''i'''~' omäne, Bucuresti, Cosmic Music. Correlations Between Music and Cosmos-Related Ideas Across Ancient Cultures BARBARA RAPPENGLÜCK Abstract Pythagoras and Plato established the basic ideas of the Occidental theory of."cosmic music=ithe relations between intervals of music and numbers, the character of the scales and their influence in nature and society, the harmony of the planetary spheres, etc. Occidental philosophy and theology went back to these concepts, up to their influence in Johannes Kepler's famous work "Harmonice mundi". Non-Western cultures developed ideasof"cosmic rnusic", too. Ancient China e.g. created a very complex system of relations between the different tones of the scale, elements of the calendar and social phenomena. According to the concepts of other people the celestial bodies sound while moving around, or the creation itself happened by sound. Some kinds of music instruments were meant to embody these ideas, to show the connections between music and cosmos, and to enable man to manipulate these relations in an active manner. The article presents an overview about some correlations between cosmos- related ideas and music across ancient cultures. Introduction Hearing the stars singing or the sun playing a flute is no common experience for modem men. But what were ancient people speaking about, when they talked about "sounding cosmos" or "singing stars"? This article is entitled "Cosmic Music". Fro·mthe article "music" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Nettl 2001: 425-437) you will learn that the concepts of music differ very much: Does music only mean instrumental and vocal music, or is it a complex of instrumental or vocal music, dance and recitation? Is the spoken word an element of music? Does music include howling and shrieking? The answers change according to the different concepts of music. Because of the wide scope of the definition I must define a limit to my subject. As the topic "cosmic dance" would be an article for itself, I will restriet my subject to "cosmic sound". I will use "sound" in its broadest sense: all kinds of sound produced by the voice or by playing an instrument, including the sound of idiophones. The sounding cosmos The most famous text illustrating the ancient idea of the sounding cosmos is found in Plato's dialog "The Republic", in the so-called "Vision ofEr" (X,616d-617d): Er gets a look into the structure of the cosmos being organized in 8 whorls, that are turning around a central axis, the "spindle of necessity". A siren is sitting on each of the whorls 361.