Musical Score Found in "The Last Supper"

Musical Score Found in "The Last Supper"

dsc.discovery.com
(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.cnn.com

This is, to me, one of the more interesting discoveries found in this most amazing of paintings, and it merits further study. I listened to the music in the background of the video posted there, and I must say, it was quite sad. It's purpose is believed to have been to express the mood of the painting in an unique way. Well, if this is true, then he has certainly accomplished that.

Honestly, I don't think there's a conspiracy here, but I do feel like it at least deserves a decent bit of research to prove it's validity. So, with that in mind, discuss...

TheBorg

[Edited for clarity.]

dsc.discovery.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 10-11-2007 by TheBorg]

Nice post Borg. I was just thinking of posting this myself. HERE is another article in it from the Associated Press. What I would really love to hear is the actual sound of the song.

If you listen to the video at the bottom of the discovery link that I gave, you can hear a bit of it. Quite nice, if you ask me.

TheBorg

the roslyn chapel in scotland was also found recently to have a musical score hidden within it more info here

perhaps the more musical members here can start an investigative thread on other well known mystery objects from history to see what music may be hidden there also

rennes le chateau would be a good start

reply to post by TheBorg

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There is also a small group that claims the "cryptic markings" in the Rosslyn Chapel are also musical in nature.


I'll try to find the article.


Honestly, I find it a bit hard to believe that any "music" found in "The Last Supper" was put their on purpose. Anything that has structure can be translated musically.


Either way, good find!

Jasn

I just heard about this from the news. Good to see it covered on ats
As some of you have been mentioning Rosslyn, I made a thread about the Rosslyn Chapel 'Motet' being discovered a while back - "Rosslyn Chapel code cracked?" and found it fascinating (if true).
I think it's interesting how the two fit into roughly the same time frame and are part of the same wider 'conspiracy'.

There is some discrepancies as to when different parts of Rosslyn were built. Here's what wiki says though (bold added):-



Leonardo began work on the last supper In 1498. There may be no relelation to the two pieces, but I would have though it to be a unique artistic idea, (especially for the time) to hide music within your work.

[edit on 10-11-2007 by Xeros]

I tend to think the score was purposeful. The sound goes with the theme of the painting very well. And bear in mind who painted this, a genius. I can see him putting this in as an artistic gesture.

The Borg, you never cease to amaze me with things you find. A star and flag, because everyone ought to see a genius at work.

Just remember that music is a physical manifestation of pure mathematics, so a score can actually be turned into a series of numbers. This is very interesting.

from the article in the first post

--I was first struck by the tablecloth, which features horizontal lines but also vertical lines in correspondence with the pieces of bread. This made me think immediately of music notes on a pentagram. I tried to play the notes, but it did not work

--The Apostles, represented in groups of three, gave him a hint that the piece should be played in 3/4-time, like much 15th-century music. But it was their hands, always in relation to the breads on the table, that provided the real score

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i'm not getting it...imo, this dude is seeing/hearing what he wants too.
like the people that find certain codes in the bible...
i watched the vid and how he says he came to this and i'm just not seeing it...
it would be rad as hell if it were true but i don't see any score hidden in that painting...
not much of a score either really.

played in 3/4 time, thats only a few bars....i would hardly call a few bars of music a score....
i would call it a few bars of music....

i collect scores and some of the ones i have are 30 pages long.....

just saying....i don't believe it

www.cnn.com...

Pala first saw that by drawing the five lines of a musical staff across the painting, the loaves of bread on the table as well as the hands of Jesus and the Apostles could each represent a musical note.

But the notes made no sense musically until Pala realized that the score had to be read from right to left, following Leonardo's particular writing style.

..The result is a 40-second "hymn to God" that Pala said sounds best on a pipe organ, the instrument most commonly used in Leonardo's time for spiritual music. A short segment taken from a CD of the piece contained a Bach-like passage played on the organ. The tempo was almost painfully slow but musical.

There's always a risk of seeing something that is not there, but it's certain that the spaces [in the painting] are divided harmonically," he told the AP. "Where you have harmonic proportions, you can find music."
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seems to me this dude really WANTS to see that score...it didn't work that way, then when it did work the temp was very slow...
of course it didn't work left to right(the way notation is written) but right to left.

seems like he found mathematical distances between the loaves of bread and created his own 'score' using the divisions he found, and some guesswork.

thats just my opinion though....

i chalk this up there with the bible codes and all that...

at 40 seconds, i bet this thing is literally, painfully slow


in the end, i don't think that leonardo purposefully hid a adagissimo score in this painting

I doubt that there is any truth in it.

As my sister once reminded me, that painting was restored tens of times (it is on a wall in the dinning room of a convent, not the best place for a painting, and Leonardo daVinci started it with the wrong technique, not the best to paint on a wall), many of the things we see in it today may have been the result of the "help" of some of the people who restored it.

Another thing to consider (and that I do not know if it will apply because I do not know the date) is that musical notation has changed over the years, and ancient music scores were not written as we write them today.

PS: Leonardo daVinci writing style was not from right to left or left to right, he used both systems according to the hand he used, left to right when using the right hand, right to left when using the left hand, he was ambidextrous.

reply to post by ArMaP

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i'm with ya..this guy is using educated best guesses.
it sounds 'best' on a pipe organ.
played this way it does not work.
the apostles tell him it's in 3/4

i'm just not buying into it..

why play it as an adagissimo? why not adagietto or allargando???
even if this was a score, which i don't think it is, all that would be best guess stuff.

A very interesting find - thank you for posting it.

This picture has a hypnotic attraction for me (maybe I'm just influenced by all the hype surrounding it) and I find theories about it fascinating.

I found this real nice little site it for those who wish to see the last supper in detail www.haltadefinizione.com/en/cenacolo/look.asp

What I find most interesting (and puzzling) about Pala's method is that he fixes this "music" onto a 5 line score. In Di Vinci's time, the 5 line score had not yet been invented - chant was written on a 4 line score with movable "do". I'm also curious as to how he determined the mode of the piece as I can see no indication in the painting of any particular mode nor can I see anything that would imply an accidental. He may or may not be onto something here but he'll always have this piece of music.

[edit on 10/11/07 by WickedStar]

Imagine if this musical score was actually the sound vibrations Ed Leedskalnin spoke of, which he used to move gigantic rocks and build coral castle? He said he discovered the secrets the Egyptians used to build the pyramids.

reply to post by WickedStar

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Great job, you've debunked this, IMO. Though, I do suppose that Leonardo Da Vinci could have written some "music" by accident merely by painting such a harmoniously designed work.

Well, there is some credence lent to the whole theory when you look at the notes from right to left. They have been found to spell out Hebrew words. Now, it's possible that DaVinci was trying to put those into the work instead of musical notes, and that this researcher is indeed looking too hard to find something, but I find it somewhat odd that these "notes" both spell out Hebrew words and make for an interesting-sounding musical piece, however short it may be.

Remember also that this man was a genius; one that we to this day still cannot understand fully. What he may have discovered "in his time" may not have been applicable until today.

TheBorg

Has anybody recorded their own performance of this music on other instruments than the pipe organ? Perhaps the human voice?

As an experiment, could someone record these notes and share them.

Yes, its from Right to Left...