Martinu Anniversary 2013

Celebrating the 123rd birthday of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu (born December 8th 1890 -1959)  today.

The two words the seminal French music-teacher Nadia Boulanger used to describe Martinu's music were "brilliance" and "purity". Also in her letter to Michael Henderson, Boulanger said of Martinu’s music: "It can win the most sophisticated and the most simple listener". For myself the exciting rhythms, unique orchestral colouring, experimental harmonies, along with its optimism and sheer joie de vivre, are each attractive elements of Martinu's music.

Bohuslav Martinu was a prolific composer who wrote original music in every genre and who varied his style several times in his life-time. Its useful to divide Martinu's creativity into three eras; the first, his musical apprenticeship to early maturity from 1923 - 1940 while resident in Paris, saw the composer experiment with a number of styles to settle into what may be termed Neo-Classicism, with the music of Stravinsky as its exemplar.

The second phase of Martinu's life, from 1941-1952 while resident in America, coincides with his maturity, in which much of his finest chamber music as well as five of his six symphonies were composed. Martinu's symphonies are all impressive pieces which will surely be better known and loved in the near future for their expressive depth and beauty of invention, each of the last three has an important place in 20th century music.

In his last years, from 1953 until his death in 1959 while resident in Europe, Martinu wrote his fourth and fifth piano concertos and developed a style loosely termed Neo-Impressionist, exemplified by the large-scale orchestral triptychs The Frescoes of Piero Francesco (1955), The Parables and Estampes (1958).

New York 1941 -1953

In November 1941, Serge Koussevitsky conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Martinů’s Concerto Grosso (1937). Its success transformed Martinů into a star overnight and paved the way in January 1942 for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra  to perform a programme entitled, "The Czechoslovak Immortals of Symphonic Music", which included the masterpieces of Smetana, Dvořák, Janáček and Martinů. 

During his residence in America Martinů wrote some of his finest chamber music including Five Madrigal Stanzas for violin and piano (H. 297 New York 1943) which he dedicated to Albert Einstein, professor - and later Martinů’s colleague - at Princeton University. There’s the lovely anecdote which there is no way of now verifying, which tells how Martinů, when asking his amateur musician friend how the rehearsing of his composition had went, Einstein hesitated before replying, "Relatively well".

The two major personal events which coloured Martinu's artistic sensibility and which are strongly antithetical to each other, are firstly, his childhood in Policka, where, living in accommodation in the tower of the church of Saint Jacob's, he enjoyed hearing the sounds of the bells, choir and organ of the church, having a 'God's Eye' view of Nature in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands from the heights of the church tower. The second biographical event, of crucial significance in understanding Martinu's later creativity, is his headlong fall from a balcony, mistaking a poorly-lit mezzanine floor for a staircase. Martinu fractured his skull and suffered dizziness, headaches, tinnitus and hearing loss for many months after this accident in 1946. Its not improbable that symptoms from this accident which Martinu experienced included what is now known as 'Alice in Wonderland' syndrome, in which the sufferer experiences distorted perspective, odd sensations and even hallucinations. An 'Alice in Wonderland' perspective features strongly in Martinu's 6th symphony.

Martinů began composing his sixth symphony known as Fantasies symphonique in 1951 in New York but did not complete it until 1953 in Paris. Of his sixth symphony Martinu himself described it as a, "departure from symmetry in the direction of fantasy" music takes on its form freely and flows without restraint, following its own motion. An almost undetectable slowing or hastening suddenly gives life to the melody'. There's a strong allusion to Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique not only in its title, but in its fantastic element also.

The  music-critic Robert Layton stated of the sixth symphony -

'the detail in the musical landscape (of) this work unfolds is richer in colouring and immediate in impact. At times the Fantasies symphoniques has the visionary quality, the enhanced awareness of colour, the vivid contrasts and more brilliant hues that are said to come from taking mescaline : certainly there is a proliferation of textures, exotic foliage and vibrant pulsating sounds that have no parallel in the earlier symphonies. ...the opening of the second movement unleashes an extraordinarily imaginative, insect-like teeming activity'.[2]

Europe 1953 - 1959

From leaving America in 1953 and settling in Europe, Martinu developed a rich, detailed orchestral palette which may be described as Neo-Impressionist in style. In his correspondence Martinu stated of his large-scale orchestral triptych The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca H.376 (1955) - "It is far from descriptive, naturally, but it expresses impressions  Les Fresques had arisen in me in the Arezzo church. The first movement depicts this well known group of women with the Queen of Sheba; the second is Constantine's Dream; while the third is the overall impression Les Fresques gave me. The composition is rather impressionistic in its character".

Sadly, due to International politics Martinu was unable to return home and wrote to his patron Paul Sacher -  "But I don't see my future in rosy colours; I'm beginning to fear that I will never find peace and will not be able to return to Prague, which would be the best solution for me." [3]  In another letter to his friend Frank Rybka, he wrote - "Explain to them at home that if I appeared there, great propaganda would be made from it--that I approve of the regime and so forth."  [4]

Martinu wrote several concertante works with different combinations of instruments. His sharp ear for instrumental timbre resulted in some fine chamber music, notably his late work of 1959 for nine instruments originally entitled Le Fetes Nocturnes.

Michael Beckermann defined the characteristics of Martinu's musical language well when stating -  'There is no single Martinu sound, but a collection of sub-dialects. Martinu’s key sound is the presence of lyrical moments syncopated in a rather special way, usually surrounded by passages meant to suggest an opposing state. He employs several “fake” twentieth-century styles (Neo-Poulenc, Neo-Stravinsky, Neo-Ravel) and some all-purpose dissonance, but his core style is the syncopated folk stylization. That’s what he believes in, if you will. He doesn't believe in most of the dissonance - its there to set off the jewels......His “uniqueness” lies in two areas: first, a sonic one. Martinu created a particular sound world which is his alone. It itself seems bipartite. There is a Martinu “sound” of the syncopated folk stylization, and a “process” whereby this sound is contrasted with other, usually dissonant, sound worlds. The second area of Martinu’s uniqueness involves his creation of a pastoral world, which is the protected space of nation, memory, childhood. This appears in almost every work of his'. [1]

In Michael Beckermann's view, ' Martinu is one of the great cartographers, mapping a certain aspect of the human imagination. In my view, the experience in question is that place in the imagination that causes time to stand still and allows us to imagine paradise. This is, of course, elusive, and in Martinu’s compositions it is always being lost and found. ......He’s quite simply plugged into one of the great tendencies of human consciousness: the search for an unattainable point of rest in our travails, our suffering, our journey. In order to do this, he first had to cultivate and master the process of forward motion in music, and he is  almost unique in the many ways he can create a sense of flow. Then he had to figure out how to get from one state to another, and I think that alone is worth serious study. The symphony no. 6 is filled with such moments. No composer, not even Beethoven, explored this world of idyllic space more fully.........He is exploring a realm of the human spirit which most composers are afraid to look at....Martinu rarely stays in these idyllic spaces he creates. Much of the real drama of a piece consists of approaches to a “state of grace” and then departing from it, often suddenly. Sometimes there is only a fragment of it, other times it is almost the entire piece, but its never alone.

The Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek assessed Martinu's music thus -  "I think the richness of styles in Martinů's work is due to his inextinguishable thirst for novelty and inspiration, and his ability to extract from many sources the right amount of elements into his own musical language. Martinů is also probably the most prolific Czech composer and, of course, you can find different levels of genius among them. But at his best, he is irresistibly original, cosmopolitan and Czech in one stroke."

*   *   *
Notes

[1] Martinu's Mysterious Accident - 14 Essays in honour of Michael Henderson
[2] The Symphony 2: Elgar to the Present Day editor Robert Simpson pub. Penguin 1967 chapter 30 - Martinů  and the Czech tradition by Robert Layton.
[3] Correspondence dated 4th July 1957
[4] Correspondence dated 27th July 1957

Essay in memory of Paul Grenville (1956 - 2013)

Asked for his opinion of Martinu's music Paul simply said, "it's too busy". When questioned, "Did you say, dizzy ?" he swiftly replied, "that as well !"  He continued to say that he liked Bruckner, so I offered to lend him a recording of Bruckner's 8th symphony, the last ever conducted by Karajan, but tragic events intervened. 

Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party

Last night I re-read in one sitting Graham Greene's novella Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party (1980). One of the greatest of 20th century English novelists, Greene's novels contain acute and sometimes controversial observations upon the human condition. In his last ever novel, Graham Greene (1904 -1991) explores the nature of greed, in particular the greed of the rich. 

The novella (140 pp) is narrated from the perspective of the endearing character of Alfred Jones, a translator for a chocolate factory in Geneva. When Alfred meets Anna-Luise, the estranged daughter of the fabulously wealthy Doctor Fischer, he becomes her lover. Anne's father has acquired his enormous wealth through the invention of Dentophil Bouquet, a toothpaste which ironically Alfred notes, is antithetical to the effects of eating too much chocolate. Alfred is invited to attend one of Dr Fischer's notorious parties at which extraordinarily valuable presents are given to guests on sufferance of humiliation. At the first party which Alfred attends cold porridge is served to his sycophantic guests. The sadistic nature of Dr Fischer ensures his guests are well aware of his rules, one must endure considerable humiliation from him in order to receive an expensive gift. Without wanting to post spoilers to what is a short story which packs a punch, the denouement of the novel involves a variant of Russian roulette, in which the ultimate test of human greed is made. 

Throughout his novella Greene makes several noteworthy statements upon the human condition, he suggests, through the voice-piece of Alfred, that the human soul is like an embryo which develops from suffering. Because children and animals do not suffer except for themselves, Alfred proposes they do not have souls. A soul, states Alfred, requires a private life. 'If you have a soul you cannot be satisfied', he asserts. When asked by Anna-Luise whether her father, Dr. Fischer has a soul, Alfred replies, 'He has a soul alright, but I think it may be a damned one'. Alfred also notes that silence can only be enjoyed by those not experiencing unhappiness. 

But its the subject of greed, and by extension, its poisonous relationship to the soul, which is central to Greene's novella, especially the rapacious greed of the rich. Published at the onset of decades of sanctioned greed (1980) Doctor Fischer, not unlike certain members of the present-day British government, justifies his greed and contempt for humanity in general, as a healthy and natural instinct. Having little or no empathy or understanding of the suffering of others, once more not unlike the legislative policies of the present-day British government, Doctor Fischer is quite happy to feed his greed at the expense of others.

Often closely allied to cruelty, greed inevitably knows no morality and often quite mercilessly exploits the vulnerability of others. Its estimated that the wealth of the very richest in society has actually increased since the world recession of 2008 began.  Present-day economic policies in the USA and GB continues to increase the wealth of the very richest 1% of society at the expense of the poor, quite literally robbing from the poor in order to make the rich even wealthier. The madness of greed, as Greene masterly depicts in his novella, has neither shame or social conscience.  

Although it is purely advertising blurb, on this occasion I'm inclined to agree with The Times literary critic who's quoted stating on the back-cover of the Penguin edition of Greene's novella - 'Manages to say more about love, hate, happiness, grief, immortality, greed and the disgusting rich than most contemporary  English novels three times the length'.

Incidentally, and somewhat surprisingly, although Graham Greene's novella its set in Geneva, there's no mention of the famous landmark of the Swiss city, namely the Jet d' eau, the fountain which spouts water some 140 metres into the air (photo above). The setting of Geneva is however highly appropriate for the novella's theme of greed. Well-known as a city of great wealth, Geneva is listed as one of the most expensive cities in the world, as I personally discovered when visiting the Swiss city one summer and winter last century. I also vaguely remember watching a 1985 TV adaptation of Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party with James Mason in his last ever acting role as Doctor Fischer, Alan Bates as Alfred and Greta Scacchi as Anna-Luise.

The Symphonies of Bohuslav Martinů

Bohuslav Martinů ( b. December 8th 1890 - d. 28th August 1959) was a brilliant Czech composer of a vast quantity of music, including six symphonies which were written against the backdrop of World War II (1939-45) and its aftermath. With their bohemian lyricism, highly original orchestral colouring and exciting rhythms, Martinů's six symphonies, composed at the height of his mature style, are the crowning glory of his musical genius. Among the greatest of all twentieth century symphonies, they encapsulate the human condition yet emerge triumphant, joyous and life-affirming. 

Born in the village of Policka in Bohemia, Martinů had an isolated childhood, seldom descending the hundred plus steps of the bell-tower of his family's living quarters. He took lessons from Joseph Suk who was the son-in-law of the 'founding father' of Czech music, Antonin Dvorak (1841 -1904) and played second violin in the Czech Philharmonic during the years 1918 - 22, an experience which provided him with a privileged insight into the co-ordination, workings and performing capabilities of an orchestra.

Living in Paris in the 1920's Martinů became familiar with the very latest in art, including Surrealism. He experimented with many forms of music, his La revue de cuisine (1927) was a jazz-inspired success. Continuing his musical studies with Albert Roussel, Martinů eventually settled for the clear and concise form of Neoclassicism, as first developed by Stravinsky in the 1920's. The political scenario of the 1930's however necessitated that he fled Paris only days before the Nazi occupation of the city. It took him nine long arduous months to finally reach the haven of America, catching one of the very last available passenger ferries before the war prohibited the crossing the Atlantic sea. 

Like his fellow compatriot before him, Dvorak who found enormous success in America with his New World  symphony (1893) Martinů also found fame in America. He'd been writing music for over 30 years before he came to write symphonies, relatively late in life and in his 50's, but then following a commission he wrote a symphony in each of five consecutive years. In the 1940's all the major American orchestra's performed Martinů's symphonies throughout the cities of the United States. 

From the opening bars of the first movement of Martinů's first symphony (1942) the craftsmanship of a skilled composer conjuring a unique orchestral colouring can be heard. It's worth remembering that the Czech music tradition with its rich folk-melodies and inventive rhythms was proudly independent from the Viennese school which dominates much Western music. Martinů made frequent reference to Moravian folk-melodies, resulting in music distinctively coloured by the inventive rhythms and the lyrical, bohemian rhapsodies of his Moravian homeland. His first symphony has been described as, “epic, tragic and energetic”.

The American composer and music-critic Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) also stated of Martinů's first symphony, in words which are applicable to all of his symphonies -

'The shining sounds of it sing as well as shine; the instrumental complication is a part of the musical conception, not an icing laid over it. Personal, indeed, is the delicate but vigorous rhythmic animation, the singing (rather than the dynamic) syncopation that permeates this work. Personal, and individual too, is the whole orchestral sound of it, the acoustical superstructure that shimmers consistently.There's a calm, pastoral mood pervading both the first and second symphonies, the composer describing his second symphony (1943) as “lyric, poetic and vivid”.

Martinů considered his tense, highly-dramatic and angst-filled third symphony to actually be his first proper symphonic work, having had Beethoven’s Eroica in mind when he wrote it. “It is a work of revolt,” he once claimed, “of manly defiance, of grim yet firm determination, challenging fate.” Its first movement reflects the anxieties and fears experienced by many during the World War, the composer himself describing it as 'dramatic and Bohemian'.

Martinů described his fourth symphony (1945) as - “impressionistic, cosmopolitan, colourful and joyful”. Its probably his most accessible and satisfying symphony to listen to and easily the most frequently performed and recorded of all his symphonies. There's an extraordinary rapid change of mood from triumph to despair in its opening bars in a string glissando phrase slightly reminiscent of a moment in a Hollywood Film noir film where the heroine's dreams are suddenly dashed. (00: 55 - 01:10 on the clip below)



A high-quality clip of the scherzo from the  4th symphony. (Below)

Martinů described his fifth symphony (1946) as 'visionary'. Its said to hover somewhere between the joyous optimism of the fourth symphony and the angst-fuelled energy of the third symphony.

No decent recording of Martinu's 5th symphony is available online. The music-critic Robert Layton however, wrote of Martinů's Fifth symphony

'The Fifth is the last of the purely 'abstract' symphonies:...Martinu has an almost classical view of the limits imposed by the symphonic discipline. In a sense the Fifth is the most classical and perfectly balanced of the symphonies: the perspectives are precisely judged and the control over detail and its relation to the work as a whole is complete; there is no trace of the slight sentimentality that clouds the slow movement of the Fourth. It is filled with the life-enhancing power we find in his very best work and its statement is wholly affirmative'.

Martinů's sixth symphony (1951-53) followed after a five-year gap after the fifth symphony. It was written after he had a serious fall from mezzanine floor, sustaining injuries to his head which affected his hearing, causing him to suffer from vertigo for some time afterwards. This major traumatic incident of 1946 marks a turning-point  in Martinů's music away from the structured, dispassionate form of Neoclassicism, to a far-freer expressiveness, loosely termed as Neo-Impressionism. Martinů described his sixth symphony as a “song of longing and hope”. Its opening movement may depict the sensation of vertigo -

The  music-critic Robert Layton stated of the sixth symphony-

'the detail in the musical landscape (of) this work unfolds is richer in colouring and immediate in impact. At times the Fantasie symphoniques has the visionary quality, the enhanced awareness of colour, the vivid contrasts and more brilliant hues that are said to come from taking mescaline : certainly there is a proliferation of textures, exotic foliage and vibrant pulsating sounds that have no parallel in the earlier symphonies. ...the opening of the second movement unleashes an extraordinarily imaginative, insect-like teeming activity'. 

Layton summarizes Martinu's symphonies thus-

'The Fourth and the Sixth symphonies open up new worlds of sound: the Fifth consolidates territory already won and is less exploratory than either. Both the Fourth and the Fifth have recourse to direct sectional repetition, This way of treating material argues an approach to form which has its origins in the eighteenth century dance suite:.........It has been argued that Martinů was content with his discoveries, that he made little effort to expand the frontiers of his world experience. Up to a point this is true, for he did repeat himself in many of his works. But the finest music in these symphonies glows with an inner warmth and love of life, inimitably expressed'.

The Czech music critic Aleš Březina assessed Martinů thus -

'In the majority of cases, Martinů was not the first one to turn the music world’s focus in a new direction; rather, he would act as the perceptive and inquisitive observer of the music scene, one ever ready and willing to expand his compositional vocabulary and his catalogue of genres. His capacity to combine experimentation with a musical idiom very much his own places Martinů amongst the 20th century’s most exciting, as well as most innovative, composers'.

Its generally acknowledged that Martinů's vast output is startlingly uneven in quality and that he repeated himself in many of his works. However, although many works by Martinů are seemingly of a highly improvised, uncritical and unrevised nature which echo stylistic traits similar to contemporaries such as Bartok, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, Martinů distilled the very essence of his musical genius into his six symphonies which are lyrical, colourful and exciting works; he's also one of the few predominantly cheerful voices in 20th century music. The best of Martinů's music is mercurial in its ever-changing moods and rhythms, and often Mozartean in character. (Mozart was one of the few Viennese composers to influence the musical world of Prague of his day). Martinů's music shares with Mozart's a fondness for the structure and formality of 18th century music, in particular music of the dance, as well as  sharing a piquancy in its writing for woodwind.    

In a rare American Radio interview Martinů stated that the three main influences upon his music were Czech national music, the English madrigal and Debussy.  He also stated of his art-

'The artist is always searching for the meaning of life, his own and that of mankind, searching for truth. A system of uncertainty has entered our daily life. The pressures of mechanisation and uniformity to which it is subject call for protest and the artist has only one means of expressing this, by music'.

Martinů's near pathological compulsion to compose resulted in a vast catalogue of both highly original and hastily composed, unrevised music. Altogether he wrote almost 400 individual works in some 40 years. In addition to the six symphonies, there are five piano concertos as well as concerti for varied combinations of instruments.  His  large output includes - the opera Juliette, Key to Dreams (1937) the tense and thrilling Double concerto for Strings, Piano and Percussion (1938) a charming Concerto for Harpsichord and small Orchestra (1935) in Neoclassical style, seven string quartets, the first piano quartet (1942) with its remarkable last movement opening bars of jazz-blues improvisation, and the hauntingly beautiful late work Chamber music No. 1 ('Les fetes nocturnes') (1959) a sextet for clarinet, harp, piano and string trio (1959) all of which are well worth hearing. 

Due to the politics of the 'Cold war' and the 'Iron Curtain' of the Soviet bloc, Martinů sadly was never able to return to the Moravian homeland he loved. Increasingly homesick, he spent the last few years of his life as an exile in various European cities, dying from cancer aged 68 on the 28th August, 1959. Martinů's legacy however lives on in his unique music, in particular his symphonies. Its a legacy far greater than many realise, for among those who took music-lessons from him was the quintessential American songwriter, Burt Bacharach (b. 1928).

Discography

Martinů : Symphonies (3 CD's) Royal Scottish National Orchestra  / Bryden Thomson Chandos 1991 Re-mastered 2005  - a rich recording sound, but bit plodding though.

Martinů: Symphonies (3 CD's)  Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Neemi Jarvi  Brilliant 1987
A ridiculously low-priced bargain on Amazon for 3 discs and for many years the best available recording and interpretation until .....

Martinů: Symphonies (3 CD's) Jiri Belohlavek / BBC Symphony Orchestra Onyx 2011
GRAMOPHONE AWARD WINNER 2012 simply the best interpretation and recording currently available.

'You won't find a more persuasive champion than Belohlavek, who has the music in his blood. His skill at unravelling Martinů's rhythmic and textual knots-evidenced time and again in these live performances by the BBC Symphony Orchestra - is such that you immediately sense the stature of the music. The best place to start is the Fourth Symphony: in Belohlavek's hand it sizzles - especially the Allegro vivo, a motorised march that generates fabulous momentum. **** --Financial Times,30/07/11

Bibliography

The Symphony 2: Elgar to the Present Day editor Robert Simpson pub. Penguin 1967 chapter 30 - Martinů  and the Czech tradition by Robert Layton. 

Brilliant Box-set notes - Stig Jacobsson

Chandos Box-set notes - Jan Smaczny

Wikilink -  Bohuslav Martinů

Catalogue of  Bohuslav Martinů's compositions

To follow:    Orchestral and Chamber music of Bohuslav Martinů

De Harmonia Mundi

The ancient city of Norwich has a number of interesting associations with western esotericism. It was, for example, the birthplace of the Elizabethan dramatist Robert Greene (1558-1592) whose most famous play, The Honorable Historie of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1590) re-enacts the tale of the medieval Franciscan friar Roger Bacon's magical feat of creating  an oracular 'Brazen' Head which talks and answers questions given to it.

Norwich was also where Arthur Dee (1579-1651) the eldest son of Christian cabalist and alchemist John Dee (1527-1608) chose to spend his retirement. Arthur Dee had accompanied his father in his travels across Bohemia as a child, and later served as a physician to the Romanov Czar Mikhail I for fourteen Moscow winters. Upon his retirement, Arthur Dee became a close associate of  the newly-qualified physician Thomas Browne.

The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Sir Thomas Browne's library records that he owned an edition of  Giorgi's De Harmonia Mundi (1525) [1]. The very same edition of Giorgi's synthesis of Christianity, kabbalah and angelic-hierarchies was once also in the library of John Dee, who served as adviser and court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth before falling from favour.

In addition to being a Franciscan monk Giorgi (1466-1540) was also an international diplomat. When Henry VIII found grounds for divorce unobtainable he consulted Thomas Crammer. Crammer proposed to Henry VIII that he should consult lawyers and leading Jewish rabbis because different views as to the legality of marriage with a brother's widow are stated in books of the Old Testament. The Franciscan monk Giorgi was consulted as an expert in Hebraic studies. While in London, engaged in his diplomatic errand, Giorgi met and discoursed with the Elizabethan magus John Dee. There is thus an indirect link, but nonetheless a traceable link between the Renaissance founders of the Neoplatonic, Neopythagorean and Kabbalist traditions, namely Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola via the Franciscan monk Giorgi and his espousal of the Kabbalah to John Dee via his son Arthur Dee to Sir Thomas Browne.

The seminal British scholar of esoteric philosophy and its influence in western intellectual history, Frances Yates (1899-1981) wrote of Giorgi -

'Giorgi's Cabalism, though primarily inspired by Pico della Mirandola, was enriched by the new waves of Hebrew studies which Venice with its renowned Jewish community was an important centre. Cabalistic writings flooded into Venice following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Giorgi grafts Cabalist influence onto the traditions of his order. He develops that correlation between Hebrew and Christian angelic systems, already present in Pico, to a high degree of intensity. For Giorgi, with his Franciscan optimism, the angels are close indeed, and Cabala has brought them closer. He accepts the connections between angelic hierarchies and planetary spheres, and rises up happily through the stars to the angels, hearing all the way those harmonies on each level of the creation imparted by the Creator to his universe, founded on number and numerical laws of proportion The secret of Giorgi's universe was number, for it as built, so he believed, by its Architect as a perfectly proportioned Temple, in accordance with unalterable laws of cosmic geometry'.....In Giorgi's Christian Cabala, the angelic hierarchies of Pseudo-Dionysius are connected with the Sephiroth of the Cabala... The planets are linked to the angelic hierarchies and the Sephiroth'.

Giorgi's angelology was as Yates also detected, greatly influenced by the writings of the early Christian mystic Dionysus the Areopagite, who, for over a thousand years was believed to be one of Saint Paul’s converts in Athens. However, as with the identity and authorship of the Hebraic Zohar and the Corpus Hermeticum, both of which were once believed to date from the time of Moses, until detected as texts which were the product of a syncretic philosophy developed by Alexandrian Gnostic thinkers of the second and third century of the Christian era. Modern scholarship now recognises the true identity of Dionysus the Areopagite to be of a much later date, he is now thought to have been a Syrian monk of the 5th/6th C.E.

In his profoundly mystical book, De Celestia Hierarchia, Dionysus transposed the Neoplatonic hierarchy between man and the Godhead and established the idea of Angelic hierarchies in Medieval and Renaissance Europe into Christian theology. His account of angelic hierarchies and espousal of an inward way to a God which transcends all categories of rational thought was hugely influential. Dionysus' angelology is the basis of Giorgi's angelology. [2]

Throughout Giorgi's De Harmonia Mundi  there is a belief in a celestial, cosmic harmony which is based upon number, order and proportion and is is yoked to the angelic hierarchies. Giorgi's highly-Christianized Cabala exerted a powerful influence in Elizabethan England. Frances Yates proposed that Giorgi's highly poetical thought was attractive to poets, in particular, Edmund Spencer when penning his epic poem The Fairie Queene. As late as the seventeenth century  Sir Thomas Browne's own belief in Angelic hierarchies are writ large in Religio Medici (1643) in which the physician-philosopher states-

'We do surely owe the discovery of many secrets to the discovery of good and bad Angels.[3]...........Therefore for Spirits I am so farre from denying their existence, that I could easily believe, that not onely whole Countries, but particular persons have their Tutelary, and Guardian Angels: It is not a new opinion of the Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato'. [4] 

A belief in cosmic harmony occurs in a celebrated passage of Religio Medici in which the newly-qualified physician declares-

'For there is a musicke where-ever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus farre we may maintain the musick of the spheres; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. Whatsoever is harmonically composed, delights in harmony'. [5]

Given the fact that Arthur Dee bequeathed the contents of his library to Browne at his death in 1651, it's not improbable it may have been his father's edition of De Harmonia Mundi which he bequeathed to the Norwich physician. Alternately, if both John Dee and Browne each possessed their own individual edition of Giorgi's book, it would advance the hypothesis that both hermetic philosophers are closely linked in the western esoteric tradition.

John Dee and  Thomas Browne's interest in the highly Christianized form of Cabala as espoused by Giorgi also substantiates a hypothesis that the British tradition of Christian kabbalah are themselves each closely connected to the founders of the Florentine Humanist tradition, Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) along with his successor Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) both of whom were the foremost promoters of Platonic concepts, Pythagorean numerology and the Cabala during the Renaissance.

Notes

[1] De Harmonia Mundi  Venice 1525
1711 Sales Auction Catalogue page 2 no.33
[2] p. 1 no 16 Opera Paris 1644
[3] Religio Medici Part 1:31
[4]  R.M. I :33
[5] R.M. Part 2 : 9

Book consulted

The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age Frances Yates pub. RKP 1979

The statue in alchemy

Statues have been associated with religion and spirituality from earliest recorded time to the present-day. 'From the Minoan Age and throughout the Mediterranean world of antiquity, statuettes of gods in human or animal shape were carved from terracotta, bronze, wood, or stone. They had religious significance and were deposited in graves or dedicated to the gods in shrines and in private homes, where they exercised a protective influence upon the dead, upon the community or upon the family. They were tutelary symbols'. [1] 

The statue also performs a number of roles within the western esoteric traditions of hermeticism and alchemy. In the Corpus Hermeticum, a mixture of  Egyptian, Greek and Gnostic wisdom texts originating from the early Christian era, a dialogue between the mythic sage Hermes Trismegistus and Asclepius occurs. Trismegistus celebrates humankind’s ability for learning the art of “god-making” – making statues come alive by drawing divine powers into them, stating-

TRISMEGISTUS : But the figures of gods that humans form have been shaped from both natures - from the divine, which is purer and more divine by far, and from the material of which they are built, whose nature falls short of the human - and they represent not only the heads but all the limbs and the whole body. Always mindful of its nature and origin, humanity persists in imitating divinity, representing its gods in semblance of its own features, just as the father and master made his gods eternal to resemble him.

ASCLEPIUS : Are you talking about statues, Trismegistus?

TRISMEGISTUS : Statues, Asclepius, yes. See how little trust you have! 

I mean statues ensouled and conscious, filled with spirit and doing great deeds; statues that foreknow the future and predict it by lots, by prophecy, by dreams and by many other means; statues that make people ill and cure them, bringing them pain and pleasure as each deserves’. [2]

After being damaged in an earthquake in 27 BCE  the eastern colossus of Memnon, one of two statues of the ruler Amenhotep III (14th century BCE) was believed to emit sound. Many travelers throughout antiquity travelled to Egypt to visit Amenhotep’s statue in the hope of hearing it, including Roman Emperors. The Greek historian Strabo, the travelogue author Pausanias and the Roman satirist Juvenal, all claimed to have heard Amenhotep’s statue. Pausanias compared its sound to 'the string of a lyre breaking’, Strabo reported it sounding, 'like a blow', but its sound was also likened to the striking of brass or whistling.

The seminal Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung in his Mysterium coniunctionis (1956) observed - ‘the statue plays a mysterious role in ancient alchemy’[3]. 

Jung noted that the medieval cleric Thomas Norton (1433-1513) in his Ordinall of Alchemy depicts the seven metals/planets as statues. In the anthology of alchemical texts Aurora Consurgens (1566) Mother Alchemy or mater alchemia is portrayed as a statue of different metals, as are the seven statues in the writings of Raymond Lully. In the German Rosicrucian Michael Maier’s Symbola aureae mensae (1617) the protagonist on his peregrinations through the continents encounters a statue of a golden-headed Mercurius who points in the direction of Paradise.

Commenting upon the biblical verse, ‘And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house’. (Genesis 28: 22) C.G. Jung theorized - ‘If our conjecture is correct, the statue could therefore be the Cabbalistic equivalent of the lapis philosophorum.’ [4] In agreement with the Gnostic’s teaching that the biblical Adam was a  'corporeal or 'lifeless' statue, Jung concluded his survey of the statue’s role in alchemy stating- 

'The statue stands for the inert materiality of Adam, who still needs an animating soul; it is thus a symbol for one of the main preoccupations of alchemy'. [5]

Statues, as C.G. Jung detected, are often encountered in alchemical themed artwork and literature, frequently within the setting of a rose garden, sometimes speaking or guiding the questing adept, or even emitting an ethereal light from their eyes. The alchemical operations of thawing and warming in order to bestow life upon the inert, readily lent itself to the notion of statues coming alive. The alchemical author J. D. Mylius (c.1583-1642) in his Philosophia Reformata (1622) stated –'It is a great mystery to create souls, and to mould the lifeless body into a living statue.’

  

In the first of the illustrated series of Philosophia Reformata (above), a group of alchemists drink from statues which spout wine. When intoxicated with vinum nostrum (our wine) they walk into the dark corners of a mountain in order to begin the task of mining the prima materia from the rock, intending to refine its impure metals into gold.

There are other instances of statues becoming animated. and of  their relationship to the esoteric in the arts. In Shakespeare’s late drama The Winter's Tale  a statue by ‘that rare Italian master, Julio Romano’ of Queen Hermione comes to life. In reality however, the Queen only imitates a statue in pose before coming to life. [5] 

The statue’s ability to transcendently communicate the invisible is alluded in Sir Thomas Browne’s discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) in the numerological observation-

‘in their groves of the Sun this was a fit number, by multiplication to denote the days of the year; and might Hieroglyphically speak as much, as the mystical Statua of Janus in the Language of his fingers’.

But perhaps one of the most dramatic of all tales of statues coming to life occurs in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (K527). Mozart’s anti-hero, hastily returning home  at night after an amorous escape through a graveyard, encounters a statue. He dismissively invites it to dinner. In one of the most intense and psychologically loaded acts of the entire operatic repertoire, the statue of the Commendatore calls upon the Don, knocking loud at his door. Failing to persuade him to repent from his dissolute lifestyle, the Stone Guest requests the Don shake hands with him. Locking his hand in an icy, unbreakable grip, the Stone Guest drags the unrepentant Don Giovanni down into the infernal regions.

The many and varied roles the statue plays in the esoteric arts suggests that the four statuettes of Christopher Layer’s funerary monument in the church of Saint John the Baptist at Maddermarket, Norwich, with their thinly-veiled planetary and elemental symbolism, are superb examples of the statue’s role in spiritual alchemy; for, to repeat, the reviving of the inert and inanimate soul of man is fundamental to the alchemist’s quest to animate the spiritual man within. 

If conjecture has any substance, the guiding psychopomp of alchemy and the conductor of souls (frequently depicted standing upon a rotundum to denote his world-wide influence in alchemical iconography) Mercurius, is alluded on the Layer monument in the form of Vanitas a playful, bubble-blowing child standing upon a rotundum. [7]

Notes

[1] Penguin Dictionary of Symbols ed Jean Chevalier

[2] Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius

Brian P. Copenver 1995 Cambridge University Press

[3] CW 14 :  The Statue,  paragraphs  559 -569

[4]  Ibid.

[5]  Ibid.

[6]  The Winter’s Tale Act 5 scene 2

[7] Examples include- Figurarum Aegyptorum secretarum (Ms. 18th c) and Canari Le imagini de I dei  (1581) in C. G. Jung CW vol. 12 illustrations 164 and 165