Music
Since antiquity music has been thought of as a bridge between the visible and the invisible world. The Pythagoreans heard the harmony of the cosmos in the ratios between sounds, Hildegard of Bingen sang her own visions, and Marsilio Ficino tuned his lyre to the influence of the planets. In the modern age the opera house and the concert hall welcomed Masonic initiations, pacts with the devil, witches' sabbaths and knights of the Grail. This section tells how composers of different eras translated esoteric symbolism into sound: from Mozart's Magic Flute to Wagner's Parsifal, from the Fausts of Gounod and Berlioz to Scriabin's mystical visions and Holst's astrological inspirations. Alongside the works you will find the legends that surround them, such as Tartini's dream or Paganini's demonic reputation, always kept distinct from the documented facts. Music theory has its place too, because even an interval, the tritone, has had its own story of devils and prohibitions.
Mozart's Magic Flute and the Symbols of Freemasonry
Three chords, three flats, trials by fire and water: how Mozart's Magic Flute turns the initiatory path of Viennese Freemasonry into theatre.
3 min readII.02Gounod's Faust: Mephistopheles on the Nineteenth-Century Stage
From the Théâtre-Lyrique in 1859 to the Paris Opéra: the story of Gounod's Faust, the opera that made Mephistopheles a favourite of European audiences.
3 min readII.03Berlioz's Damnation of Faust, the Ride to the Abyss
In 1846 Berlioz sends Faust to hell: the story of the «dramatic legend» with its Hungarian March, the ride to the abyss and the invented tongue of demons.
3 min readII.04Liszt and the Diabolical: Mephisto, Dante and the Dance of Death
Abbé and virtuoso, Liszt devoted famous works to the demonic: the Mephisto Waltzes, the Dante Sonata, the Faust Symphony and the Totentanz for piano.
3 min readII.05Paganini, the Violinist Said to Have a Pact with the Devil
Virtuosity, a ghostly thinness and rumours of infernal pacts: how Niccolò Paganini's dark legend arose and why his burial was delayed for decades.
3 min readII.06Tartini and the Devil's Trill: a Sonata Born from a Dream
The devil playing the violin in a dream: the story Tartini told the astronomer Lalande and the G minor sonata that still bears the name of that vision.
3 min readII.07Scriabin and the Mysterium, the Music Meant to Transfigure the World
Theosophy, the mystic chord and coloured light: Alexander Scriabin's dream of a total work to be performed in India, left unfinished at his death in 1915.
3 min readII.08Holst and The Planets: a Suite Born from Astrology
From Mars to Neptune, without the Earth: why Gustav Holst built The Planets on astrological characters rather than astronomy, and how the suite was born.
3 min readII.09Erik Satie and the Rosicrucians: Composer to Péladan's Order
In 1891 Erik Satie became composer to Joséphin Péladan's Catholic Rose+Croix order: the Sonneries, the break with the Sâr and a church all of his own.
3 min readII.10The Music of the Spheres, from Pythagoras to Kepler
The idea that planets produce an inaudible harmony spans two thousand years: from Pythagoras and Plato to Boethius and Kepler's Harmonices Mundi.
3 min readII.11Wagner and Parsifal: the Grail, the Spear and the Magician Klingsor
Bayreuth, 1882: Wagner's last work joins Wolfram von Eschenbach's Grail legend, the sorcerer Klingsor and the idea of redemption through compassion.
3 min readII.12Weber's Der Freischütz and the Magic Bullets
Berlin, 1821: in Der Freischütz Weber brings to the stage the Wolf's Glen, the Black Huntsman Samiel and the folk legend of the enchanted bullets.
3 min readII.13Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre: Death Plays the Violin
Midnight, a mistuned violin and a xylophone of bones: the story of Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre and its roots in the imagery of the late Middle Ages.
3 min readII.14Night on Bald Mountain: Musorgsky's Witches' Sabbath
Written in 1867 for Saint John's Eve and never performed in the composer's lifetime: the story of Night on Bald Mountain and its many different versions.
3 min readII.15The Tritone, Diabolus in Musica: History of a Feared Interval
Three whole tones between F and B: why medieval theorists avoided the tritone, where the name diabolus in musica comes from and how Romantics used it.
3 min readII.16Hildegard of Bingen, the Abbess Who Sang Her Visions
Nun, visionary and twelfth-century composer: the Symphonia, the Ordo Virtutum in which the devil cannot sing, and Hildegard's defence of sacred music.
3 min readII.17Dukas's Sorcerer's Apprentice, from Lucian to Goethe
A broom that carries water and will not stop: the ancient roots of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, from Lucian's tale to Goethe's ballad and Paul Dukas.
3 min readII.18Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and the Dream of a Sabbath
Paris, 1830: an artist in love, a fixed idea and a witches' sabbath with the Dies irae. The history and symbols of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.
3 min readII.19The Dies Irae, the Medieval Melody that Heralds Death
From a thirteenth-century sequence to symphonic poems and film: how the Dies irae became music's symbol par excellence for death and the judgement.
3 min readII.20Marsilio Ficino and the Magical Music of the Renaissance
The philosopher who sang Orphic hymns to the lyre: how Marsilio Ficino, in his De vita of 1489, linked music, the spirit and the influence of the planets.
3 min read