic companion, the
Romantic movement, the Harmony of the Spheres presented a model of the universe
where everything was in its perfect order and all made sense. Thus was the
orthodoxy of science based in the harmony of celestial music and astronomy.
The author notes that the history of Western science is a
history of the widening chasm between the ideals and practice of science. The
“pure” scientists of the past were more like poets and were more concerned with
describing the beauty of the universe than improving the quality of life
through technology. The rigid hierarchy of pre-Industrial society, though
oppressive to the common man, tended to enhance the creative freedom of
scientists. He gives the example of medicine being considered an art rather
than a science. Classical science is far removed from modern science. Modern
science requires certainty so searching for the Key to the Universe through
science would be considered an abstract philosophical pursuit. It seems that
pure science and applied science have been thoroughly separated. The random
nature of the theory of evolution was another nail in the coffin of the old
scientific order.
The author suggests that from Plato onward music theory as
an ideal was regarded highly while music performance and enjoyment was more or
less scorned as inferior. Of course, it was noted that music could inspire
soldiers in battle, support religious experience, or promote healing.
“Music contains in its essence a mystery: everyone agrees
that it communicates, but how? … the Greeks knew the answer: music and the
human soul are both aspects of the eternal.”
Distrust of modern science and its randomness and lack of
easily apparent meaning and harmony is now prevalent in places like the New Age
movement and in religion in general. The old classical science was firmly tied
to order and the celestial (religious) harmony model of the universe. Perhaps
now there is some returning to the synthesis of rationality and the ecstatic as
the fervor of Romanticism and individualistic expression wanes a bit.
Pythagoras of Samos was a very influential figure in the
history of Western science and music. None of his works survive but those of
his students and commentators abounds. There is also much legend about him,
even in ancient times. Legend has it that he traveled widely, synthesizing
knowledge from many lands. The author sees his influence as the tradition of
Pythagorean humanism. Pythagoras was both a scientist and a mystic. He is said
to have coined the term ‘philosopher’ (lover of wisdom) to describe himself.
Pythagoras was also the founder of the esoteric tradition, as his insistence on
the secrecy of his followers attests. Of course, this is another reason so little
is known of the details of his thought and life, as Porphyry lamented in the 3rd
century CE. Even though Pythagoras can be seen as the source for the Western
tradition much of his study was in the Middle East – geometry and religion from
Egypt , numbers from Phoenicia ,
astronomy from the Chaldeans, and knowledge from the Persian Magi. The
Pythagorean Brotherhood became established at a Greek colony in Italy with
Pythagoras as a sort of philosopher-king, according to Porphyry. Eventually, he
and his followers were banished, and scattered about the known world though
some survived to keep the school going which later likely became the Platonic
tradition.
Aristotle gives some of Pythagoras’s teaching in his Metaphysics and On the Heavens. Porphyry elucidates the tetractys attributed to Pythagoras. This is a series of ten dots
arranged in a triangle or pyramid shape (like bowling pins) and emphasizes the
relationship between the One and the Many and the emanation from the First
Cause, from the formless infinite to finite form. It forms the basis of
Pythagorean numerology. As Aristotle explained it, the Pythagoreans saw the
perfect relationship of number, music, and the cosmos. Pythagoras classified
three types of music (according to Boethius): musica instrumentalis – ordinary music made by using instruments
such as lyres and flutes, musica humana
– the continuous but unheard music made by the soul of humans that resonated
with the body, and musica mundana –
the music made by the cosmos which came to be called the music of the spheres. The
relationship between musica instrumentalis and musica humana could be utilized
to heal with music, which is a practice attributed to Pythagoras and his
school. The various “modes” in ancient Greek music were purported to affect one
in various ways. Iamblichus told the legendary story of Pythagoras hearing the
smith’s hammers in harmony with the exception of one hammer. This led to
Pythagoras’s great discovery of the ratios, or arithmetical relationship
between the harmonic intervals – by noting the ratio of the weights of the
hammers. He developed a plucking stringed instrument called the ‘monochord’ to
change the string lengths according to the math ratios. The author explains the details – with the
7-note major scale and the 12-note chromatic scale defined as well as the idea
of half-steps, whole-steps, the 4th, and the 5th = basic
music theory. The basic ratios- 1:2, 2:3, and 3:4 can be explained by the
tetractys. Thus Pythagoras discovered the mathematical laws of music – though
he may actually have learned them from someone in the Middle
East . These detailed and harmonious relationships between number
and music formed the basis of the earliest science. Pythagoras went much
further in envisioning the structure of the cosmos than the Milesian
philosophers before him – Thales and Anaximander. He saw the universe composed
of crystal spheres that made music like the strings of a lyre. The earth itself
was thought to be a sphere by Pythagoras, says the author. The distances to the
planets were thought to be governed by the same musical ratios, some whole
steps and others half-steps.
Continuing the tradition forged by Pythagoras and his school
we come to Plato. Plato was a very rational thinker and had a massive influence
on Western thought. His Socratic dialogues defined the method of philosophy.
His most mystical writing, the Timaeus
is said to be his most Pythagorean. Here he explains the “great theme”, the
harmonious structure of the cosmos. Much in the Timaeus is now contradicted by
modern science so its relevance to academia has waned. But as a cosmology it is
fascinating. Plato described the world as inherently orderly, created by a
Demiurge that was good. According to the Timaeus, the Demiurge quilted together
snippets of the World Soul in such an odd manner that many – including me and
Cicero too – have become perplexed reading it. The Timaeus is an exposition of
the Pythagorean synthesis of the cosmos, mathematics, and music. The Demiurge
as the First Cause made the World Soul from three components: Existence,
Sameness, and Difference. He made the cosmos from various mathematical
proportions of the three components. The author demonstrates that Plato;s
cosmology here is equivalent to Pythagoras’s table of opposites where the even
numbers are opposed to the odd ones. This also relates to the mathematical
ratios of the C-major scale – 5 octaves of it. The cosmos itself is composed of
spheres within spheres. These are related to the motions of the planets
vaguely. In the Timaeus, Plato also creates the ‘Myth of Er’ where the universe
is described by a soldier, Er, recently slain in battle. His afterlife journey
involves musical and planetary symbolism and the Spindle of Necessity about
which the rings of the cosmos spin. On each of the eight rings a Siren sang one
note of the octave. The Fates were there as well bidding the voyagers to choose
their new lives. Er was permitted to return to earth to tell his tale. Some
trace the tale through Empedocles and Pindar to the earlier Orphic tradition as
Ur-Er, where the Thracian poet Orpheus rescues his love Eurydice from the
underworld through the enchanting strings of his lyre. The author notes two
strands here: the power of music and the renewal of life. Indeed the Orphic
tradition is entwined with the Pythagorean tradition and can be seen as an
accompanying mythology. The demi-god hero Orpheus may be a source of Pythagorean tradition. Plato believed that
rhythm and harmony pervaded not only music, but even political and ethical
thought, being a precursor to nobility. Plato speaking to Damon in the Republic:
“The decisive importance of education in poetry and music is
this: rhythm and harmony sink deep into the recesses of the soul and take the
strongest hold there, bringing that grace of body and mind which is only to be
found in one who is brought up the right way …”
Through Plato the Pythagorean model of the cosmos became the
standard in the classical world. The mostly widely read early account of the
music of the spheres came from Cicero
in his “Dream of Scipio” which is very strongly based on Plato’s Myth of Er.
Rather than a story of a warrior’s afterlife travels it is a story of a
warrior’s dream where the nature of the universe is revealed. According to the
story, man was created from the fire of the stars as a guardian of the earth.
Scipio’s account is apparently in accordance with the revisions of the nature
of the heavens provided by Ptolemy, as an earth-centered system. Cicero ’s version also
lacked the mathematical approaches of Pythagoras and Plato. Cicero ’s work emphasized man’s mind as
immortal due to its ability to propel the body through thought and will.
Science and music were linked in Greek thought as Apollo and Orpheus were
considered both the most wise and the most musical of the gods. Clement of Alexandria , in his second
century CE Exhortation to the Greeks
sought to reveal the errors of paganism in favor of Christianity. He did so by
arguing against the qualities of Orpheus as a true god of music and instead
extolled Jesus as the “new song” One can certainly argue that he simply
replaced Orpheus with Jesus, thus Christianizing the Pythagorean tradition.
Musical order was now allied with Christ as the new Logos and Orpheus, the
“Thracian wizard” was seen as inferior and equated to the music of Jubal in the
Hebrew scriptures, as the first musician. The reason he sees Jubal as inferior
may have something to do with him being descended from Cain.
Polyphonic chanting was established in the Church in the 10th
century. Ancient Greek music was not polyphonic. That done with one singer or a
flute couldn’t be, though with stringed instruments one could do it with
chords. Even so, it is though that the ancient concept of harmony involved
successive notes rather than simultaneous ones and there is no mention of
simultaneous notes in accounts of Pythagoras or by Plato. The invention of the
organ greatly influenced the popularity of polyphonic music and the modern
concept of harmony. Pure scientists continued to tinker with the Pythagorean-style
music, math, and cosmos connections through the Middle Ages. Such connections
would re-emerge explosively in the Renaissance but not without debate and
doubt. Polyphonic music exposed a few weaknesses in the Pythagorean model. The
octaves and fifths don’t quite add up and there is a “shift”, and adjustment,
known as the Pythagorean Comma, said to have been known by Pythagoras himself.
Such an adjustment to harmonize the dissonance could be made on a stringed
instrument such as a violin or cello by moving the finger for certain octaves.
This lack of perfection of the multiple-octave scales was considered an
intellectual issue for debate in Renaissance times. There was a famous feud
between Zarlino and Galilei (the astronomer’s father) where Galilei disproved Pythagoras’s
legendary ratio’s as weights (of hammers) – though the ones regarding string
lengths still applied. The feud was about the best way to resolve the
dissonance of the comma – Zarlino preferred the “just intonation” method while
Galilei pioneered the “equal temperament” method.
The next subject involves the birth of the opera. The
Renaissance was fueled by fantasies of rediscovering a lost golden age where
legendary figures like Orpheus and Pythagoras did their thing. The author
describes the opera as “the most extravagant and voluptuous form of musical
entertainment ever devised.” The first predecessor to the opera was the Pellegrina intermedi, composed for the wedding of
Ferdinand de Medici and princess Christine of Loraine, in 1589. The theme of
the “intermedi” (between scenes of a comedy play) was The Power of Music. This involved 6 scenes depicting the mythic
history of music, including Plato’s Myth of Er, Jove’s gift to mortals of
rhythm and harmony, and a singing contest between the nine Muses and the
daughters of Pierus. The first full-fledged operas began around 1600. What is
considered the first ballet in 1581 was also performed at a wedding in France . Thus
the opera and ballet evolved in similar place and time, under similar
circumstances, and with themes often related to the Music of the Spheres. These
forms are still popular today. An idea in Elizabethan times was the “Great
Chain of Being”, a vast ordered hierarchy based on those of the
Pythagorean-Platonic tradition. This was incorporated into Renaissance
alchemical diagrams as well as represented in opera.
The Pythagorean- Platonic tradition is one where science and
mysticism are in harmony. Esoteric Pythagorean cults were revived in classical
times alongside Mystery religions and Christianity, both Gnostic and Orthodox.
One such school was that of Hermeticism which derived from the legendary Hermes
Trismegistus – thrice-greatest Hermes – a compendium of the Greek Hermes and
the Egyptian Thoth. The legend was that Hermes Trismegistus was an Egyptian of
great antiquity and so too were his teachings. Thus, the rediscovery of the
Hermetic texts – the Corpus Hermeticum
and the Aesclepius were highly
venerated in the Renaissance. Clement of Alexandria ,
in the second century CE, evoked Hermetic moralism in a bid to convert pagans
to Christianity. Marsilio Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum from the
Greek, as well as many of Plato’s works. Around 1460 while working at Cosimo de
Medici’s Platonic Academy. Thus these Hermetic works were elevated as very old
holy writings comparable in influence to the great books of the Hebrews (at
least among the intellectual elite). Later, the Corpus Hermeticum (as a text)
was proven to be from later Neoplatonic times rather than of great antiquity as
proposed. Ficino had devised (possibly based on earlier models) a lineage where
Hermes Trismegistus preceded Orpheus then to Aglaophemus to Pythagoras to
Philolaus, who was the teacher of Plato. Zoroaster was later added as a
co-founder with Hermes Trismegistus. The Hermetic writings are filled with
talismanic and planetary magic and thus posed an uneasy relationship with the
Church in various times. Ficino wrote diagrams of planetary music probably
based in Orphic tradition though his compositions were lost. His associate Pico
della Mirandola added much cabalistic magic and praised the value of the Hymns
of Orpheus, which are hymns to the classical pagan gods. After Copernicus
revealed heliocentricity, Giordano Bruno attempted to venerate the Sun god via
secret societies and for this he was burned at the stake prompting the hundreds
of years of Inquisition and murder. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation
re-fettered the loose intellectual climate of the Renaissance. Tomasso
Campanella, a renegade Dominican friar from Spain was even more radical in his
pagan revivalism than Bruno. He was imprisoned but avoided the stake by
feigning madness – writing further books while imprisoned. Their utopian solar
visions all incorporated elements of the Pythagorean harmony of the cosmos. Englishman
Robert Fludd in the 1600’s and Athanasius Kircher were the last of the (openly)
Renaissance men with their mass of diagrams based on earlier work intended to
marry science and classical mysticism.
Johannes Kepler was said to be a brilliant mind who figured
out the laws of planetary motion, a venerable scientist in the modern sense,
but he too acknowledged Plato and Pythagoras as his masters and sought to harmonize
classical pure science and the applied science of his time. Kepler incorporated
geometry into his planetary motion theories. He also incorporated the five
perfect solids of Euclid, those of perfect symmetry with faces of regular
polygons of the same shape and size: tetrahedron (pyramid), cube, octahedron,
dodecahedron, and icosahedron. These most approximate the sphere which
according to Plato was the very image of God. Kepler’s ratios of planetary
distances and motions seemed to closely match geometric proportions so much
that he felt he discovered the universal harmony of the universe along
Pythagorean lines. His big book The
Harmony of the Universe is a Pythagorean style synthesis of mathematics,
music, astronomy, and epistemology. Kepler’s ratios are based on “apparent
diurnal movements” observed from the sun. His method was to model fit music
theory and Pythagorean math to his own calculations of the now elliptical, not
spherical, motions of the planets around the sun. Kepler’s numbers were fascinatingly
close to musical ratios, but not exact. He also revised some Pythagorean and
Ptolemaic notions and was criticized by the likes of Robert Fludd who still
favored geocentricity. Kepler was more rational than mystical. Even so, he was
also excommunicated and his elder mother narrowly averted being burned as a
witch. Even though Kepler sought to harmonize his rational scientific logic
with Pythagorean mysticism, he ultimately failed in that regard and instead
increased the growing chasm.
In the 17th century it was Isaac Newton who came
to symbolize the growing triumph of rational objective thought. Yet Newton also studied
alchemy and saw his own work as a rediscovery of a venerable ancient
theological tradition. Though it is not well known, mystical writings appear in
many places in his texts, notes the author. Newton simply thought that Pythagorean
tradition had gotten some of the details wrong but the original master must
have been correct – so his scientific discoveries were a rediscovery of the original
knowledge of the master. Newton
saw the harmony of music as an “analogy” of the harmony of science rather than
a directly related phenomenon.
The author describes the last flowering of the great theme
in the 18th century in the form of Freemasonry. Once Romanticism set
in, in the early 19th century, the heliocentrism of the
Enlightenment was replaced with the anthropocentrism of the Romantic Era. Like
Renaissance Hermeticism, Freemasonry developed from the Neoplatonic tradition.
One might see it as the “great themers” going underground as a result of the
dangers brought forth by the Reformation, Inquisition, and other anti-magic
initiatives with dire consequences. The Freemasons too suffered persecution.
Masons are the archetypal builders of Solomon’s temple. Their legend of the two
pillars, which may have had a Babylonian origin, is grounded in the Pythagorean
tradition – one pillar was inscribed with the secrets of astronomy, the other
with the secrets of music. According to lore, one pillar was discovered by
Pythagoras and the other by Hermes Trismegistus. Mozart was initiated into the
Masons in 1784 and wrote several Masonic-themed pieces including the Magic Flute, a Masonic opera. Even the
music, beginning with E-flat, and with a triad of flats – is Masonic. A totally
reworked version of Cicero ’s
work Scipio’s Dream is included along
with other notions of the Pythagorean harmony. Apparently, there are books
written about the great detail of Masonic symbolatry in Mozart’s Magic Flute.
One aspect was that of the then current threat of Church and state against the
power of Freemasonry there in Austria .
Freemasonry was outlawed there not long thereafter.
Bach and Leibniz, in the 18th century, were also
learned and trained in the tradition of the great theme. Bach’s music is
considered both spiritual and sublime and devotionally Judeo-Christian. Both
Bach and Mozart did not play to large audiences with large orchestras. Mozart
was known at courts while Bach was known at churches. The 1790’s brought about
the beginning of the so-called Romantic Era. Yet, the author mentions, Bach’s
great emotional outpouring of music signaled the end of the power of the great
theme – especially through the rediscovery of Bach in the 1800’s. The author
notes that composers often have risen, faded, and re-risen in popularity during
their lives and after. He gives Hadyn and Rossini as examples. Bach and his son
Phillip Emanuel Bach spurred schools modeled on their music and styles which
resulted in their popularity after death. J.S. Bach, who died in 1750, was not
well-known beyond Berlin
during his life. In the 1800’s one could speak of the “cult of Bach.” The
Romantic period is one in which the individual was exalted, according to the
author. Bach was much more famous a hundred years after his death than during
his life. Apparently, hero-worship of composers and performers and bestowing of
fame was a common occurrence and principal feature of the Romantic period.
Handel, Wagner, Beethoven, Paganini, Verdi, and Liszt each had cults due to
their virtuosities. The symphony orchestra configuration of today came about in
the Romantic Era. The author notes that the turbulence in modern classical
music between the soloist(s) and the orchestra is a reflection of the
competition between the individual and society. (particularly in Tchaikovsky’s
first piano concerto). He thinks the symphony became more personal and more
elaborate at the same time.
The Romantic period saw the birth of the musical snob and a
prototype of the rock star. The great theme faded into the background. Freud,
Darwin, Nietzsche, Marx, and others tended toward the breakup of old-school
orthodoxy in the sciences and humanities.
The author also mentions the works of Paul Hindemith such as his not so well-known
1957 opera Harmony of the World based on Kepler’s planetary work with complicated
tonalities based somehow on Kepler’s ratios. Hindemith’s tones were based on
the planets of the solar system with C as the sun.
The decline in popularity of classical music can be
attributed mainly to the rise of electronic music and the elevation of popular
and folk music. Romanticism’s contribution was the birth of “art religion”
where artists, musicians, poets, composers, novelists, etc became deified.
Later offshoots of the twelve-tone school included the Greek
composer Iannis Xenakis whose compositions were based on complex mathematical
probability theory, though some liken his method based on form rather than
content, as cold-blooded. He sees classical composition in the
Pythagorean-Platonic school as “causal and deterministic” But that was all proved wrong, he said, by statistical
theories in physics that show that things come into being without cause. This
attitude ascribed to art has been described as arrogant by some but such is all
subjective.
Karlheinz Stockhausen is a modern composer who can sort of
trace his lineage to that of the mystical past. Like Schoenberg was, he is
convinced of his own genius. His works on the Zodiac are interesting listening.
He brings back the importance of musica mundane
– the music of the cosmos in relation to the others of the Boethian
classification – musica insrtumentalis
and musica humana. The author notes
that while Stockhausen exhibits a practiced Pythagorean attitude, he is still
grounded in the self-exalting cultural paradigm of the modern world rather than
the cosmos-exalting paradigm of the classical world.
This was a great ride through musical, artistic, operatic,
and scientific history leaving me with wondering what these compositions sound
like, what seeing these operas would be like, etc. – since I am not at all an
experienced listener of classical music. Sure I have a dozen or two CDs of
classical music and I listen too it on the radio at times while driving but
there is so much I have not experienced in this vein. Perhaps a little experimentation
is in order. I have also thought of composing an opera (of sorts) with many
cool ideas rattling around in my brain – but to what end? I keep asking myself.
Art? Knowledge? To convey mythic strands in ingenius ways? Or perhaps I am just
a phantasizing fool.
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