Adana Archaeological Museum Orpheus Mosaic
This post is the result of my desire to find out if Toro, the founder of the dance-based system which partly inspired the creation of Dharmadanza, had written anything about Pythagoras. Scanning a collection of writings put together in 1991, I found that Toro mentioned Pythagoras when elaborating on harmony, creativity and music, three themes which are very much interrelated in themselves. In the following quotes, translated by myself**, you will notice that Toro often mentions Pythagoras alongside Orpheus. According to some traditions, Orpheus was one of Pythagoras's teachers, which may explain why their main messages about music were mutually reinforcing*. As a musician Orpheus demonstrated the effect of music (what music does), whereas as a philosopher, Pythagoras explained its essence (what music is), which in turn helped to further understand its effect. Because of this I decided to also include Toro´s references to Orpheus below. Enjoy!
* See Orpheus and Pythagoras chapter of Mark Evan Bonds´ book Absolute Music
** These notes have also been added by myself
* See Orpheus and Pythagoras chapter of Mark Evan Bonds´ book Absolute Music
** These notes have also been added by myself
Harmony
Writing about harmony*, Toro explains that, "In Greece, Pythagoras proposed the harmony of the spheres, linking his musical discoveries with his mathematical knowledge and his astronomical observations. Upon discovering the tonal scale**, he crystallized the Greek ambition to reproduce the Cosmic Symphony. Orpheus inaugurates the seductive effects of musical harmony, exercising the power of transformation upon the phenomena of Nature. Orphism and the disciples of the Pythagorean School were grouped around the great ambition of obtaining the knowledge of ontocosmological harmony."
* The Pythagoreans understood harmony as the "unification of a multifarious composition and the agreement of unlike spirits", as what enabled the balance of opposite forces. For them, the universe as a whole was composed of harmony and numbers.
** Pythagorean diatonic scale would be more precise
** Pythagorean diatonic scale would be more precise
STRESS
In his notes about stress, Toro includes Pythagoras and Orpheus in a bullet point list without making any further comments. My own assumption is that he was associating both of them with the power of music not only to pacify and transform disturbing emotions but also to regulate the autonomic nervous system.
In The Complete Pythagoras we read that Pythagoras used certain melodies to switch and move "the passions of the soul in a contrary direction". Afflictive emotions "such as sorrow, rage, pity, over-emulation, fear, manifold desires, angers, appetites, pride" were regulated "through appropriate melodies, as if through some salutary medicine." It is also said that before his disciples went to sleep at night, Pythagoras would use the power of music to "liberate them from the day’s perturbations and tumults, purifying their intellective powers from the influxive and effluxive waves of corporeal nature, quieting their sleep, and rendering their dreams pleasing and prophetic." |
Creativity & Creative Genius
In the chapter on Creativity, Toro mentions Pythagoras in relation to genius, describing him in a poetic manner as having "the ear that perceives the cosmic music in the silence of reality." "The genius of the species* communicates through certain individuals to continuously transmit the same message with absolute rigour. The theorem of Pythagoras, the melodies of Orpheus, Petrarch´s Sonnets, Bach´s Cantatas, Leonardo da Vinci´s drawings, Rilke's Elegies and Einstein's formulas consistently convey the same message - that something is full of meaning, that there is a unity, a melody and an unbearable beauty in the flow of the universe. The genius of the species manifests itself in exceptional individuals, to repeatedly express its harmony code." |
* Interestingly, I recently read elsewhere that Genius is the Latin equivalent of the Greek term Daimon. In ancient Greek culture, a Daimon was a tutelary (guardian) spirit of a place, thing, person or Tribe. It was only by the time of the beginning of the Roman Empire that the creative side of the concept of Genius began to be applied to those who seemed to excel because of a particularly powerful tutelary spirit, and Genius began to take on its modern meaning.
Music
Toro´s last mention of Pythagoras appears in a chapter focusing on music, where he writes about Pythagoras´ discovery of "the harmonious music of the heavenly bodies."
"The Greek legend of Orpheus also alludes to the human being's relationship with the music of the universe and to this legendary ecological intimacy. The poet and musician appeased the wild beasts with the harmonies of his lyre, seduced the hearts of men and women, made the fruits ripen, even the stones shuddered under the resonance of his music. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras was the first to establish objective relationships between between Music and Mathematics and, through numbers, to link the sounds produced by human beings with the astronomical relationships of the earth, the sun and the moon. The musical chords, which correspond to simple numerical proportions, suggested the notion of a harmony of the Cosmos as a totality. Pythagoras visionary concept of the Music of the Spheres was, in turn, tributary of the millenary cosmology." |
Image: Renaissance engraving (Gafurius's Practica musice, 1496) showing Apollo, the Muses, the planetary spheres and musical modes