The Music of the Spheres has been a subject of fascination of mine ever since I've encountered the topic in one line of my favorite hymn ("This is my Father's World") and in Fray Luis de Leon's poetry. Today, I came accross Johannes Kepler's text on The Harmonies of the World as I have been dvelving deeply into Astronomy/Astrology lately. Kepler highlights with great mathematical precision the geometrical beauty and harmonical placement of the planets. I love how he refers to God as 'The Artisan'.
So here I leave you with a piece of 'Celestial Lore'...
IN THE CELESTIAL HARMONIES WHICH PLANET SINGS SOPRANO, WHICH ALTO, WHICH TENOR, AND WHICH BASS?
Although these words are applied to human voices, while voices or
sounds do not exist in the heavens, on account of the very great
tranquillity of movements, and not even the subjects in which we find
the consonances are comprehended under the true genus of movement, since
we were considering the movements solely as apparent from the sun, and
finally, although there is no such cause in the heavens, as in human
singing, for requiring a definite number of voices in order to make
consonance (for first there was the number of the six planets revolving
around the sun, from the number of the five intervals taken from the
regular figures, and then afterwards—in the order of nature, not of
time—the congruence of the movements was settled): I do not know why but
nevertheless this wonderful congruence with human song has such a
strong effect upon me that I am compelled to pursue this part of the
comparison, also, even without any solid natural cause. For those same
properties which in Book III, [300] Chapter 16, custom ascribed to the
bass and nature gave legal grounds for so doing are somehow possessed by
Saturn and Jupiter in the heavens; and we find those of the tenor in
Mars, those of the alto are present in the Earth and Venus, and those of
the soprano are possessed by Mercury, if not with equality of
intervals, at least proportionately. For howsoever in the following
chapter the eccentricities of each planet are deduced from their proper
causes and through those eccentricities the intervals proper to the
movements of each, none the less there comes from that the following
wonderful result (I do not know whether it is occasioned by the
procurement and mere tempering of necessities): (1) as the bass is
opposed to the alto, so there are two planets which have the nature of
the alto, two that of the bass, just as in any Mode of song there is one
[bass and one alto] on either side, while there are single
representatives of the other single voices. (2) As the alto is
practically supreme in a very narrow range [in angustiis] on
account of necessary and natural causes unfolded in Book III, so the
almost innermost planets, the Earth and Venus, have the narrowest
intervals of movements, the Earth not much more than a semitone, Venus
not even a diesis. (3) And as the tenor is free, but none the less
progresses with moderation, so Mars alone—with the single exception of
Mercury—can make the greatest interval, namely a perfect fifth. (4) And
as the bass makes harmonic leaps, so Saturn and Jupiter have intervals
which are harmonic, and in relation to one another pass from the octave
to the octave and perfect fifth. (5) And as the soprano is the freest,
more than all the rest, and likewise the swiftest, so Mercury can
traverse more than an octave in the shortest period. But this is
altogether per accidens; now let us hear the reasons for the eccentricities
---Johannes Kepler in Harmonies of the World (1619)
