For years, I have had a bedside book by French philosopher André Comte-Sponville 'Petit traité des grandes vertus.' (A little treatise on the great virtues) which summarizes what the Pleiades or remarkable philosophers said about the virtues.

What is a virtue?
It is a force which acts, or which can act. Thus the virtue of a plant or a medicine, which is to heal, of a knife, which is to cut, or of a man, which is to want and act humanly.
Virtue, since Aristotle, is an acquired disposition to do good. But even more: it is good itself, in spirit and in truth. Good is not to be contemplated; it is to be done.
Reflection on the virtues does not make one virtuous, in any case it obviously cannot be enough. However, there is one virtue that it develops: humility.

One of the way to meditate on the virtues is by listening to music and what composers are saying through their music.
Here are the virtues linked to composers as per Comte-Sponville.
This is not an exhaustive list of virtues. Some of them and in no way is the music of these composers limited to a specific virtue. And every person can find that specific composers can trigger other virtues.
I remember vividly listening to Handel’s Messiah from Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields a landmark recording both for the Academy and in the history of the work, being both the first recording made with the Academy’s own chorus, and the first (and as far as we are aware, only) recording of the version used by Handel for the work’s 1743 London premiere. To this day, this version remains on top of my list as I could sing the whole musical score and be filled with joy and courage.

The four cardinal virtues are Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude and Justice. The word "cardinal" means "hinge." These virtues act as hinges that help us open the door to the pathway to heaven.

* Prudence: No specific composer but linked to Saturn
* Temperance: Chopin
* Fortitude: Beethoven
* Justice: Bach
-----------
* Courtesy: Haydn
* Loyalty: Brahms
* Generosity: Liszt
* Humility: Schubert
* Refinement: Fauré
* Gentleness: Schubert
* Good faith: Ravel
* Humor: Satie
* Love: Mozart

Be well,
Ouranos

ouranos,

has anyone tried to draw a connection between virtues and the 12 zodiac signs?

you mention the 4 cardinal virtues and it got me to thinking..

prudence - you mention saturn, so how about capricorn?
fortitude - aries
temperance - cancer
justice - libra

i know this is sort of headed into sun sign astrology, but is interesting none the less.. going on memory, via tropical zodiac. bach is sun in aries, beethoven is sag, chopin is pisces..

we visited the place of maurice ravels birthplace yesterday.. it is interesting his views on his most famous song ‘bolero’.. one can read up on this via the wikipedia page on him.. the house he was born in is privately owned and there is no acknowledgement of him there or in the various places he lived in later in life in the st jean de luz - ciboure area.. i asked the young women at the restaurant if she knew who maurice ravel was and she informed us that her boyfriend, a musician from this same area had made her aware of him.. she laughed about how boring it all was! maybe that was an inference towards her thoughts on her boyfriend, or she was just being playful.. she is from northern france..

i find it difficult to make these virtues to classical composers parallels, but perhaps if i was more steeped in classical music, i could do it… a direct link between virtues and zodiac signs or even planets, is more interesting to me.

Hi James ... have you ever listened to Holst's Planets. Not quite sure how he arrived at his themes for each but the music is nice.

thanks jane!

i am familiar with holst and his planets compositions.. i haven’t heard it in a long time, but the wikipedia page on his recording of the planets has sound files for one to listen to as well.. it appears he is a sun in virgo and suffered health problems, astama and etc.. i didn’t realize he was british! with a first name like gustav, i figured he was german! another british composer i was introduced to very recently is benjamin britton.. i have found his music fascinating..

really i am much more familiar with jazz music as compared to classical.. coltranes “interstellar space” is more up my alley.. as i have aged, i find myself gravitating to more classical elements in music and in the jazz types of music i also listen to.. there is a lot of fantastic music out in the world regardless of ones preferences.. making astro parallels with the composers and musicians astro chart is something i’ve always done…. i have never put an astro chart to a virtue, but its an interesting exercize…. thanks for encouraging me to revisit holst.. listening tonthe oboe passages in his composition last night of “venus” is indeed beautiful and wonderful to listen to.

The Jewish pianist, composer en astrologer Gary Goldschneider (1939-2019) wrote about astrology and music.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010722195 ... eider.com/

• Welcome to the website of Gary Goldschneider
  author, astrologer, musician and personal counsellor
  gary@goldschneider.com
  
  Thursday, August 02, 2001
  Children need structure - and understanding
  posted by Gary Goldschneider 7:45 AM
  
  Wednesday, August 01, 2001
  True invention is rare. Mostly we uncover what is already there
  posted by Gary Goldschneider 7:02 AM
  
  Tuesday, July 31, 2001
  The pea and the egg taught packagers how to do it
  posted by Gary Goldschneider 7:52 AM
  
  Monday, July 30, 2001
  There is only one race - the human one
  posted by Gary Goldschneider 7:31 AM
  
  Sunday, July 29, 2001
  Pleasure and pain are not the whole story
  posted by Gary Goldschneider 8:03 AM
  
  
  Saturday, July 28, 2001
  Keep to the basics
  posted by Gary Goldschneider 2:06 PM

His essay on tonal music The meaning of the key can be retrieved here:
https://astrology-research.nl/mystiek/e ... he_Key.pdf

Interesting research and article.
Music and astrology are obviously linked.
I believe that each person responds to certain vibrations when it comes to music.
For example, I can hear the oboe (Key of C Major as per the article) in the whole orchestra.
This one catches my attention.

Thanks for the link Ganglion.

Speaking of Music and Astrology, here's a link to one long yet interesting article, from 'The Journal of Musicology', about Total Solar Eclipses, the Biblical Samson and Delilah and Handel’s oratorio 'Samson', .

From Milton to Hamilton and Handel: Total Eclipse, Judgment, and Enharmonicism in Samson

Ganglion

interesting dude! thanks for drawing my attention to him.. i like the sayings that you've shared and especially this one - "There is only one race - the human one." would be nice if more people thought this way..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Goldschneider

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUbHPyTAq7k

what do you know about his personology birthday based personality theory?? there are a few youtube videos on it and i haven't looked..

AquaStelLea

interesting article! i haven't read it all, but some of it... on a personal note, a friend of mine - born march 25th 1955 - sun on the same degree of the lunar eclipse that happened about a month ago - had a retina detachment which was operated on unsuccessfully.. he has consequently lost sight in his right eye.. i can't remember if the sun or moon is related to the right eye, but i think it is... so seeing this close to an eclipse that landed so close to his natal sun was interesting here... although that is not what the article you shared is about - it is a wee bit as it focuses on the loss of sight - blindness) which i was reminded of again here.. and yet physical blindness might lead to the possibility of spiritual awakening as the type of sight required for one is almost like the dismissal of the other.. now i am getting vaguely philosophical! thanks for the links and continuation on this interesting topic..

james_m wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2024 9:36 pm Ganglion

interesting dude! thanks for drawing my attention to him.. i like the sayings that you've shared and especially this one - "There is only one race - the human one." would be nice if more people thought this way..

I agree. This is biologically seen the case (all humans can mate) as well theologically (one Adam we stem from)

what do you know about his personology birthday based personality theory?? there are a few youtube videos on it and i haven't looked..

I bought several of his books, and the claim is determining personality based on birthday makes some sense. One can read the books and see if the sayings (predictions) apply for known people or couples.

In fact it implies some degrees of the zodiac theory. F.i. if you look at the Sun sign position of : https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Ca ... y_28_April, most entries will have 7 - 8 degrees Taurus. The other methods he used were numerology and tarot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Goldschneider

Gary Goldschneider (22 May 1939 – 5 October 2019)[1] was a writer, pianist, composer, and personologist. He is known for writing the Secret Language personological book series, based on astrology, numerology, and tarot, in which he studied and assessed character traits of over 14,000 people to generalize birth characteristics for each day of the year.

There are 12*30=360 degrees of the zodiac, so in a database of 14,000 people we have at average 38,9 persons per degree. But to empirically find out what 39 people born on the same day have in common and how they differ from people born on other days or a supposed mean is not easy. Actually I do not believe he wrote his books based on statistically found facts (he never published them). The books were written using astrological intuition and / or speculation. And it will take man years of calculation on much larger databases to empirically check the value of his speculations.

There is a website dedicated to Gary Goldschneider
https://personology.info/?i=1

In the section Works, some of his writings are free to download (PDF) like the 366 birthday profiles listed by signs, the 48 periods (weekly) and the 4 elements.

Interesting!

thanks Ganglion

it reminds me a bit of the sabian symbols for the 360 degrees... i don't have the time or interest at present to dig into this, but if anyone else does - let us know your thoughts... cheers james

james_m wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2024 9:36 pm […] i can't remember if the sun or moon is related to the right eye […]

For males the Sun is related to the right eye, the Moon to the left. For females reversed.