What Is Music?

The medieval answer may surprise you.

The epigraph of this essay captures, as only Shakespeare can, the immense and mysterious power of music over the human person. The entrails of sheep were used to make strings for stringed instruments, and “hale,” a variant of “haul,” means to draw out by force. Thus, things as simple and earthy as wood and sheep innards can become a lute, and the flow of well-chosen, well-timed notes from the lute becomes a melody that “moves” us, or rather, moves something deep inside us. If the melody is particularly fine and perhaps accompanied by a sonorous voice singing equally fine poetry, we are not only moved but enchanted and uplifted—toward the heavens, as though the spirit has been “haled” right out of the body.

Shakespeare, however, was a Renaissance poet, and his imagery in this passage—“Now, divine air! now is his soul ravish’d!”—reflects a post-medieval emphasis on the artistic qualities and emotional effects of music. Scholars of the Middle Ages were more concerned with music as a metaphysical, rather than aesthetic, reality. This is not at all to say that medieval people were indifferent to music’s singular beauty and tremendous emotional energies; on the contrary, their lives were filled with the power and pleasure of sacred, poetic, and folkloric music. But beauty and emotion were not the essence or ultimate significance of music; those were to be found in the deep harmonies of Creation, and in the even deeper harmony of human nature.

King David playing the bells, with two other musicians; early thirteenth century. King David was an archetypal musician in medieval iconography.

Music in ancient Greece was understood differently in two principal schools of thought. For the Pythagoreans, music was like an echo of the eternal song of the universe: it reflected the harmonic structure of the cosmos, and since this structure was present in the soul as well, music affected emotional states and character development. Aristotle, on the other hand, rejected the cosmic theory of music. For him, music didn’t emerge from the mysterious tonalities of the universe, and the human soul was not fundamentally a harmony. He and Plato studied music’s role in social life, emotional balance, and moral formation.

Both of these schools were present in medieval thought, but the stronger influence, at least in the earlier Middle Ages, came from the Pythagoreans. Ancient philosophies of music were transmitted to medieval culture through the sixth-century scholar Boethius, who is famous for his book De Consolatione Philosophiae. He also wrote a theoretical treatise entitled De Institutione Musica,¹ which adopts and enriches Pythagorean theories, and which contains one of the best music-related sentences I have ever read:

Truly, whoever descends into his own self perceives human music.

The quotations included elsewhere in this essay are also from De Institutione Musica. Key ideas from this text were embraced by many other scholars during the Middle Ages, and they played a crucial role in shaping the medieval understanding of music. Although Boethius’ erudition can be overwhelming for ordinary mortals such as myself, some of his teachings are luminous and profound; if you let them sink in, you may never think about music in the same way again.

Boethius with books, one of which is labeled “MUSICA.”

Nothing is more characteristic of human nature than to be soothed by pleasant musical modes or disturbed by their opposites. This is not peculiar to people in particular endeavors or of particular ages.... No age at all is excluded from the charm of sweet song.

The most memorable insight that De Institutione Musica gave to western culture was a threefold division of music into musica mundana (“music of the entire world”), musica humana (“human music”), and musica instrumentalis (“instrumental music”).

Musica instrumentalis is the form that’s most familiar to us modern folks. This is “sounding music,” produced when a taut string is plucked, or a drum is struck, or a note is sung.

You already know the basics of musica mundana if you’ve read my introduction to medieval cosmology, The Stars in Medieval Eyes. By musica mundana Boethius means the cosmic music that emanates from the harmonious structures and movements of the heavens, and which fills the entire universe with exquisite yet inaudible sounds.² We experience this form of music also in the four physical elements and the four seasons, which despite their “diversities and opposing forces” also exhibit balance and unity.

For what winter confines, spring releases, summer heats, and autumn ripens, and the seasons in turn either bring forth their own fruit or give aid to others in bringing forth theirs.

Musica humana is the metaphysical music of human nature. Like musica mundana, it cannot be heard, but it is alive to our senses through the beauty of the human person, the harmonies of human physiology, and the resonant union of body and spirit. For Boethius, the well-ordered systems of the body are sustained by harmonic principles, and the mind and body are brought together as “a careful tuning of low and high pitches, as though producing one consonance.” He teaches that you and I are fundamentally musical beings—that our existence is a musical phenomenon. Is this not a captivating thought? With Boethius we need no further explanation for music’s extraordinary power to “move” us: The motions of music are also the motions of our interior cosmos. The rhythms and harmonies of music penetrate directly to the depths of our being, resonating with the rhythms and harmonies of the song called human nature.

Eleventh century, León, Spain.

It appears beyond doubt that music is so naturally united with us
that we cannot be free from it, even if we so desired.

In modern society, most of what we call music is musica instrumentalis. Boethius, however, believed that instrumental music was the lowest form in his threefold hierarchy: the music we hear is merely an audible manifestation of transcendent music played in the heavens, and of human music that brings symphonic wholeness to body, mind, and spirit.

And that is why good music is so uniquely beautiful. The original music—music in the fullest sense of the word—was sung by God and echoes eternally in the countless acoustic chambers of Creation. The music that we hear partakes in these divine harmonies, and it resounds in the soul with divine Beauty.

Monks sharing a music book. Note that the one in front, who must turn the pages, is the shortest in the group.

1. The first title is often rendered into English as The Consolation of Philosophy, and the second was entitled Fundamentals of Music in a 1989 edition translated by Calvin Bower and published by Yale University Press. Both were originally written in Latin. The quotations in this essay use Bower’s translation with a few minor alterations.

2. It may be worth mentioning here that scientists have detected sound waves produced by a black hole: “Astronomers say they have heard the sound of a black hole singing. And what it is singing ... is B flat—a B flat 57 octaves lower than middle C.” See Dennis Overbye, “Music of the Heavens Turns Out to Sound a Lot Like a B Flat.” New York Times, Sept. 16, 2003.