May-June 2008
Music of the Spheres
Music played an important role in the teachings of Pythagoras. The Greek philosopher and mathematician believed there were three kinds of music: the music produced by instruments (musica instrumentalis), the music of the human body (musica humana), and the music of the cosmos (musica universalis).
Pythagoras and his followers-called the Pythagoreans-further believed that the different types of music were interrelated. Ailments caused by discord in the music of a person's body could be healed by music from an instrument, and earthly music made by instruments was only a faint echo of the music of the heavens.
The Greeks believed that the stars and other celestial bodies were attached to "crystal spheres" that revolved daily around the Earth. Pythagoras taught that each of the seven "planets" (the sun, moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn) produced a unique tone that depended on its distance from the Earth.
Furthermore, the difference in pitch between the celestial tones corresponded to musical intervals made by instruments, such as the octave, the fourth, and the fifth. The celestial music was said to be audible only to a select few people (legend has it that Pythagoras was one of them).
The notion of a "music of the spheres" remained influential throughout the Middle Ages. More than 2,000 years after Pythagoras, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler put a fresh spin on this ancient idea. In his book Harmonices Mundi (Harmony of the Worlds), Kepler hypothesized that the tones produced by the planets shifted back and forth as they moved in elliptical orbits around the sun.
According to Kepler, Earth "sang" the notes "Mi-Fa-Mi," which he believed stood for "Misery" and "Famine."
-Ker Than
Pythagorean theory: explaining musical ratios. Detail from study for School of Athens. Raphael, 1510-11.
The Bridgeman Art Library