Of the Praises of Music

Music’s Universal Reach

Although from its origin and certainty its praises are clearly manifest, nevertheless, when I consider that nothing can be found which does not have the greatest agreement with Music, I cannot pass over it entirely in silence. And although what so many excellent philosophers have written of it might well suffice, I do not wish to remain silent myself, for it is my duty to reason about some things — for even if I will not say all the praises that belong to it, I will touch at least upon the smallest part of the most notable and excellent; and I will do this with such brevity as shall be possible for me.

How celebrated and highly esteemed Music has been, the ancient writings of the philosophers bear the clearest witness — and above all those of the Pythagoreans, who held the opinion that the World is composed musically, that the heavens in their turning are the cause of harmony, and that our soul, formed according to the same principle, is awakened and its virtues quickened, as it were, by songs and sounds. So much so that some of them wrote that Music among the liberal arts holds the principate, and some called it enkyklios paideia — from enkyklos, a Greek word meaning circle, and paideia, discipline — as if the circle of the sciences, since Music (as Plato says) embraces all disciplines, as one may understand by going through them in turn.

Music and the Liberal Arts

For if we begin from Grammar, first among the seven liberal arts, we shall find the truth of what we have said: for there is great harmony in the fitting and proportionate arrangement of words, from which if the Grammarian departs he makes the ears hear a displeasing sound — for that prose or verse which is deprived of polished, beautiful, ornate, sonorous, and elegant order can scarcely be listened to or read. In Dialectic, whoever considers well and observes the proportion of syllogisms will see with marvelous concord and the greatest pleasure of the ear how the true shows itself greatly distant from the false. The Orator, using musical accents at the proper moments in his oration, offers marvelous delight to his hearers — which the great orator Demosthenes understood perfectly; for when asked three times what the principal part in an orator was, he three times replied that it was pronunciation above all other things.

Music’s Influence on Rhetoric and Oratory

This was also recognized (as Cicero and Valerius Maximus demonstrate) by Gaius Gracchus, a man of highest eloquence: for whenever he had to speak before the people, he kept behind him a most accomplished musician, who discreetly with an ivory flute gave him the measure — that is, the voice or tone for speaking in such a way — that every time he saw him becoming too agitated he would restrain him, and seeing him become too subdued he would stimulate him.

But then poetry is so evidently connected with music that whoever would want to separate it from music would be left with almost a body separated from its soul. This is confirmed by Plato in the Gorgias, saying: if anyone were to remove from all poetry the harmony and rhythm together with the measure, there would be no difference between it and common everyday speech.

Music’s Relationship to Poetry

And so one sees that the poets have used the greatest diligence and marvelous artistry in accommodating words in verses and arranging the feet according to the propriety of speech; as Virgil observed throughout his poem — for to all three types of his speech he adapts the proper sonority of the verse with such artistry that it properly seems that with the sound of the words he places before the eyes the things of which he is treating. So where he speaks of love, one sees he has artfully chosen some soft, sweet, pleasing words most agreeable to the ear; and where he needed to sing of a feat of arms, describe a naval battle, a sea storm, or similar things involving bloodshed, anger, displeasures of the soul, and every hateful thing, he made a selection of hard, harsh, and unpleasant words, such that in hearing and pronouncing them they bring terror.

And to give some examples, he, in showing the poverty of Meliboeus’s hut, diminishes that word Tuguri by one letter, as if showing with it the present effect; as he also did when he wanted to show the heartache of that Nymph who was forced to abandon the gracious sight of her shepherd; in that verse:

Et longum formose vale, vale (inquit) Iola,

making it almost interrupted by weeping and sighs, he makes that syllable long, which he had first placed as short. Then, wanting to show how swift Time is, he demonstrates it with a verse composed of many dactyls, which are feet suited to velocity and to showing such an effect, saying:

Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus.

I will leave aside now saying how, wanting to show the Carthaginians always enemies and contrary to the Romans, in describing the site of Carthage he placed at studied purpose that word which should have gone first, and said:

Italiam contra.

And wanting to demonstrate with what silence the city of Troy was stricken by the Greeks, he shows it with a verse composed of many spondees, which are feet by their nature suited to slowness and to weak and idle things, saying:

Invadunt urbem somno vinoque sepultam;

and infinite others, which it would be too long to recount in this place, of which the work is full. It will now suffice as a final conclusion to say that poetry would be without any grace if it were not given by words harmoniously arranged.

Music’s Connection to Other Disciplines

Besides this, I will leave aside saying how great the similarity and union with it are of Arithmetic and Geometry; and I will say only that if the Architect did not have knowledge of Music — as Vitruvius well demonstrates — he would not know how to make with reason the temperament of machines, and in Theaters place the vessels, and properly arrange buildings musically. Astronomy likewise, if it were not aided by harmonic foundations, would not know good and bad influences. Indeed I will say more: if the Astronomer did not know the concordance of the seven planets and when one joins with another, or when one opposes another, he would never predict future things.

Philosophy too, which has as its proper role to discuss with reason things produced by nature and possible to produce — does it not confess that everything depends on the first mover, and is ordered with such marvelous order that in the universe there results a tacit harmony? Behold: first the heavy things hold the low place, the light ones the high, and those of less weight, according to their nature, possess the middle place.

Music in Nature and the Heavens

And proceeding further, the philosophers affirm that the Heavens in their revolutions make harmony — which if we do not hear, this can happen either because of their swift revolution, or because of too great a distance, or for some other cause hidden from us.

Medicine cannot be far from this: for if the physician does not have knowledge of Music, how will he in his medicines proportion hot things with cold according to their degrees? And how can he have excellent knowledge of pulses? — which the most learned Herophilus arranged according to the order of musical numbers.

And to rise higher: our Theology, placing the angelic spirits in heaven, divides them into nine Choirs and three Hierarchies, as writes Dionysius the Areopagite. These are continually present before the Divine Majesty, and do not cease to sing Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, as is written in Isaiah. And not only these, but also the four Animals, which in the book of his Revelations are described by Saint John, stand before the throne of God and sing the same song. Then the twenty-four elders stand before the immaculate Lamb, and with the sound of Citharas and most high voices sing to the most high God a new song, which is also sung by the voices of Cithara players on their citharas in the presence of the four animals and twenty-four elders.

Music in Paradise

Of these and other almost infinite things related to our purpose, the divine Scripture is full, which for brevity we will pass over — sufficing only to say for the supreme praise of Music that, without making mention of any other science, it alone, according to the testimony of the sacred books, is found in Paradise, and is there most nobly practiced. And just as in the celestial court, which is called Triumphant, so in our earthly one, which is called Militant, with nothing other than Music is the Creator praised and thanked.

Music in Nature

But let us now leave aside superior things and return to those which are produced by nature for the adornment of the world — and we shall see every thing full of musical concords. The Sea first of all has its Sirens, who (if it is permitted to give credence to the writers) make themselves heard by sailors in such a way that, overcome many times by their harmony and seized by sleep, they lose that which above every other thing is most dear to all animals. In the Air and on the Land together sound the birds, which also with their concords delight and recreate not only the weary souls full of troubling thoughts, but also the bodies; for the wayfarer many times tired from a long journey recreates his soul, rests his body, and forgets past fatigues through the sweet harmony of woodland songs and the singing of birds of so many varied kinds that it would be impossible to recount them all. Rivers and Fountains likewise, fashioned by nature, are accustomed to give pleasant pleasure to whoever finds himself near them; and the peasant very often to recreate himself accompanies his rustic song with their noisy concords.

All these things the most learned Virgil expressed in few words, when he said that at the song of Silenus not only the Fauns and the other wild beasts, but the hard Oaks also danced — those leaping and these often moving with numbered movements — indicating to us that not only sensible things, but also those that lack sensation are as it were seized and overcome by musical concords, and are made from hard and rough things into gentle and pleasing ones.

Music and the Human Soul

But if so much harmony is found in celestial and terrestrial things — or to say it better, if the world was composed by the Creator full of such harmony — why should we believe Man to be deprived of it? And if the Soul of the World (as some will have it) is nothing other than Harmony, can it be that our Soul is not in us the cause of every harmony, and that with the body it is not harmoniously joined? Especially since God created man in the likeness of the greater World, called by the Greeks kosmos, meaning ornament or ordered beauty; and being made in that likeness of lesser quantity, by distinction from it he is called mikrokosmos, that is, little world. Certainly there is nothing unreasonable in this. Wherefore Aristotle, wishing to show the musical composition of man, well said that the vegetative part bears the same relation to the sensitive, and this to the intellective, as the figure of three sides has to that of four.

It is certain, then, that no good thing can be found that does not have musical disposition; and Music truly, besides gladdening the soul, also draws man to the contemplation of celestial things, and has such a property that it makes perfect every thing to which it is joined. And those men are truly happy and blessed who are endowed with it, as the Holy Prophet affirms saying: Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound. By which authority Isidore, Bishop of Litavia, a Catholic doctor, expounding Psalm 64, was moved to say that Music is necessary to the Christian man — since in the knowledge of it beatitude is found. Wherefore for this reason I have the boldness to say that those who have no knowledge of this science should be numbered among the ignorant.

Music in Antiquity and Myth

In ancient times, as Isidore says, it was no less a shame not to know Music than not to know letters — therefore it is no wonder that Hesiod, a most famous and ancient poet, as Pausanias relates, was excluded from the contest as one who had never learned to play the Cithara, nor to accompany song with its sound. So also Themistocles, as Tully relates, refusing to play the Lyre at the banquet, was judged less learned and less wise. The contrary we read: that Linus and Orpheus, both sons of the Gods, were held in great esteem among the ancients — for with their sweet song (as is said) they not only softened human souls, but the wild beasts and birds as well; and what is most marvelous to tell, they moved the stones from their places and the rivers stayed their course. And this same thing the learned Horace attributes to Amphion, saying:

Dictus et Amphion Thebanae conditor arcis Saxa movere sono testudinis, et prece blanda Ducere quo vellet;

From which perchance the Pythagoreans learned to soften souls with musical sounds — and Asclepiades likewise, who many times by this means quieted the discord that had arisen among the people, and with the sound of the Trumpet restored hearing to the deaf. Likewise Damon the Pythagorean reduced with song to a temperate and virtuous life some young men given to wine and lust. And therefore those said well who affirmed that Music is a certain law and rule of modesty. And I say that Theophrastus discovered certain musical Modes for quieting agitated spirits.

Wherefore deservedly and wisely Diogenes the Cynic mocked the Musicians of his time, who having the strings of their citharas concordant had the soul incommensurate and discordant, being abandoned by the harmony of good customs.

And if we must give credence to history, what we have said should seem to us as almost nothing — for it is a much greater thing to have the power to heal the sick than to correct the life of licentious young men. As we also read of Xenocrates, who with the sound of organs restored the mad to their former sanity; and of Thales of Crete, who with the sound of the Cithara drove away the pestilence. And we see today that through Music marvelous things are wrought: for so great is the force of sounds and dances against the venom of the Tarantula, that in very brief time those who have been bitten by them are healed — as is seen every day by experience in Puglia, a region most abundant with such animals.

Music in Sacred Scripture

But without more profane witnesses, do we not have in the Sacred Letters that the Prophet David quieted the evil spirit of Saul with the sound of his Cithara? And for this reason I believe that the royal Prophet ordained that in the Temple of God songs and harmonious sounds should be used, knowing that they were apt to gladden the spirits and to draw men to the contemplation of celestial things. The Prophets also (as Ambrose says on Psalm 118), wishing to prophesy, would ask that one skilled in sound be set to play — so that, moved by that sweetness, spiritual grace might be infused in them. Therefore Elisha would not prophesy to the King of Israel what he should do for the acquisition of waters, lest the armies die of thirst, if first there was not brought to his company a Musician who would sing; and singing, he was inspired by the divine Spirit and foretold all.

But let us pass further — for the examples are not lacking. Timothy (as the great Basil relates together with many others) with Music incited King Alexander to battle; and that same man, when he was incited, calmed him again. Aristotle related in the book on the nature of animals that stags are captured by the song of hunters, and greatly delight in the pastoral Bagpipe and in song — which Pliny confirms in his natural history. And without extending myself further on this, I will say only that I know some who have seen stags that, stopping their course, stood attentive to listen to the sound of the Lyre and the Lute; and likewise one sees every day birds overcome and deceived by harmony, very often remaining caught by the fowler.

Pliny also tells that Music saved Arion from death — for, throwing himself into the sea, he was carried by the Dolphin to the shore of the island of Taenarum.

But let us now leave aside many other examples that we could bring, and say a little of the good Socrates, master of Plato, who already old and full of wisdom wished to learn to play the Cithara; and the aged Chiron, among the first arts he taught to Achilles in his tender age, was Music — and he wished that his bloodstained hands, before they were soiled with Trojan blood, should play the Cithara. Plato and Aristotle will not allow that a man well educated should be without Music; rather they persuade with many reasons that such a science must be learned, and show that the force of Music is very great in us — and therefore they want that from childhood one apply oneself to it, since it is sufficient to induce in us a new good habit and such a custom as guides and leads us to virtue, and renders the soul more capable of happiness.

And the most severe Lycurgus, King of the Lacedemonians, among his most severe laws praised and highly approved Music — because he understood very well that it was very necessary to man and of great benefit in the things of war. So much so that their armies (as Valerius relates) were never accustomed to go into combat unless first they were well fired and animated by the sound of fifes. This custom is observed also in our own times: for of two armies the one would not assail the enemy, if not invited by the sound of Trumpets and Drums, or by some other kind of musical instruments.

And although, beyond those narrated, there are not lacking infinite other examples by which one could come to know still more the dignity and excellence of Music — nonetheless, so as not to go on further, we will leave them aside, what has been reasoned up to now being sufficient.