Beethoven and Mozart - Towards a more perfect and elegant model: Sagittarius and Aquarius in classical composers’ charts

by Carol Ferris

Music is in the stars. Most obviously, it appears as the constellation Lyra (Latin for lyre). The original instrument was crafted from a tortoise shell by Hermes, then was gifted to his half-brother Apollo, and in turn given to Apollo’s son Orpheus, the musician to the Argonauts. Shakespeare said of Orpheus: “Everything that heard him play/Even the billows of the sea/Hung their heads, and then lay by”. The Roman poet Ovid, writing about the constellation, refers to the seven strings of the Pleiades; the Persian Hafiz called it the Lyre of Zurah, and the Arabs named it Al Sanj, the origin of many later European designations with the root, ‘sang’.

In his astrological treatise, Phaenomena, the Greek poet Aratos called it Lyra, the Little Tortoise, recalling the story of Hermes’ invention. The constellation Delphinus was sometimes characterised by the Latin musicum signum, its nine stars referencing the nine Muses. (All references from Allen in his Star Names, under Lyra and Delphinus.)

Astrologers have long associated their art with music. The American composer-turned- astrologer Dane Rudhyar employs the terms ‘cycle’, ‘rhythm’ and ‘oscillation’ to explain astrology as a structure of consciousness. In Astrological Timing: The Transition to the New Age, he analogises cosmic and musical cycles to describe the relationship between the world of potential and the world of form, which he then applies to great ages, zodiacal man, and geodetic divisions of Earth:

In terms of our actual existential experience no cycle is exactly twice the length of another; and we have the same thing in musical theory. Twelve intervals of fifths (a 3 to 2 relationship) cover a little more than seven octaves (a 2 to 1 relationship) – and this ‘more’ is known as the Pythagorean comma. It is by taking out a twelfth part of this very small comma interval from every one of the twelve fifths that we have the exactly even intervals of half-tones in the modern type of ‘equal temperament’. (51–52)

This theme of twelve is iterated in A.T. Mann’s The Round Art, where he visualises a piano keyboard and its intervals:

The signs of the zodiac are equivalent to the scale of twelve semitones (seven whole tones and five half tones), the houses to the key a piece is played in (based upon one of the twelve notes in the scale) and the planetary positions to the individual notes. Harmonies and dissonances in a musical composition are equivalent to aspects. The aspects are latent relationships within the circle of the horoscope as harmonies and dissonances are latent within the notes on a piano keyboard. (163) 

A review of older astrological texts tends to confirm the tradition of musical signature assignments to Venus and her signs of rulership, Taurus and Libra; and to Neptune and Pisces. The 15th century treatise by Guido Bonatti, The Book of Astronomy, in his section on the planets, treats music as “the complexion of Venus with Saturn and the other planets”:

Which if she is joined with Saturn, it signifies the sound of singing, lamentations, and those by which the dead are bewailed. …If however she is joined with Jupiter, it signifies that the native will be taught in the sounds of ecclesiastical reading and old songs, and in every song pertaining to clerics and the religious, and those using [them] in the houses of prayer. …Which if she is joined with Mars, it signifies the sounds or singing of the laity and the masters of battles, and songs which arise in battles, like the tuba, the bugle, cymbals and the like. …Which if she is joined to the Sun, it signifies that the native will know the sounds or songs which come to be with wood [instruments] which men use in the presence of kings and magnates, like rotes, viols, cytharas, sambucas, lutes and the like. …And if Mercury is joined to her, it signified the sounds by which melodies arise and verses are composed, like lyres, and the like. (171)

William Lilly, in his 17th century work Christian Astrology, says of Venus: “She signifies a quiet man, not given to law, Quarrel or Wrangling…. Neat and Spruce, loving Mirth in his words and actions…. Zealous in their affections, Musical, delighting in Baths and all honest merry Meetings, Masks and Stage-plays…” (pp. 73-4). Lewellyn George, in his 1910 publication, A to Z Horoscope Maker and Delineator, says of Venus: “She inclines to all that pertains to the higher attributes of the mind: music, poetry, painting, singing, drama, opera and all refined amusements and adornment”. (43) 

We read in Max Heindel's early 20th century Rosicrucian publication, Message of the Stars, that Taurus children “are very fond of comforts and luxuries, art, music, drama and other refining influences of life. …Libra children…are exceedingly fond of pleasures in general and particularly lean toward art and music” and that “those with Jupiter in Pisces love music, art and literature and if well-aspected by Venus will give considerable ability as a performer”. (122–292)

He assigns these qualities also to natives with Neptune in Taurus and in Virgo (390 and 392); the sextile and trine Venus aspect to Neptune “makes an inspirational musician” (397), as does the Neptune sextile and trine aspect generally (408). To Uranus he assigns “a high grade of musical genius when configurated with Venus, and if Uranus is well fortified by position and aspects it qualifies the person for leadership in an unusual way”. (349) 

Heindel’s Rosicrucian colleague S.R. Parchment echoes this sentiment in his Astrology: Mundane and Spiritual. In 1933, he discusses the Russians, and the “new civilisation which these people are striving against great odds to establish, radical as was the means which they were forced to employ in inaugurating it…to play a prominent part in the astrological awakening (through music, aviation and electricity) of all the peoples of the Earth”. (97–8). 

Traditional astrological rulers govern music variously, according to Rex Bills’ listings in his The Rulership Book (page 90), e.g.:

Venus rules musical instruments, in general; percussion instruments belong to Mars, those instruments stringed go to Neptune, and Mercury rules wind instruments. We find also the musical scales variously assigned: the key of C (Do) belongs to the Sun; D (Re) to Saturn; E (Mi) to Mercury; F (Fa) to the Moon; G (Sol) to Marsh; A (La) to Venus; and B (Ti) to Jupiter. (127)

In a study of the solar charts of the great classical composers of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, how do we then find such strong signatures for the signs Sagittarius and Aquarius? Completely apart from the transits of the transpersonal planets of these signs in these years (see Table I), what does this signature typify for the time and its musical expression? What did these composers carry for the collective?

If we think about the zodiac as a constant round of creativity, then we could suggest that the sign qualities – cardinal, fixed, mutable – express the three stages of creativity, i.e.: imagination and inspiration, cardinal; manifestation and making, fixed; and analysis and editing, mutable. We might also find the assignment of elemental nature to sign along these same lines: Fire as imagination and potential; Earth as manifestation and form; Air as expression and connection; and Water as return to origins and preparation for the next creative round.

In this understanding, Sagittarius is mutable and fiery, and thinking of nature in the seasonal round, we might think of this time of year as nature dreaming in the dark: all the seeds that have been distilled and preserved in the balsamic period of the year are held, protected, and begin gestation towards strength for the return of the light. The possibility of new life, toward a more perfect and elegant model, generates vision and heroics here.

Aquarius is fixed and airy, nature’s stirring towards new life as the dream seeds respond to more light and water. The Chinese say of this time of year: “Nature in her generosity is pouring water into the system”; an apt description for the seasonal energy of the Waterbearer. The Louvre museum in Paris houses the arts of the ancient Near East, including a room full of statues of the princes of Lagash of Sumer. Many are portrayed holding a jar with twin streams of water issuing from it, embodying political and natural power in dark stone, symbolising power over life and the future.

The symbolism of the Archer and the Waterbearer can be associated then with force, vision and imagination, growth and human longing, encompassing heroics of a high order. It’s with this in mind that we turn to the signatures of the musicians of the 17th and 18th centuries, where we find planetary positions in these signs powerfully configured in the horoscopes of classical composers, and quintessentially expressed in the charts of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Sagittarian, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Aquarian – but are not limited to them. (All assignments drawn from charts of composers as listed in Astro-Databank.)

In the 17th century, Antonio Vivaldi (b. 1678) had Mercury and Mars in Aquarius; Handel (1685) had Mercury and Venus in Aquarius and Mars in Sagittarius; Bach (1685) was born under Moon in Aquarius and Mars in Sagittarius; Scarlatti (1685) shows a Sagittarius Venus. In the 18th century, when Pluto is transiting Sagittarius and, late in the century, Aquarius, Mozart and Beethoven are born (1756 and 1770, respectively). They are joined by Rossini (1792), with Mercury and Venus in Aquarius; and Schubert (1797), Sun and Mercury in Aquarius.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Saturn and Neptune are transiting in Sagittarius; by mid-century, Uranus travels from Sagittarius to Aquarius, and by the end of the century, Saturn is transiting Aquarius. Here we find Bellini (1801) with a Sagittarian Mercury; Berlioz (1803) with Mercury and Mars in Sagittarius; Chopin (1810) with Mercury in Aquarius; and Wagner (1813) with Moon and Mars in Aquarius. But all are also born as Pluto travels in Pisces (1801-13). By the mid-19th century, there is a pronounced shift in the distribution of planetary energies in the horoscopes of classical composers towards Aries and Cancer, which will precede the ‘moderns’ of the early 20th century, who bear a completely different signature. (Liz Greene, in her chapter ‘Neptune and the Artist’ in The Astrological Neptune, characterises the Romantic movement of this later period with delineations of strong Neptune-Saturn-Sun signatures.)

Beethoven was born on 16 December 1770, in Bonn, Germany. He has a Sagittarius stellium of Moon (13º), Mercury (21º), Sun (24º), all opposite his 22º Gemini Mars. Much has been written about his suffering and his deafness, but the heroics of his music might also be understood in relationship to silence. Daniel Barenboim is a 21st century pianist and conductor, and a thoughtful writer about music and musicians. In the transcriptions titled Parallels and Paradoxes, he is in conversation with his friend Edward Said, and observes:

Music, in many ways, (is) a defiance of physical laws – one of them is the relation to silence…. That is the phenomenology of sound – the fact that sound is ephemeral, that sound has a very concrete relation to silence. I often compare it to the law of gravity; in the same way that objects are drawn to the ground, so are sounds drawn to silence, and vice versa. And if you accept that, then you have a whole dimension of physical inevitabilities, which as a musician you try to defy. This is why courage is an integral part of making music. Beethoven was courageous not only because he was deaf but also because he had to overcome superhuman challenges. (30-1)

Looking at silence in this light, Beethoven’s deafness might be considered both a philosophical and metaphysical burden and gift, all at once, and sheds new meaning on Sagittarius as a metaphysical realm.

Mozart’s too-brief life began on 27 January 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. His Aquarius stellium comprises Saturn 1º Aquarius, Sun 7º, Mercury 8º, with Venus at 29º; his Moon and Pluto are conjoined at 17º Sagittarius. Much of Mozart’s life as a prodigy and profligate has been sensationalised in the modern media; but the brilliance of his symphonies, his quartets and his operas, the especially esoteric and Masonic The Magic Flute, reveal the essential Aquarian nature, pushing against tradition and urging something new into the world. It was known that his works were conceived whole cloth, prior to being set down, a way of working with insight that could be characterised as Aquarian. In a biographical piece from The New Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians, his departure from his father’s relationship with the Salzburg archbishop and its strictures, and the drive of his brilliance, is characterised in a manner befitting the Aquarian nature:

He was in great request as a pianist always and his varied works as composer were admired and applauded. Yet his lack of shrewdness in business and a certain volatility of disposition, combined with various other circumstances, left him always without a stated professional position…. At the same time as he was demonstrating an unparalleled fertility and richness of artistic inspiration, he was steadily becoming involved in a tangle of sordid cares and difficulties. The result was the sudden close of his career at thirty-five. …It is evident that if he had continued longer he would have risen to still more sublime utterance. …His genius was the consummate flower of the ‘classical’ period proper. (600)

It’s easy to imagine that the combined energies of Sagittarius imagination and brilliance, especially perhaps its Plutonic flavour, coupled with the revolutionary dynamic of Aquarius, drove Mozart to his untimely end.

These zodiacal energies in music – the heroic, the sublime, the exalted, the potent, the imaginative – are beautifully captured by Barenboim:

The challenging notion about music is that it can serve two totally opposed purposes. If you want to forget everything and run away from your problems and difficulties – from sheer existence – music is the perfect means, because it’s highly emotional. …But on the other hand, the study of music is one of the best ways to learn about human nature. (24)

The energies of Sagittarius – to uplift, envision, dream, expand – and of Aquarius – the new, the possible, the rule breaking – permeate the composers and the age of these times, leading to the possibilities of Romanticism and Modernism in the era to come.

Works cited:
Allen, Richard Hinckley. Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1963. Print.
Astrodatabank. www.astro.com/astro-databank.
Barenboim, Daniel and Edward W. Said. Ed. Ara Guzelimian. Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society. New York: Vintage Books, 2002. Print.
Bills, Rex E. The Rulership Book. Tempe: America Federation of Astrologers, Inc., 1970. Print.
Bonatti, Guido. Bonatti on Basic Astrology: Guido Bonatti's Book of Astronomy. Treatises 1-3: Theory, Signs, Planets, Houses, Configurations. Trans. B. N. Dykes, Ph.D. Minneapolis: Cazimi Press, 2010. Print.
George, Llewellyn. A to Z Horoscope Maker and Delineator. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, orig. 1910, Twenty-Ninth Edition 1973. Print.
Greene, Liz. The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption. York Beach: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1996. Print.
Heindel, Max. The Message of the Stars. Oceanside: The Rosicrucian Fellowship, 1927. Print.
Lilly, William. Christian Astrology: An Introduction to Astrology. Abingdon: Astrology Center of America, this edition copyright 2004 (original edition 1674).
Mann, A.T. The Round Art: The Astrology of Time and Space. New York: Mayflower Books, Inc., 1970. Print.
Parchment, S.A. Astrology: Mundane and Spiritual. San Francisco: Rosicrucian Anthroposophic League, 1933. Print.
Pratt, Waldo Selden, Ed. The New Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1931. Print.
Rudhyar, Dane. The Pulse of Life: New Dynamics in Astrology. Berkeley: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1970. Print.

Appendix: Table I
Transpersonal Planet Transits into Sagittarius and Aquarius:
16th century:
Uranus in Sagittarius  1563–1569
Uranus in Aquarius  1578–1585
17th century:
Uranus in Sagittarius  1647–1653
Uranus in Aquarius  1662–1669
Neptune in Sagittarius  1643–1656
Neptune in Aquarius  1672–1685
18th century:
Uranus in Sagittarius  1731–1737
Uranus in Aquarius  1745–1752
Pluto in Sagittarius  1749–1762
Pluto in Aquarius  1779–1798
19th century:
Uranus in Sagittarius  1814–1821
Uranus in Aquarius  1829–1836
Neptune in Sagittarius  1807–1820
Neptune in Aquarius  1835–1848

Image sources:
Ludwig van Beethoven by painter Joseph Karl Stieler (1820), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by painter Johann Nepomuk della Croce. Cropped image, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Published by: The Astrological Journal, Aug/Sep 2021

Author:
Carol Ferris MA practises astrology full time in Portland, Oregon, where she consults with clients, teaches and tutors, and writes. She completed her Masters thesis in Interdisciplinary Studies through Marylhurst University, Lake Oswego, Oregon, in 2013. The title of her thesis, ‘The Sky's Body: Constellations and Medicine’, reflects her ongoing interest in the nature-based medicine and governance thinking of the ancient Near East and Chinese philosophers and astrologers. She is currently listening to Schubert’s late sonatas and attempting to play them herself. Website: carolferrisastrology.com.

© Carol Ferris, 2021

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