Armonía de las esferas: un libro de consulta sobre la tradición pitagórica en la música

by Joscelyn Godwin (Editor), María Tabuyo (Translator), Agustín López Tobajas (Translator)

Durante siglos, científicos y filósofos han concebido el universo como un mecanismo fijo, matemático y musical. Pero ¿qué significa la Armonía o Música de las esferas? «Este libro intenta dar respuesta a esta pregunta», dice Godwin, «en la medida en que es posible contestar a ella a través de la palabra impresa.» Esta compilación de textos puede entenderse como un largo comentario al pasaje del «Timeo» de Platón en el cual se describe cómo el Demiurgo forjó el Alma del Mundo dividiendo la sustancia primordial en intervalos armónicos. Esta obra traza la historia completa de esta idea desde sus orígenes clásicos hasta sus más modernas reinterpretaciones. Todos los autores de este libro comparten la intuición de la escuela pitagórica de que hay una estructura musical en el cosmos y una esencia cósmica en la música.

Así lo confirman Platón, Plinio el Viejo, Nicómaco de Gerasa, Teón de Esmirna, Ptolomeo, Censorino, el autor de los himnos órficos, San Atanasio, Arístides Quintiliano, Macrobio, Boecio, Hunayn, Aureliano de Réôme, Juan Escoto Eriúgena, Regino de Prün, Ikhwan al-Safa, Al-Hasan al-Katib, Isaac ben Abraham, Jacques de Lièges, Ugolino de Orvieto, Giorgio Anselmi, Isaac ben Haim, Marsilio Ficino, Ramis de Pareja, Pico della Mirandola, Franchino Gafori, Francesco Giorgi, Heinrich Glarean, Gioseffo Zarlino, Johannes Kepler, Robert Fludd, Athanasius Kircher, Angelo Berardi, Andreas Werckmeister, Isaac Newton, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Saint-Martin, Hugo von Dalberg, Fabre d'Olivet, Peter Singer, Albert von Timus, Isaac Rice, Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, Azbel, Marius Schneider y Rudolf Haase.

Joscelyn Godwin es profesor de música en la Universidad de Colgate, en Estados Unidos, y autor de numerosos libros de erudición: Mystery Religions in the Ancient World (1981), The Theosophical Enlightenment (1994), Arktos. The Polar Myth (1996), Armonías del Cielo y la Tierra: la dimensión espiritual de la música desde la antigüedad hasta la vanguardia (Paidós, 1998), The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance (2002) y The Golden Thread (2007). Asimismo, ha realizado importantes traducciones, entre las que cabe destacar El sueño de Polifilo.

Genres: Music, Philosophy, Esoterica, Nonfiction, History, Science

619 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1992

About the author

Composer, musicologist and translator, known for his work on ancient music, paganism and music in the occult.

Reviews

[Jimmy Ele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indispensable amount of information gathered on the ideas throughout recorded history on what very adept and erudite philosophers have thought about the idea of the Harmony of the Spheres. Highly recommended for those curious about these ideas and their connections within philosophy and even science. This is going in my foundational shelf on GoodReads and I am keeping it in constant rotation on Scribd so as to go back and be inspired by quotes or to build on the foundational ideas.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gave a pretty thought-provoking look at pre-Enlightenment thinking, which seemed oddly content to search for meaning solely through correlations between seemingly unrelated things. The idea that the notes of the musical scale corresponded to the movements of the planets simply because there appeared to be similarities in the proportions between the notes of the scale that matched the proportions between the planets gripped the human imagination for centuries. Similarly, the best thinkers of antiquity inferred that a mathematical structure mirroring the structure of the planets and of musical moved the human soul according to its temperament.

While the premise of the book is fascinating, and raises interesting questions about the nature and source of human knowledge, it is tiringly academic in nature, and many of the sources that it cites are redundant. I started skimming halfway through.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ranks as one of the most diffcult books I've ever read. Learned definitely but much of the materialwas too abstract out of context. I did enjoy it though.