Most of what we can hear and read about now is the pandemic. It is certainly super important to keep informed, and we also know how inspiring stories help us feel good and support a healthy immune system 🙂
So, we commit to sharing content that inspires us, so that when we can finally walk freely under the sun, we will have new ideas and maybe a new worldview.
Here is a recent story that talks about the connection between Beethoven and the Temples of Humankind. Interested in discovering it? Keep on reading… 🙂
On December 11th we presented the new photo book on the Temples of Humankind, an event that we also broadcasted by live streaming. For the occasion, we had the pleasure of having several journalists, artists and friends among our guests, including Patrick Djivas. Patrick is a musician and composer, one of the founders of the legendary Area band and bassist of the PFM since 1974. PFM aka Premiata Forneria Marconi is a progressive rock group that has been loved and followed by thousands of fans, for over 45 years, both in Italy and internationally. Patrick has been friends with Damanhur for years, and in 2016 he proposed to one of our writers, Esperide, to write with him the English texts for their album “Emotional Tattoos”, released in October 2017. Esperide was free to choose the themes of the various pieces, and many of them clearly resonate with themes of the Damanhurian philosophy. In a future post we will publish some of these texts.
Patrick’s speech during the presentation of the book on the Temples was interesting and very exciting, especially when he compared the Temples to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Here is an excerpt from Patrick’s speech, which began by answering a question about creativity.
“Creativity comes by itself. It is important to understand when it arrives because it usually lasts only for a very short moment. We can say that, to carry out each artistic act, creativity represents the 1% at the center and the other 99% is the artist’s sweat! Creativity comes, but developing it means applying a lot of determination.
The Temples of Humanity are the representation of this relationship between creativity and determination.
I am a musician and I have a habit of comparing anything with music. The great works of the world always have something in common with music and so it is for the Temples of Humankind, a unique place in the world.
Great works of art always have something in common, even if you say:
“but this place has nothing in common with anything”, this place is truly unique in the world, there is no place like the Temples of Humankind!”
Yet, there is a musical work that has many things in common with this place, it is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
First of all, Beethoven’s Ninth is considered a “hard to play” symphony. So much so that there are only a couple of orchestras in the world capable of playing it properly. And the first thing you say to yourself, when you see the Temples of Humankind, is: “This is impossible to do. How did they do it?” That’s the first thing that comes to your mind.
And then you ask yourself: “What was happening in a man’s head, in this case the mind of Falco Tarassaco, the inspirer of the Temples, to convince others to construct something like this? I think there must be the same things, the same creativity and the same determination that took Beethoven’s head and heart and convinced him to write the Ninth Symphony.
When you listen to it, you can close your eyes and let yourself be guided in a wonderful and full crescendo. In the Temples of Humankind, you have to move from one room to another bending down through the archways, as if to humble yourself. You have to bend down, pass between these tunnels, and then you arrive and get up, look around and there is this wonderful music that comes upon you, this splendor that overcomes your whole brain.
If there is a particular music that perfectly represents this place it is the Hymn to Joy, perhaps the most famous piece of the Ninth symphony. Beethoven had written it when he was a boy, he had always had it in his head and he knew that someday he would manifest it. And this is the perfect music for this place. This is the place that has always existed in the hearts of all of us, in our heads, but never had the chance to come out.
And now here it is and today we are lucky enough to be able to see, visit, and contemplate this marvelous wonder. And above all, through the books that talk about it, we also have the opportunity to read the signs.
I am happy to be here today and am as grateful as I am when I listen to Beethoven’s Ninth”.
Note
* The Hymn to Joy (Die Hymne an die Freude) is an ode composed by the German poet and playwrighter Friedrich Schiller in 1785. It is known worldwide for being used by Ludwig van Beethoven as the text of the choral part of the fourth and last part of his Ninth Symphony, selecting some passages and writing an introduction by his own hand. The choral ending is the musical representation of universal brotherhood. Beethoven’s melody, without Schiller’s words, was adopted in 1972 as the Anthem of Europe by the Council of Europe and later as the Anthem of the European Union.
