The Harmony of the Spheres - 4

From the Arabic theory of music (al-Farabi) had come the parable of the flowering tree whose branches were finely proportioned by means of numbers, whose blossoms were the different kinds of consonance and whose fruits were the dulcet harmonies (see Abert, opus cit.). The universal tree is an age-old oriental simile, probably far older than that of the planetary spheres, but it could be linked with the Gothic trellis pattern that was now appearing in music. When the mensuralist Marchettus of Padua uses it around 1300, there is a connection with the art of singing several differently measured notes in the upper part against one note, i.e. the beginnings of the art of counterpoint. Music itself thus became a richly sub-divided structure and a tree with many branches. But this polyphony and its ramifications still did not abandon the astral order: the polyrhythmic, polyphonic ground-bass included choirs of angels. This was in spite of the completely new musical form and also in spite of that scepticism about the harmony of the spheres which arose at the end of the Middle Ages. An intended copying of musica mundana as being the best music is found in the motets of Philip of Vitry, the contrapuntist we have mentioned.  Although published as an Ars nova, i.e. an art giving free rein to the native imagination, the melodies showed a strict uniformity and periodicity and no changes of rhythm, in conscious 'imitation' of the rotation of the stars. Such music had its theoretical basis in the contemporaneous aforementioned Speculum musicae by Jacob of Liège, a complete demonstration in notes of the universal hierarchy.

The universality of music was defended and scholastically classified. It now extended from the res transcendentales et divinae to cover the whole cathedral of the universe via stars, people, animals, plants and stones. And when the hierarchical world-picture reflected in the heavens had shattered, the harmonies of the spheres were still heard in art. There were still 'touches of sweet harmony', as Lorenzo described the stars to Jessica, still these sublime lines of recollection: 'Die Sonne tönt nach alter Weise / In Brudersphären Wettgesang'.* And natural science, which deprived the world of these divine attributes, was itself still deeply embedded in Pythagorean doctrine to begin with. Even Kepler, one of the men who shattered the old image of the world, adhered to the music of the spheres, and went so far as to describe it in terms of the counterpoint of his age. With Kepler, the Lyra Apollinis vel Solis became the Baroque orchestra with all its polyphony.

'The celestial movements are therefore nothing but a constant sounding together, ...all in a six-part texture, as it were' (with the six planets as individual parts), 'and organising and interrupting infinite time with these notes. And so it is not surprising, furthermore, that man, who copies his Creator, has gained an insight into polyphonic song which was denied to the ancients, reproducing the constant flux of world-history with a polyphonic musical structure of much artistry in the brief fraction of one hour, and thus vicariously savouring the Creator's delight in his work through the delicious feeling of bliss that music, as it copies God, imparts to him' (Harmonices mundi V, chapter 7).

Finally, and as was to be expected, Romantic natural philosophy gave a fresh boost to the ancient celestial magic. This is most audible in Schelling. His Philosophy of Art again sought 'to establish the supreme meaning of rhythm, harmony and melody' in an astronomical fashion. In so doing Schelling associated rhythm and homophonic melody, as possessed by the ancients, with the world of the planets, but harmony and counterpoint, as an allegedly confused movement, with the comets! This apart, however, his endeavour constitutes a fresh revival of the astronomical theory of music in its entirety -although, to be sure, it is already as foreign to the music ot the age as it is cosmic in construction.

'Heavenly bodies float on the wings of harmony and rhythm; what has been called centripetal and centrifugal force is nothing else than -this rhythm, that harmony. Lifted up by the same wings, music floats in space in order to weave an audible universe from the diaphanous body of sound and the note.'

Item, the history of the harmony of the spheres is still the history of the canonic system of the cosmos in music and hence the history of the temple of Solomon in music, i.e. the most highly conceived form-utopia. This form-utopia, of course, is only utopian because distant in space. Its wish-dream applies to a location which is not already present. Ideal time [Wunschzeit), and consequently real utopia, infiltrates this changing harmony of the spheres, the avowed harmonic-integrity of Creation, only inasmuch as one conceives its ideal space [Wunschraum] as being filled not simply with the music of angels but with that of a future Jerusalem. This occurs in the earlier accounts of a -blissful end in which the departing person, when well on his way, seemingly succeeds in hearing from the beyond a song of the joy to come. The idea survives until far into the Baroque era in the diverse references to musical miracles, as in the book Of the Three Ages (1660) by Sperber, a Joachite and Rosicrucian:

'When, in 1596, a doorless chapel was accidentally discovered in Jerusalem, people heard an agreeable harmony like an angelic or celestial music coming from within. So they were in no doubt that in a few years would commence the new age and joyful era when they would constantly delight in hearing all that celestial music of which earthly music is only the beginning.'

Moreover we may recall, in a context which is anything but heretical, the exclamation of Pius IV on hearing Palestrina's Marcellus Mass:

'Here a John in the earthly Jerusalem is giving us an idea of that song which the holy Apostle John once perceived in prophetic ecstasy in the heavenly Jerusalem.'

There is an epigone's echo of this at the end of Act 1 in Pfitzner's opera Palestrina, where he portrays the creation of the Marcellus Mass. Here, first one angel's voice, then several, and then angelic choirs stretching to dizzying heights sing the music to the 'inspired' composer. And Bruckner's majestic triads imply a background of heavenly sovereignty still based in real faith; a burst of cherubic voices seems to be reflected in the octave leap divided by a fifth which pervades his Te Deum.

To sum up, then: [...] above all: since Gregorian chant, music has been borne along by a tendency towards moral order and -even without the myth of the spheres and astral myth -a perfect harmony. Both historically and objectively, then, music proves to be essentially a Christian art. Its harmony of the spheres simultaneously disintegrates and reveals itself, becoming the source-sound of self-shapings still unachieved in the world.  

* From Goethe's Faust, where archangel Raphael says: "The Sun intones, in ancient tourney / With brother-spheres, a rival song, /  Fulfilling its predestined journey, / With march of thunder moves along. / Its aspect gives the angels power, / Though none can ever solve its ways; / The lofty works beyond us tower, / Sublime as on the first of days. " [Note by Ellopos].

Reference address of this text:  https://www.ellopos.net/music/library/bloch.html

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