Playing The Church

Musicians often say they are playing a given venue, you know, "I'm playing the Palace," or some such. But in this case musicians performing a concert on May 18th at the 15th Century Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland will not only be playing the church, they'll be playing the church. As in, playing a musical composition decoded from the artwork in the church.

A father and son who became fascinated by symbols carved into the chapel's arches say they have deciphered a musical score encrypted in them.

Thomas Mitchell, a 75-year-old musician and ex-Royal Air Force code breaker, and his composer and pianist son Stuart, described the piece as "frozen music".

"The music has been frozen in time by symbolism," Mitchell said on his Web site (www.tjmitchell.com/stuart/rosslyn.html), which details the 27-year project to crack the chapel's code.

"It was only a matter of time before the symbolism began to thaw out and begin to make sense to scientific and musical perception."

The 15th Century Rosslyn Chapel, about seven miles south of the Scottish capital Edinburgh, featured in the last part of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" — one of the most successful novels of all time which has been turned into a Hollywood film.

Stuart Mitchell said he and his father were intrigued by 13 intricately carved angel musicians on the arches of the chapel and by 213 carved cubes depicting geometric-type patterns.

"They are of such exquisite detail and so beautiful that we thought there must be a message here," he told Reuters.

Years of research led the Mitchells to an ancient musical system called cymatics, or Chladni patterns, which are formed by sound waves at specific pitches.

The first public performance of the piece, called the Rosslyn Motet by the Mitchells, will be at the church on May 18th. There is a sample of the piece at Mitchell's website, along with recordings and books to be purchased. Dan Brown, eat your heart out. They actually deciphered the code.

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  By BubbaB, May 2, 2007 @ 5:15 pm

  I read about this before I saw it on your blog. This guy deserves to win some kind of great award, or something. It took him, what, 25 years to decode this?

  Amazing!

Other Links to this Post

1. Maggie's Farm — May 1, 2007 @ 10:33 am