farting – Early Music Muse

Jheronimus Bosch and the music of hell. Part 1/3: The modern myth of Bosch’s butt music

Ian Pittaway Bosch Hieronymous, Bosch Jheronimus, devil’s interval, farting, Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch painting), iconography, medieval notation, music in art, Strichnotation, tritone 26th May 202117th September 2023 6 Comments

In recent years, a story about a detail in Jheronimus Bosch’s painting of 1495–1505, The Garden of Earthly Delights, has been repeatedly told: that a sinner on the hell panel of the triptych has real music painted on his bottom, only recently discovered. Periodically, articles and videos reappear on social media with a performance of the same attempt to make sense of it, created by Amelia Hamrick in 2014. Is this oft-repeated butt music credible?

To put Bosch’s painting in its historical context, a previous article, Performable music in medieval and renaissance art, examined the role of both faux music notation and playable music in medieval and renaissance art. This article explains why the paint on the sinner’s bottom does not represent real music, and why attempts to interpret the ‘music’ are based on erroneous assumptions and misunderstandings. A second article, available here, explains the rich symbolism of The Garden, including the meaning of musicians tortured by their own instruments, silenced by the demons of hell. A third and final article, available here, surveys the musical symbolism in all Bosch’s works, and asks why his depictions of music are always grotesque, associated with sin, punishment and hell.

Sumer is icumen in / Perspice Christicola: silencing the cuckoo

Ian Pittaway bonacon, bonnacon, farting, ground bass, Harley 978 manuscript, mediaeval, medieval, medieval notation, Perspice Christicola, pes, rota, Sumer is icumen in 7th June 20208th February 2024 4 Comments

Sumer is icumen in is the earliest surviving complete English secular song, sung in this article’s video with all six voices indicated in the manuscript, Harley 978, circa 1250. Sumer and another song, Perspice Christicola, are laid out on the page to the same melody. It seems an unlikely coupling: one about the sights and sounds of summer, with its singing cuckoo, growing seeds, bleating ewe and farting buck; the other a devotional song, with God sending Christ to destruction in order to free the captives of sin and crown them in heaven.

A later scribe returned to the page to add rhythm to the originally non-mensural (not indicating rhythm) notation and, in doing so, also changed the pitches of some notes. The changed notes are strategic, removing the musical cuckoo call, and this scribal interference suggests that the Middle English secular Sumer is icumen in and the Latin devotional Perspice Christicola made an uneasy pair. The version of Sumer recorded for this article restores the originally-written pitches, with the effect of reinstating the cascading cuckoo call, a central musical effect erased in the amended notes usually sung.

This is a revised version of an article originally published in February 2016.

A brief history of farting in early music and literature

Ian Pittaway Aubrey John, bonacon, bonnacon, Bosch Hieronymous, Canterbury Tales, catch clubs, Chaucer Geoffrey, d'Urfey Thomas, de Vere Edward, Elizabeth I, Ellis William, farting, Garden of Earthly Delights, Luther Martin, marginalia, My Lady and her Mayd, Pepys Samuel, Playford Henry, Playford John, Puritans, Shakespeare William, Sumer is icumen in, Swift Jonathan, Two Gentlemen of Verona 27th July 20169th February 2024 5 Comments

This may seem like surprising material. Indeed, this article started out as a bit of silliness based on a few farty fragments, but soon became a serious study when I uncovered the surprising historical meanings behind flatulence in the medieval, renaissance and baroque periods. A 17^th century music society sang gleefully about it (for which there is a music video in this article); Thomas D’Urfey published several songs about it; and a buck does it in the earliest surviving piece of English secular polyphony. Plus there’s Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Edward de Vere’s bottom burp in front of Queen Elizabeth, and farting musical marginalia. So rest your cheeks, wind down, and let rip with a brief history of farting.

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