Voyager, Bach, Gould And The Golden Record
The Apex Of and Model For A Confident And Daring People And Civilization
Enjoy this performance while you read, and then a second time, with what I hope is a greater appreciation for it. Have a great weekend everyone.
(Glenn Gould performing the Prelude and Fugue in C Major - J.S. Bach WTC II)
America launched the Voyager1 and Voyager2 space probes in 1977. The project was initially conceived to capitalize on the alignment of two of our solar system’s gas giants - Jupiter and Saturn. The Project Scientist, Edward Stone, led his team to expand the scope of the mission and send both probes into deep space. Each probe is supplied with electricity from three Multi-Hundred-Watt RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators). In short these are zero moving part power supplies that use the heat from decaying Plutonium-238 isotopes to generate electrical current.
The probes are now well past Pluto and undertaking a 14,000 year journey through our solar system’s Oort belt where they will then enter Interstellar Space. When Stone and his team decided to send the probes into Interstellar Space, they wanted to expand the American frontier into the cosmos and learn about it from the many on-board sensors and telemetry systems that report back to NASA what the probes encounter. They also wanted to create an opportunity for us to encounter space faring, intelligent life.
In addition to their scientific genius, they planned for any such encounter proving themselves equally in genius with their ambassadorial skills. They created a Golden Record and attached it to the outside of the spacecraft.
(Image of The Golden Record)
The record comes with a diagram that would explain to any intelligent life how to decipher and play the contents of the record utilizing the implements they provided to play it.
(Diagram/Cypher explaining to intelligent beings how play the Golden Record)
The record contains images of human knowledge of genetics, chemistry, math and physics. It also contained diagrams of human DNA, images of how we reproduce, and images of our planet and culture.
(Image of Voyager1 With The Golden Record)
It also contains recordings of music. Among the recordings are some of the grandest musical monuments written by the most towering geniuses of the Occidental High Art Music canon. Among those are recordings of Glenn Gould performing the Prelude and Fugue in C Major from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier Book II.
Of all of the music that The Golden Record contains I think the Bach is the best, most comprehensive representation of the musical, artistic and scientific achievements of our civilization.
(Statue of J.S. Bach)
Bach was a remarkable artist whose syncretic art was keenly intentional, celebratory, spiritual and of the highest quality of craftsmanship. Bach lived in post Reformation Germany. After the split with the Catholic church, the German Lutheran church found itself without a formal musical liturgy. Bach was deeply devoted to his faith and he wrote the Chorals so that his church and his people would have their own liturgy where they could lift their voices to God at their services.
Bach was an incredible and unique musician. He was a towering master of his craft. He often set out to write volumes of music that serve as comprehensive treatises on musical technique, scientific achievement applied to music and that also conveyed his deep spiritual convictions through music. He celebrated the Holy Trinity in all that he did. He used all of his mind, body and spirit to realize the full potential of all his Creator endowed him with.
The Chorales were one such treatise where he explored four part harmony applied to the newly developed harmonic system developed in the early 17th century.
(An 18th century Klavier)
Perhaps the greatest example of such a treatise is Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier - Books One and Two. Renaissance Era Europeans began to rediscover their ancestor’s past; reaching back into the Roman and Greek worlds. One such discovery was the Greek’s incredible mathematical understanding of the science and spirituality of acoustics. They uncovered Pythagoras, Nichomachus and the Harmony of The Spheres. This re-discovery led to the development of the well tempered tuning system. This stunning achievement led Europeans to tame the overtone series and develop a means to tune instruments so that to the human ear each octave sounds in complete resonance with the preceding and succeeding octaves. This meant the ability to create a never before developed music - one emancipated from being solely drone based and modal; one that has rich harmonic qualities and a vast new world of cathartic formal possibilities.
(Pythagorean Geometry, Number Series and Harmony of The Spheres)
This discovery in turn led to the development the extraordinary system of harmony that is the the basis for all of our music today - the 4-part Cycle Of Fifths harmonic system. In fact, from the 16th through the early 20th century the composers and music theorists developed and wrote music with far greater depth and sophistication than any of the pop and jazz music written in the 20th century. It is all based on the well tempered scale and the cycle of fifths harmonic system developed in those 4 and-a-half centuries of European High Art Music.
Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier was a comprehensive treatise and a monumental achievement of the following:
A celebration of the well tempered tuning system and one of the instruments it made possible - the clavier
A treatise of 4-part cycle of fifths harmonic system and with Bach’s musical genius harmonic invention and idioms that were 200 years ahead of their time.
A celebration and summation of 4 part contrapuntal forms and its most sophisticated and elaborate form the Fugue. A fugue is the most difficult and intricate style of music to create. When Bach was re-discovered in the late 18th century he astounded and inspired Mozart, Beethoven and every composer after him to master this incredible form of music.
An expression of his soul lit on fire by the astounding technological, social, religious and artistic flourishing of European man.
A celebration of the Holy Trinity where the three primary voices of the fugue imitate and vary each other’s statements in a cathartic and highly economic usage and treatment of a very simple musical theme and counter-theme.
(A young Glenn Gould performing)
In the 1950s the prodigy Glenn Gould astonished the world with his performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The Goldberg Variations were yet another treatise showing how to master the Theme and Variations form. Gould’s approach to interpreting Bach was revolutionary. Until Gould, Bach was played in the Romantic era style using musical techniques that were not used in Bach’s time. It was as if Bach re-incarnated as Glenn Gould whose interpretive genius and virtuosity showed our 20th century world how Bach should be played.
I hope this explanation gives you an insight into Bach that expands your appreciation and enjoyment of his music.
Someday, intelligent life in the cosmos may encounter Voyager, decipher how to set up and play the Golden Record and discover just a bit of the apex of our civilization. They may not understand the details and context of Bach’s music, but the depth, intricacy, pathos and playfulness of its genius will be apparent to them. I am awestruck at the many systems that we created in order to send a probe into interstellar space and communicate back to us what it encounters. I am awestruck by the thoughtfulness, daring and confidence that we had to create The Golden Record that we may introduce ourselves to intelligent life in the cosmos.
We can shake off and rise from this decades long myopia and decay, just as Northern Europeans rose from the ashes of the fall of Rome. We can regain that confidence, that daring, that swagger and believe in ourselves that way again. May you enjoy Glenn Gould’s performance with the wonderment that far off life in the cosmos may enjoy it someday. May you enjoy and let it ignite a remembrance of who we were, and inspire you to resume our destiny by re-imagining and realizing all that we can be in the future.
(Cavelli-Coli Organ of the Cathedral of Nancy, France)
What a beautifully written, edifying piece. May we believe in ourselves that way again indeed.