Harp

Rembrandt painted two versions on the Biblical episode of David pacifying the evil spirit of Saul, an early example of the healing power of music in sacred literature. Appropriately, it features the harp, an instrument which is commonly associated with heaven and angels. Perhaps also because the harp readily lends itself to music of a calm and reflective nature.

The Rembrandt painting depicts the aged King Saul overcome by a melancholic, evil spell. He summons his favourite David to relieve his suffering soul. The Biblical episode in 1 Samuel 16 verses 14-17 and 21-23 reads-

The Lord's spirit left Saul, and an evil spirit sent by the Lord tormented him. his servants said to him, "We know that an evil spirit sent by God is tormenting you. So give us the order , sir, and we will look for a man who knows how to play the harp, and you will be alright again". Saul ordered them, "Find me a man who plays well and bring him to me".... ...David came to Saul and entered his service.....From then on , whenever the evil spirit sent by God came on Saul, David would get his harp and play it. the evil spirit would leave, and Saul would be all right again.


The power of the healing properties of harmony is a prominent theme in the philosophy of Pythagoras; developed further by Plato, the ancient Greek philosophers were "re-discovered" during the Renaissance. In particular by the Venetian monk Francesco Giorgio (1466-1540) author of De Harmonia Mundi (1525) in which Pythagorean and Platonic ideas on harmony and music are integrated to the esoteric lore of the Cabala and Christianity. 

In Giorgio's interpretation of the Cabala, music and harmony are central, so much so that by the seventeenth century the Biblical episode of Saul and David had accumulated a wealth of speculative detail. 

Sir Thomas Browne possessed a copy of Giorgio's work of Christian Cabala. He queried the Biblical episode in his Discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) thus-

Why the Cabalisticall Doctors, who conceive the whole Sephiroth, or divine emanations to have guided the ten-stringed Harp of David, whereby he pacified the evil spirit of Saul, in strict numeration doe begin with the Perihypate Meson, or si fa ut, and so place the Tiphereth answering C sol fa ut, upon the fifth string:

*    *   *

In modern times the Breton musician Alan Stivell (born 1944) promoted the popularity of the Celtic harp; his father having constructed a half-scale harp for him at the age of 9. I was lucky enough to hear the phenomenal playing and singing of Stivell at UEA in the 1970's. His Suite of folk-tunes Ys depicting a ghostly underwater town, sunk off the coast of Brittany, complete with lapping waves on shore is  a bardic, narrative element of the harp, evoking the recital of accompanying verse in troubadour fashion which sets the scene for this piece.

Many orchestral works, in the Romantic era feature the Harp, especially Tchaikovsky in his Ballet-music. The composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) featured the harp in the role as accompanist to the poet, in his orchestral tone-poem 'The Bard' opus 64 (1913-14). 

The Harp sets the scene in the opening bars of Sibelius's tone-poem, conjuring a lost world of Viking tales of battle and romance. After a long orchestral flurry upon these themes, the harp re-enters to summarily close the tone-poem.

Another great Harp CD is Ludovico Einaudi's (born 1955) Stanze (1992), pure minimalism performed by 

Cecilia Chailly, a quite extraordinary harpist.

Even more recently the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (born 1928) composed an extremely modern-sounding Harp Concerto (2000). At times somber, even chilling, its a concerto of emotional depth, which is rewarding for both performer and receptive listener.

Just a kitsch Victorian Sunday school picture of the same story. The harp depicted here has grown into a much larger Symphonic and Concert-Hall sized instrument since the days of Rembrandt's modest sized instrument.

Royal Silks

The champion jockey, Ryan Moore, obliging an autograph hunter at Yarmouth race-track. Note the silks Ryan is wearing, the Royal silks of Queen Elizabeth II, the oldest in English Flat Racing and in use for 250 years. The Queen is the only owner permitted to have gold braid on silks and cap. I'm still hunting for an 18th century painting with these silks, any idea? Stubbs? Gainsborough?

Postscripts: 

June - Ryan Moore completed the near unprecedented double of winning the Classic races of the Oaks and Derby at Epsom on 'Snow Fairy' and 'Workforce' respectively.

October - Ryan Moore  wins the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe on 'Workforce'.

Cryptography

James Gaffarel (1601-1681) was a French scholar of Hebrew and astrology who was appointed as librarian to Cardinal Richlieu. He proposed in his Unheard-of Curiosities (English translation 1650) that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet could be read in the night-sky. Using the stars as a form of geomatria and an alternative to the Babylonian-Greek circle of animals or Zodiac, Gaffarel's cryptography was of sufficient interest to Sir Thomas Browne to not only introduced the word 'cryptography' into the English language in Pseudodoxia Epidemica but also alluded to Gaffarel in The Garden of Cyrus -

Could we satisfie ourselves in the position of the lights above, or discover the wisdom of that order so invariably maintained in the fixed Stars of heaven; Could we have any light, why the stellary part of the first mass, separated into this order, that the Girdle of Orion should ever maintain its line, and the two Starres in Charles's Wain never leave pointing at the Pole-Star, we might abate the Pythagoricall Musick of the Spheres, the sevenfold Pipe of Pan; and the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starrie Booke of Heaven.

Cabalistical heads, who from that expression in Esay (Isaiah 34:4) do make a book of heaven, and read therein the great concernments of earth, do literally play on this, and from its semicircular figure, resembling the Hebrew letter כ Caph, whereby is signified the uncomfortable number of twenty, at which years Joseph was sold, which Jacob lived under Laban, and at which men were to go to war: do note a propriety in its signification; as thereby declaring the dismal Time of the Deluge. (Bk 1 chap.4)

Nebuchadnezzar

I was first introduced to William Blake's visionary art-works via an album cover by the 1970's progressive rock band Atomic Rooster! Somehow Blake's visionary art has not been embraced whole-heartedly as much as, say, his poem Jerusalem ('And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England's..') annoyingly bleated at the jingoistic Last Night of the Proms every September. Anyway, as ever there's a Sir T.B. connection, this time from his 1658 work of 'active imagination', The Garden of Cyrus. But first, the Bible verses that inspired Blake -

The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar; and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws. Daniel 4:33

and here's Browne's take on the scene-

Nebuchodnosor whom some will have to be the famous Syrian king of Diodorus' beautifully repaired that City; and so magnificently built his hanging gardens; that from succeeding Writers he had the honour of the first. From whence over-looking Babylon and all the region about it, he found no circumscription to the eye of his ambition, till over-delighted with the bravery of this Paradise; in his melancholy metamorphosis, he found the folly of that delight, and a proper punishment, in the contrary habitation, in wilde plantations and wanderings of the fields.

Kingfisher

At last some decent weather for boating. Went out to Thorpe, Norwich, and when  turning off the river Yare, rowing down the Tas river  I saw the zippy flight of a kingfisher, twice!

I just love getting onto the water by whatever craft available, to slow down to the river's pace, hear that plopping of oar in water; there's nothing, just nothing, like messing about in boats, Ratty! We even had a "Wind in the Willows" "Pan" moment", hearing the sound of a flute from a shady bank!

The photo of a Kingfisher (not taken by me) reminds one how much the combination of patience, luck, skill and good equipment are needed to take the truly jaw-dropping photo. Below is a snap taken today. Note how straight the bank is, that's because its an artificial Cutting, dug to enable large vessels to negotiate a sharpish bend in the river Yare at Thorpe, thus allowing easier access to the port of Norwich.

River Yare at 'New Cut' April 2010