Fri, 27 Jun 2008

Esotericism as source of musical inspiration: gathering of international academics in Rome

ROME (NNA) - Music and esotericism was the theme of an international academic colloquium that took place in April at the Academia Belgica in Rome. The conference was prepared by an academic committee consisting of representatives from universities in Europe and beyond, including Professor Wouter Hanegraff from Amsterdam University, who is one of Europe’s leading researchers on esotericism.

Around 25 speakers presented their research findings over three days, and each lecture was followed by discussion. Drawing on particular compositions and music theory texts, the relationship to music of various esoteric disciplines such as magic, astrology, alchemy, demonology, soothsaying and the Cabbala was examined. Only the western esoteric tradition was included, originating from Platonism, and Jewish and Christian roots.

According to the advance publicity, the conference aimed to help remedy the habitual isolation of disciplines such as history, history of art, music history and the history of philosophy. Interdisciplinary discussions sought to show musical approaches and methods in the light of an historical and specialist context, so that, in the language of academic discourse and belief, our knowledge acquired from the cultural background of the world of music could be enriched and shared.

The various lectures focused either on approaches to music within cultural and hermetic traditions, or the presence of such traditions within music. Here, two questions mutually complemented each other: how have philosophers integrated music into their theories, and how have musicians, composers and music theorists tried to introduce occult knowledge into their theories or their scores?

It became clear during the conference that the search for cosmic patterns in music may be as old as humanity itself. This was demonstrated by examples ranging from the theoretical sketches of the neo-Platonic philosopher Proclus through Jesuit and polymath Athanius Kircher or alchemist Heinrich Khunrath to Johannes Kepler. One lecture was devoted to the mysteries of musical sound in H. P. Blavatsky’s esoteric teachings. It was interesting to see that twentieth century composers were also included. Wouter Hanegraff spoke on the subject of “Ineffability and lawfulness: music as esoteric language in Anton Webern”.

It is increasingly apparent that, in the twentieth century, innovations not just in the pictorial arts but also in music were closely interwoven with theosophy and anthroposophy. In particular the development of Arnold Schönberg - who is rightly seen as the father of modern music – would have taken a different course had he not gained stimulus from the esoteric tradition at work in his time.

Academic studies of esotericism are discovering the affinity between anthroposophy and our contemporary zeitgeist. The example of modern music in the twentieth century, and specifically the school of Schönberg, can show anthroposophy’s influence in particular. Initial signs of this could already be detected in Rome.

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Item: 080627-02EN Date: 27 June 2008

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