Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- I Neo-Mythologism: a Hermeneutic Construct and a Historic Trend
- II The Prime Structuring “Molds”of Myth and Music
- III Towards the Universality of Myth
- IV In Search of the Lost Union: Word–Myth–Music
- V Cosmologies
- VI Numerology
- VII “Where Time Turns Into Space”: The Mythologem of a Circle
- VIII Reception and Critique
- Appendix 1 An interview with George Crumb
- Appendix 2 The English translation of the texts by García Lorca from George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children
- Appendix 3 Text excerpts from Stockhausen's Licht
- Selected bibliography
- List of Illustrations
- Index
VI - Numerology
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- I Neo-Mythologism: a Hermeneutic Construct and a Historic Trend
- II The Prime Structuring “Molds”of Myth and Music
- III Towards the Universality of Myth
- IV In Search of the Lost Union: Word–Myth–Music
- V Cosmologies
- VI Numerology
- VII “Where Time Turns Into Space”: The Mythologem of a Circle
- VIII Reception and Critique
- Appendix 1 An interview with George Crumb
- Appendix 2 The English translation of the texts by García Lorca from George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children
- Appendix 3 Text excerpts from Stockhausen's Licht
- Selected bibliography
- List of Illustrations
- Index
Summary
When studying multiple examples of numerological applications in twentieth-century music, some scholars establish a direct link between numerology and music. An intermediary in this connection, the cosmological myth, has remained outside the main focus of such studies, although numerology as such originally pertained to cosmological myths and associated rituals. Numerology is a part of cosmology.
Numbers’ Role in Cosmology
Numbers used in creation myths establish the order of creation and hierarchical systems of relationships. For example, the classification of nine great gods in ancient Egyptian mythology worked through this progression: 1-2-2-4 (= 9).
Atum-Ra (one) created Schu and Ternut (two); both Schu and Ternut created Geb and Nut (two); those two created Osiris, Isida, Seth, and Neftida (four), altogether nine gods.
In ancient Chinese mythology, the main elements of the cosmological picture each bear an associated number: the sky, 1; the earth, 2; the human being, 3; and so on. Number 5 was a canonic model to categorize the main elements of both macro- and microcosmos, such as the five elements of nature, the five senses, five classes of animals, five parts of the human body, and five emotional states.
Many archaic texts, such as The Elder Edda or the Rig-Veda, treat numbers as venerated and potent entities because of their role in creation—for example, the three stages of creation described in the Rig- Veda. Toporov refers to a group of archaic folk texts unfolding sacred operations with numbers, the operations intending to establish order out of chaos and to segment the continuity of time. Some of these texts are magic spells, in which the undesirable elements are asked to leave the world one by one (“from nine eight, from eight seven,” and so on.)
Some simple folk texts preserve the cosmological myths with their numerical components. Such a text is a Russian folk puzzle describing the year and the World Tree:
There stands a pillar to the sky.
It has twelve nests;
Each nest has four eggs;
Each egg has seven embryos.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Neo-Mythologism in MusicFrom Scriabin and Schoenberg to Schnittke and Crumb, pp. 183 - 200Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007