Pythagorean idea of the World’s Harmony, expressed in consonant relations between its macro and micro components, has been recognized as one of the most significant and influential concepts born by human mind. Pythagoras used to believe that the whole matter emanates tones, that the whole world is the music. He divided it into Musica Mundana (which soon became famous as Music of Spheres) and Musica Humana (music of human body). Their relations, open to mind rather than to our limited senses, have been regulating links between the human being and Universe evolving according to changes in our perception of the world and its understanding. Vibrating tones reflecting the movement of planets around the Sun opens the sonic essay on the Golden Record carried by spaceships Voyager I & II on their intergalaxy journey One cannot foresee whether this updated version of Music of Spheres will ever reach some distant in time and space civilisations. These vibrations, containing the memory of milliards years of existence, might never leave their source, remaining resonate inside the inscrutable structure of human brain as long as imagination and cognitive passion will rule our minds.
For "Tones & Whispers", Johannes Kepler’s elaboration of Music of Spheres was performed by Barbara Buchholtz on theremin - instrument using radio waves . The acquired melodies were then visualized in the form of spheres surrounding particular planets and animated by the musician's hands. They circulate inside the visual landscape composed of images acquired by fMRI brain scanning combined then with distant stars and galaxies.
“Music of Spheres” was written from the position of the Sun – the centre of that time universe. Our contemporary world however is deprived of any objective or absolute point of reference. Thus the Sun in my composition gives place to the centre of our individual sentience and representation of the world- the brain and mind as its function.
The soundtrack, elaborated by Dave Lawrence, transforms “Music of Spheres” into multilayered compositions. Textures are built up using natural and digitally processed sounds - including sounds of electricity, alpha brainwaves, the human voice, simple vibration based sounds (of strings/physical objects), sounds generated via light sensor systems, sounds from our environment, and sounds from far off galaxies.
