Two - Athanasius Kircher and the Nature of Ecstatic Listening
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2023
Summary
Throughout history, there have been many descriptions concerning the power of music to affect thoughts and actions. These descriptions are often vague and difficult to translate in ways that would enhance a modern understanding of their significance to its original listeners. Among the works of the polymath Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680) are two descriptions of ecstatic listening whose details provide a path to interpreting how music brought about intellectual and spiritual transformations.
Kircher studied in the Jesuit schools of Central Europe, but his scholarship and reputation led to his appointment at the order's Collegium Romanum. His enduring legacy is thirty published works, ranging from linguistic works on Coptic and hieroglyphics to advanced mathematics, astronomy, optics, and surveys of geology and architecture. The Musurgia Universalis on music was one of his largest publications and even includes a few of his own compositions.
The first description is Kircher's report of how a musical performance transformed his perceptions of the cosmos. The second is his discussion of Jephte by Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674), which provides a key to understanding how music could effect an emotional and theological transformation in its auditors contrary to the meaning of the words.
A “Celestial” Concert
In 1656 Kircher dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden his fictional celestial journey, the Itinerarium exstaticum. The preface describes a performance that moved the affections of the only audience member, Kircher.
I. Theodidactus. Accidit non ita pridem, ut ad academicum trium incomparabilium Musicorum (quos si ævi nostri Orpheos dicam, minimè à verò abludam) exercitium privatos inter parietes institutum vocarer; hi ut facultatis, quam profitebantur, specimen quoddam solito excellentius darent, me solum arcanæ & vix auditæ sonandi rationis & peritiæ conscium testem esse voluerunt.
Omnibus itaque ad specimen exhibendum concinnè apparatis, locoque & tempore opportunè constituto, symphoniam, què duobus chelybus minoribus, & eâ, quam Tiorbam vocant, testudine peragebatur, orditi sunt, tanta harmoni. concordia, tam inusitatis insolitorum intervallorum discriminibus, ut tametsi non nihil eximium in Musica explorasse me fateri possim; simile tamen quod me percepisse non meminerim, dum enim diatonica chromaticis, hæc enarmonicis modulorum teretismatis miscent; dici vix potest, quantum insolita horum generum miscella animi affectus commoverint.
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- Information
- Explorations in Music and Esotericism , pp. 41 - 63Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023