The Sound of the Spheres

“The music of the Spheres” refers to the idea that certain sound combination that are consonant, derive from the same prepositions as those with which the universe is built and that in an inverse sense, the movement of the stars responds to those musical consonances. This perfect music referred to in the Pythagorean myth is not perceptible to the human ear, it only has the beauty of a harmonious and mathematical concept.

The theory of the harmony of the spheres, which dates back to the greek philosopher Pythagoras, states that the entire word is made up of harmony and numbers. Both the microscopic soul and the macroscopic universe are articulated in ideal proportions that can be expressed with a sequence of sounds. The movement of the stars in the sky obeys the same harmonic proportions as music.

This metaphysical approach is originally linked to a vision of the cosmos in which the stars are contained in a concentric spheres that rotate, producing consonant sounds that adjust to certain harmonic proportions.

This metaphysical approach is originally linked to a vision of the cosmos in which the stars are contained in concentric spheres that rotate, producing consonant sounds that adjust to certain harmonic proportions.

The Greeks conceived the creator of the universe in terms of absolute truth and not as inherited dogma or received wisdom. They deduced that shape and number were essential for the universe and to reach physical reality, creation, starting from abstract forms not perceived by the senses.

The subtleties of number and the absolutes of geometry were part of the empirical world, the structure hidden behind physical matter.

Today we know that everything that human beings do is part of a network where they belong with their time and culture. The creation of this network -paradigm-language-culture-, is the built order, art, science, religion. To try to configure an ideology of time and space requires to assume the “divine” condition of man, so that he could see himself as a true creator. Consider yourself as a part of a universe designed according to a project to which a transcendent meaning is assigned, perhaps to accept the randomness of chaos.

This creative force is still an inexpressible mystery that we carry within us and that the artist tries to get closer to its source to reveal it, manifest it. It is also, perhaps, a form of matter not perceptible to the senses that, together with it, takes a body and becomes a form in reality.

The work of art reflects this force, it is also the genesis that participates in that movement, that principle, that vision. The sound or “original word” sets into vibration the matter of which all things are made.

“In the Beginning was the Word.”