Music, among all arts is without a doubt, the one which is most closely connected with numbers and thus mathematics. From earliest Antiquity, many thinkers set parallels between music and numbers and developed theories. Vibrant music has been analyzed by numbers and music theory established with a heavy load of “numerology” and symbolism.
Aristotle described Astronomy as “the music of the spheres.” Classical Western music has been formulated and “codified” by Franciscan monks around the year 1000.
Franciscan is the one in Catholic belief with the most deep symbolism.
Music, among all arts is without a doubt, the one which is most closely connected with numbers and thus mathematics. From earliest Antiquity, many thinkers set parallels between music and numbers and developed theories. Vibrant music has been analyzed by numbers and music theory established with a heavy load of “numerology” and symbolism.
Aristotle described Astronomy as “the music of the spheres.” Classical Western music has been formulated and “codified” by Franciscan monks around the year 1000. Franciscan is the one in Catholic belief with the most deep symbolism.
Musicians and seasoned listeners often talk about the “architecture” of a piece of music. If we listen carefully to a great piece of music we can easily imagine it as a “monument”.
We can at it from “inside” or “out” and we can move between its “stories.” Different shades and lightings can be seen at various places. In each listening of a great work we may discover new and hidden aspects of it.
For a piece of music to have those characteristics there should be, just like an architecture, a blueprint, a theory and an “engineered” background. The basic principles needed to create this kind of “engineering” started to take shape, some 1000 years ago, in a monastery.
Just like the underlying theories and applications at the big European Cathedrals, music theory is drawing its sources from the Bible, Antic Philosophy, even Cabala and “Old Testament.” No wonder that the Franciscan Brotherhood, which was the most brilliant and cultivated one in Christianity, has been the birthplace of music theory.
Up to the tenth century musical notes has no names, at least in the way as we know them today. Gregorian chants even though notated in some ways were mostly taught and learnt by ear. Between years 900 and 1000 Franciscan thought about a way to notate music more precisely. First musical notes have to get names.
One hymn, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist was chosen and each first syllable from each line named the notes:
UT queant laxis
REsonare fibris
MIra gestorum
FAmuli tuorum
SOLve polluti
LAbii reatum
SAncte Joannes
See them now singing
Open throats resounding
As best they are able
Deeds of thine recalling
Cleanse thou of evil
Lips with which to praise thee
Saint John our Baptist!
Notes names were thus: UT, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA and (sa) SI. “UT” has been replaced in some countries by “DO” for the need of solfege.
Numerology is in operation here too. The set has seven notes. Seven in European Judeo-Christian cultures is together with the number three is the most symbolic one(s). The seven stories of heaven, days of the week, 3+4 which connects earth and sky, Rome as well as Istanbul (Constantinople) built on seven hills, the temple of Salomon built in seven years…
The other primordial steps of the series which will later constitute the basis of all tonal music are 1st, 3rd and 5th. Here we have the Holy spirit: 1; the Trilogy: 3; the last one, fifth step is even more heavily loaded. Human being has been symbolized with the number 5, the pentagram symbol and all…
The combination of steps 1, 3 and 5 (i.e. do-mi-sol), as a chord, gives us the “perfect chord” which will be the most important syntactic element of all tonal classical music up to the 20th. century.
The subdivision of the (diatonic) scale to 12 (chromatic) steps is also worth noting. Why twelve? 12 is everywhere in all Judeo-Christian culture. No need to enumerate longer than the best known 12 Apostles, 12 tribes, 12 gates of Jerusalem…
In setting the western music’s basics in a Franciscan monastery 1000 years ago we see a very interesting mixture of cultures, all Judeo-Christian but mixed with a background going back to the Antique Greek. Brotherhoods like this, in early middle-ages were living their own particular philosophy of life and beliefs somehow at the outer edges of the Vatican ecclesiastic authority.
Franciscans and Jesuits were able to survive in their monasteries which were closed-economical microcosms. Being able to support themselves independently, they managed to stay away from Vatican’s dogmatism and thus able to collect, synthesize and archive from many sources of knowledge.
An important part of music theory is based on Antique Greek philosophers works which were frowned upon (at the very least) by the official Catholic church. Those works have been scrutinized behind closed doors in the monasteries and led to present days music theory. Therefore no wonder that the hymn which named the musical notes and the theory which have followed that is from one dedicated to Saint Joannes, seen as a precursor of early “enlightenment” rather than a real “mystic”, who is also the patron of Cathedral builders (Early architects i.e. operative Free-Masons).
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