Music in Da Vinci's Last Supper?

From the Telegraph, another story purporting to report a discovery in Leonardo's Last Supper:

A computer technician claims to have discovered a real da Vinci code after finding music hidden in Leonardo's masterpiece, The Last Supper.

Giovanni Maria Pala said that the hands of Jesus and the Apostles, and the loaves of bread in the picture each represented a note, which formed a 40-second composition.

He made the discovery after superimposing a stave - the five lines used in sheet music - on the painting. The composition emerges when the "notes" are read right to left, following Leonardo's own technique.

Mr Pala, who will publish his findings in a book next week, said: "It sounded really solemn, almost like a requiem."

Alessandro Vezzosi, of Tuscany's Leonardo museum, said the theory was "plausible", but added: "There's always a risk of seeing something that is not there, but it's certain that the spaces [in the painting] are divided harmonically.

"Where you have harmonic proportions, you can find music."

*Rolls eyes*

Che bella canzone

From Hypnotic Clambake's website an mp3 of the exceptionally fun Gondola to Heaven.

Noel Coward - Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Incomparable!

In the News...

From the Telegraph, a story about the Rosslyn Chapel to make you roll your eyes:

As if there were not enough mysteries involving the medieval chapel that featured in The Da Vinci Code, the plot thickened further yesterday.
Rosslyn Chapel has, at one time or another, been suggested as the resting place of the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant and even the mummified head of Christ.
Now cosmology has been added to this rich brew after the ornate symbols on its walls were likened to giant cloud formations photographed on Saturn.
The link was made by Stuart Mitchell, 41, a composer, who with his father Thomas, 75, a former RAF codebreaker, deciphered a musical score they believe was hidden in the 13 angel musicians and 213 cube-like shapes carved on the chapel arches.
After 27 years of research they cracked their code and, at the weekend, they staged the first public performance of the medieval music they found hidden in the carvings
(snip)
Mr Mitchell and his father believe the tune was encrypted in the 15th century chapel outside Edinburgh because knowledge of music may have been considered heretical at the time.
Earlier this week, Mr Mitchell was preparing for the first performance when a Mexican astronomer telephoned him and told about the same hexagonal shape on Saturn.
The coincidence suggests a universal significance for the musical score, according to Mr Mitchell, even if the hexagon above Saturn is 15,000 miles across while the carvings are measured in inches.
In musical terms, both shapes represent a B natural, suggesting to some that the planets may have their own musical score to be cracked.
"The shape matches right down to the detail," said Mr Mitchell. "The shape represents the B natural pattern in our code, and that is the first note of the Rosslyn Motet.
"Now we are starting to see that these symbols that everybody found so magical and unique are around us in a vast way. What we are seeing on our plane of existence we can now also see on a cosmic scale. It is one of the most amazing developments in this story.
"If the geometric figure in Rosslyn Chapel is produced by the same principles as is happening on Saturn - vibration and sound - then Saturn is literally singing a piece of music to us."
Mr Mitchell said that the shape on Saturn was like a humpback whale singing in the darkness of space. He added: "I find it propitious that the sudden interest in the Saturn Hex phenomenon should be at a time when my father and I have realised a composition we believe was 'set in stone' using this same science."
The hexagon above Saturn was detected 26 years ago, but was captured in its complete form for the first time earlier this year by Nasa's Cassini Orbiter. A spokesman at the space agency said at the time that it was a "very strange feature".

Watch the accompanying videos on the Telegraph website for some fascinating (yawn!) New-Age commentary about how the Church suppressed knowledge of music and attempted to brainwash people using Gregorian Chant. The Templars, secret music, an oppressive Church and now the planets singing at us... what more could you ask for?

Visual Acoustics

Ample Design have put this fascinating little gadget called Visual Acoustics on their website. [Biretta-doff: Jay is Games]
I suspect my more musical readers will be able to make much more harmonious noises with this tool than I can. Basically, one draws on the screen with one's mouse in order to play various musical instruments. Playing around with the volume and delay settings creates some interesting effects. I'd advise beginning with the piano only to get a feel for the interface and the settings, before moving on to paying several instruments simultaneously.

In the S.Maria Maggiore Museum until Thursday

The Exultet Roll of Avezzano - click the images to see the delicate illustrations in more detail.

Vere dignum et iustum est

O inaestimabilis dilectio caritatis:
ut servum redimeres, Filium tradidisti!
O certe necessarium Adae peccatum,
quod Christi morte deletum est!
O felix culpa,
quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!

Pink Martini

I'd never heard of Pink Martini until Jane of Alle Psalite linked to this Youtube video:

Magnifique!

Church organist required for jungle meteorite hunt

From the Times:

Wanted: one organist for concert in remote Bolivian jungle accessible only by raft. Must be prepared to face rapids, alligators and 30C (86F) temperatures. Ability to swim a bonus.
Church organists are rarely an essential part of expeditions into the Amazonian rainforest, but a team of scientists about to embark on a journey to a far-flung meteorite impact site in Bolivia believe that one will be key to achieving their mission.
Colonel John Blashford-Snell, a professional adventurer who made headlines in 2000 when he took a grand piano 350 miles (560km) along the Amazon River as a present for the Wai Wai tribe in Guyana, intends to deliver a pedal organ to the isolated Ojaki community as a way of persuading its people to help his expedition.
The colonel’s team, which will also help to install a clean water supply and perform medical duties for the Ojaki people, are reliant on local expertise to build bridges to the impact site, which is five miles wide. The locals are religious and have asked the visitors to install an organ in their newly built church.
The organ — a pedal-powered Harmonium donated by St James’s church in Milton Abbas, Dorset — will be flown to La Paz and then transported by lorry 120 miles over the Andes to the Beni river. It will then be loaded on to a 59ft (18m) boat for a 430-mile journey over rapids and more dangerous, man-made hazards.

Choir Wars

From the Times:

A Church of England clergyman who was exasperated by the increasing dissonance among his choir has decided to silence them.
The discord that led the Rev Colin Randall, Team Rector of Wellington in Somerset, to suspend the weekly singing at St John’s Church developed over styles of worship.
The choir had established a reputation for cathedral-standard music. It excelled at difficult psalms and anthems as the congregation listened.
Mr Randall, by contrast, preferred the entire church to join in with more modern classics such as Graham Kendrick’s Shine, Jesus, Shine. Disagreement over the two approaches built up, and any harmony was shattered for good last year when Mr Randall sacked the choirmaster, Colin Drummond, after 13 years of diligent service. Half the choir then left in protest.
Mr Randall claimed the be-haviour of a small number of remaining singers was “so lacking in Christian discipleship” that he felt obliged to put an end to their Sunday singing for the foreseeable future.
(snip)
Mr Randall publicly thanked the choir members for their commitment and hard work and said that he looked forward to reinstating weekly singing once a new director of music was in place. He hoped that the new director would recruit new members, including children and young people.
Mr Randall declined to comment yesterday but said that the decision had followed “some months of thought”. He said he would come to an agreement with Val Williams, the choir leader, about services for which the choir would sing, such as Easter Sunday.
The parent of one former choir member said: “Colin [Drummond] was brilliant. He educated and brought the children on and invited the children and parents to his home a couple of times a year, but he was good with everyone.”
Mr Drummond, whose wife and two sons also left the choir, said: “I am very saddened. Less than a year ago we had a large choir that was well known for its outreach, particularly among young people in Wellington. Now there is nothing.”
John Andrews, communications officer for the Diocese of Bath and Wells, said the problem was about styles of worship. “There is a slight history down there,” he said, adding that any choir would “drift” without a choirmaster.