I don't know anything about BACH'S work, but I know that the tuning frequencies were changed by the Catholics, and you can get a tuning fork of this Solfeggio system on the web. I have wanted to but have not yet. This frequency apparently has some physical effects on its listeners, or practicioners. Who began IT? It may have gone back to very ancient times, when music was purportedly taught to man by aliens/angels.

I think Beethoven was more "occult" than Bach, even though Bach obviously incorporated insane mathematical rigors into his works, especially his fugues. The things he did with fugues, and with the spelling of his name in various pieces, have more to do with fugal music theory and common techniques for writing contrapuntally than anything overtly esoteric, I think. The techniques he employed were known in his day to musicians, but Bach mastered them like nobody else. Bach's Art of Fugue is ridiculous with its use of fugal techniques, and so are the Goldberg Variations. They are like living textbooks on how fugal techniques can be used almost exclusively, without the music sounding academic or contrived.

Also worth mentioning is that back then, intervals weren't thought of as they conventionally are today. People back then understood better how the intervals were related physically. For example, what today we know mainly as the musical interval of the 5th, a musician back then might better recognize numerically as a ratio of 3:2 (2/3rds the length of a string). An octave: 2:1 (half the length), whereas it is considered the "8th" diatonic note today. This has to do with knowledge going back to Pythagoras, but wasn't really considered "occult," either.


In Beethoven's personal journal, you can find references to ancient Egyptian mythology/philosophy, inspirational quotes that he took down from non-Christian texts. Beethoven never regularly attended a church in his adult life, despite his time and place, and raised some eyebrows because of it. He once took a sort of pilgrimage to ancient Greece and visited the ruins there, ancient Greece being basically the epicenter for distribution of ancient spiritual knowledge through Europe. He was more openly independent and daring spiritually, though he was careful never to say anything heretical. He was exposed to masonic ideas, and several of his friends were freemasons, though there isn't any evidence that Beethoven himself ever joined the fraternity. There is a book called "Beethoven and the Spiritual Path" that shows a lot of the spiritual symbolism in Beethoven's work, taking a lot directly from his own journals. Beethoven's Missa Solemnis mass broke from conventional masses in a lot of respects, and was heavily laden with religious symbolism.

Speaking of Freemasons and composers, Mozart was a known freemason. His opera The Magic Flute is full of masonic imagery, which has a lot in common with esoteric and "occult" subjects.

[edit on 29-6-2008 by bsbray11]

The things he did with fugues, and with the spelling of his name in various pieces, have more to do with fugal music theory and common techniques for writing contrapuntally than anything overtly esoteric, I think.

As a matter of fact, I think so too.
(Then again, I might be wrong.)

I'll definitely have a look at Beethoven's journals.
And then, maybe, I'll be back to discuss some more... :-)

Thank you - it's a very precious piece of information to me.

You might also want to check out Douglas R. Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid", for more on the mathematical, and possibly quantum physical aspects of Bach's work

I love the logic of Bach's music!

Here are some excerpts from that book ("Beethoven and the Spiritual Path" by David Tame) for anyone that might be interested.

Excerpt from one of Beethoven's letters in 1823 (pg. 59):

There is no loftier mission than to approach the Godhead more nearly than other mortals and by means of that contact to spread the rays of the Godhead through the human race.

From pg. 62:

Esoteric teachings were not widespread or widely known during Beethoven's lifetime, but on the occasions that he did come across them, they appear to have held great personal importance to him because they corresponded to his own ineer experiences. For example, on one of his manuscript pages, he copied out the following passages from Hindu scripture:

["]God is immaterial; as He is invisible, He can therefore have no form. But from what we are able to perceive in His works we conclude that He is eternal ...
Brahman; His mind is self-existent. He, the Almighty, is present in every part of space. His omniscience is self-inspired, and His conception includes every other. Of His there is all-embracing attributes the greatest is omniscience. For there is no threefold kind of being - it is independent of everything...["]

Something he copied down about Greek philosophers (pg. 63):

There is nothing more elevated than the simple grandeur with which they spoke of the creator of the universe. In order to distinguish him the more emphatically they gave him no name. A name, said they, is only a need for pointing a difference; he who is only, has no need of a name, for there is no one with whom he could be confounded. Under an ancient monument of Isis were to be read the words: "I AM THAT WHICH IS," and upon a pyramid at Sais the strange primeval inscription: "I AM ALL, THAT IS, THAT WAS, THAT WILL BE; NO MORTAL HATH EVER ME UNVEILED."

From another book, "Late Beethoven" by Maynard Solomon, that mentions the same thing on pages 68 and 69:

We cannot altogether know what led Beethoven to copy, frame, and keep in full view upon his desk during his later years a German translation of the famous inscriptions about the Veil of Isis:

["]I am that which is.
I am everything that is, that was, and that shall be. No mortal man has lifted my veil.
He is unique unto himself, and it is to this singularity that all things owe their existence.["]

Beethoven's interest in these inscriptions from ancient Egyptian and Orphic ritual sources demonstrates his attraction to a symbol that was appropriated in the rites of Freemasons and Illuminists.

Originally posted by phiktion

this messed with my head a bit

Do you mean that in a good way, or... ?
Believe it or not, I am really interested.


(Kicking myself for having put this in "skunk works"...
What a skanky idea that was!)