Moon Music

Image - Photograph By John Adams Whipple and James Wallace Black- Date 1857-60-The Metroplitan Museum of Art

Since ancient times our nearest neighbour the moon has inspired countless painters, poets and musicians, but there is only one instance I know of in which this celestial body can be said to have actively participated in the creation of an artwork. I am talking about the piece Earth-Moon-Earth in which Scottish artist Katie Paterson converted the score of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata into Morse-code, beamed it at the Moon and then converted the echo back into music. The resulting variation on Beethoven’s theme is beautiful and full of mysterious pauses where the notes have become absorbed by the moons surface or simply bounced off and become lost in space. I wonder what the mirror version of just the missing notes would sound like?
Ms Paterson’s original piece was played on an automated grand piano then in 2014 the Milan Planetarium staged a live performance. Listen to it here -

https://vimeo.com/95131429
Isn’t it beautiful.

For more information on Earth-Moon-Earth and other works click here - http://katiepaterson.org/portfolio/earth-moon-earth/

Oh, and if you’d like to hear Beethoven’s original piece click here -https://open.spotify.com/track/4PNgZs7t4OGPjIKgynlzg1

Image - Illustration by H Stratton-The British Library