Abstract

The study investigates the role of the Orpheus myth in the views of music's powers. In Plato's thought Orpheus was a great ancient poet who symbolized the supreme achievements of poetry. He was also, however, a poet whose art had to be submitted to the censure of philosophy in the ideal polis. Finally, the Orpheus myth's symbolism was a source for Plato's cosmology and the theory of music's ethical influence. Plato transformed this symbolism into abstract concepts, as well as into an intermediary form combining mythical with philosophical language, i.e. mythosophia. Marsilio Ficino's used the myth as a source for his theory of musical magic and reconstruction of magical rites. In Claudio Monteverdi's and Alessandro Striggio's Orfeo the Hermetic Orpheus, however, was overshadowed by the operatic hero, understood in fundamentally different ways from the magus. The magus was regarded as a real-historical figure, the operatic Orpheus was a fictional one. Ficino's beliefs about music's ability to influence celestial bodies yielded to the subjective view of music's impact. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov opera Sadko, based on the Russian counterpart of the Orpheus myth, projects a symbolic narrative about music, fantasy, and the real world. The effects of music are dependent, the narrative suggests, on the moral intent of the musician. Music's benign impact is possible only when the musician obeys the commandment of divine authority and serves his community. Vyacheslav Ivanov strove to revive the Orpheus myth and made it a central symbol in his doctrine of theurgy. The composer Alexander Scriabin, portrayed as Orpheus by Ivanov, made an attempt to create the Mysterium, a mystical world-transfiguring act. Scriabin's mysticism, however, defied the basic precepts of Ivanov's understanding of theurgy. The analyses show that a myth can be both demythicized and restored as a myth through a conscious theoretical effort. The Orpheus myth retains its ability to resume functioning as a myth and redefine our conceptions about the powers of music