Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: The Spiritual Dimensions of Music from Antiquity to the Avant-garde

The power of music is spiritual. It is, for many people, the principal point of access to a consciousness beyond that of ordinary life. Musicians and listeners alike can read analyses of the physics or the psychology, the technique or the history of music; but there is a contemporary need, as Joscelyn Godwin reveals in this challenging book, for informed discussion of the almost too obvious fact that there is something supernatural in musical experience. This is that universal dimension of which Plato, Kepler, Rameau and Novalis wrote, and of which Wagner said: ‘I feel that I am one with this vibrating Force, that it is omniscient, and that I can draw upon it to an extent that is limited only by my own capacity.’ The spiritual power of music surfaces in folklore, myth and mystical experience, refusing — as music always does — to be bound by narrow rationalism. It embraces Heaven as well as Earth, the music of the spheres as well as the music that is played and sung. Joscelyn Godwin begins his closely argued study with music’s perceived effects on matter, on plants, on animals and on human behaviour. He then turns inward, to the absorbing accounts that have been given of the higher worlds that are the birthplace of Harmony, and of the realm of pure Intelligence which lies both within and beyond. To hear music, however, we need composers and performers, and the argument then follows Harmony on its descent from Heaven to Earth. This descent takes place in the musician's inspiration, in the listener's experience, and in the world at large; for archetypal currents run beneath the surface of musical history, in the centuries that encompass the polyphony of Perotin or J.S. Bach and the psychic impact of Webern, Stockhausen and rock'n'roll. A self-contained final section embodies the fullest account ever given of ancient and modern theoretical systems of celestial harmony, from Pythagoras to Marius Schneider, Rudolf Steiner and Gurdjieff. Joscelyn Godwin was a Music Scholar at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Cornell University. Since 1971 he has been Professor of Music at Colgate University in New York State. His recent books include an anthology, ‘Music, Mysticism and Magic’ (1986), and ‘Cosmic Music: Three Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality’ (1987).