Harmony of the World: SATB choir, unaccompanied

Durata: ca. 10 minutes

Premiere:  Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Joshua Haberman, cond., San Francisco Basilica-Cathedral, July 21, 2024

Commissioned by: Santa Fe Desert Chorale

Hear Harmony of the World below, performed by Santa Fe Desert Chorale (Recorded by Kabby Sound Studios)

Harmony of the World I. From the heavenly music to the hearer:

Harmony of the World II. The First True Offprints:

Program Notes:

Harmony of the World draws from the text of Johannes Kepler’s (1570-1631) book of the same title. Kepler’s Harmonice Mundi (1619) sets forth his metaphysical speculation, describing an extraordinary vision of the universe, grounded in many decades of study and observation. He explains his ideas of the foundation of the universe in terms of musical harmonies that directly correspond to the harmonic properties which musicians have come to discover.

This multi-movement musical composition (with additional movements to come) explores a number of Kepler’s ideas that spell out the relationships between musical harmony as we know it, and “celestial harmonies”, generated geometrically between planetary system structures.

The first movement, From the heavenly music to the hearer, lays out the basic distinctions and interconnections between celestial harmonies and terrestrial harmonies. The next movement, The first true offprints, introduces the idea that the proportion between monody and chordal music equals the proportion between harmonies of single planets and planets combined. Strikingly, Kepler identifies “modern musicians” (i.e. those venturing beyond plainchant/monody) as “the first true offprints” of a more complete picture, that is, “of the universal whole”. For it is precisely through said modern musicians, that “Nature has whispered of herself to the human mind…”

I. From the heavenly music to the hearer

There are many degrees of knowledge,
some distant, some close.
For astrology shows
the effects of the stars
on the Earth;
celestial harmonies
are formed by rays
at the Sun.
It is not easy to judge
what vision, what eyes,
there may be on the Sun,
or what other instinct
for perceiving these harmonies
which enter the mind
by whatever door…
Harmonies of music
are sung by singers;
Harmonies of rays
emerge geometrically.
These configurations sing;
Sublunary nature
dances to this song.

II. The first true offprints

Now there is need of a grander sound,
while I ascend the harmonic stair
to where the fabric of the world is found…
The proportion of simple melody
(known to the ancients),
to the melody of multiple voices,
(product of recent centuries)
equals that of harmonies
between single planets
and planets combined.
Follow me,
modern musicians,
and ascribe it to your arts,
unknown to antiquity:
for (in) these last centuries,
Nature has finally brought forth
you, the first true offprints
of the universal whole.
By your harmonizing
of various voices,
and through your ears,
she has whispered,
to the human mind.

-DK