|
Musical Symbolism in the Tarot and The Rake’s Progress
By Roger Cantrell
In Paul Foster Case’s book, The Tarot, each trump card of the Tarot is identified with a single musical tone from the diatonic scale. Six of the musical tones have more than one Trump card associated with them.
Table 1
The Musical Tones and their Trumps
1. C natural: #4,The Emperor ; #16,The Lightning Struck Tower ; #20,Judgement
2. C sharp or D flat: #5,The Pope
3. D natural: #6 The Lovers, #19,The Sun
4. D sharp or E flat: #7,The Chariot
5. E natural: #0,The Fool, #1,The Magician ; #11,Strength
6. F natural: #9,The Hermit
7. F sharp or G Flat: #3,The Empress ;#8,Justice
8. G natural: #13,Death
9. G sharp or A flat: #2,The Papess ;#12,The Hanged Man ; #14,Temperance
10. A natural: #15,The Devil ; #21,The World
11. A sharp or B flat: #10,The Wheel of Fortune ; #17,The Star
12. B natural: #18,The Moon
Upon learning this information about the Tarot Trump/musical tone association, I began to wonder if a correlation between the symbolism of a Tarot Trump card and certain composer's choice of keys and notes could be drawn. As I began to explore the possible linkage, it became quite evident that there were too many synchronicities between the Tarot and the tonality of music to discount such a connection. The next question becomes 'Are certain composers aware of this knowledge and therefore apply it in their compositions'? A composer may write out of conscious intention, unconscious inspiration or both. The symbolism of the Tarot comes to us from the land of dreams. Carl Jung called that dreamland the great collective unconscious of humankind. As we create a work of art, there may come those rarified moments when we tap into a higher spiritual world. In some mysterious way the great collective unconscious weaves its way into the creative process.
To illustrate the Tarot/Trump musical connection one need only examine the first scene of Igor Stavinsky's 1951 opera The Rake’s Progress. Stravinsky's genesis for the opera came from a series of engravings by the 18th-century artist Hogarth. With the assistance of librettists W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman, the images of Hogarth were transformed into a story about a man's journey into immorality and madness.
The opera begins with a 'Prelude.' A bright fanfare played primarily by horns and trumpets in ‘E’ major announce the Tarot Trump: The Fool. The Fool is associated with the tone of 'E natural.' Because this card does not have a number assigned to it, the Fool does not have a fixed position in the deck. He is free to travel any path he chooses. Who is the Fool? He is Tom Rakewell, an energetic young man, without life experience, impatiently waiting to begin his journey through life. The fanfare is the "hero's summons" for audience and Tom to prepare for events to come.
Act I, scene 1
(Duet and Trio)
As the scene opens, we see a garden outside the house of Trulove and his daughter Anne. Anne is the beloved of Tom Rakewell and they are seated under an arbor during a fine spring afternoon. The rural mood of the introduction suggests a peaceful Eden when Anne begins to sing:
…the woods are green and bird and beast at play
For all things keep this festival of May;
The introduction begins in 'A major' which is the tone associated with the Tarot card in the fifteenth position: "The Devil." The Devil Trump symbolizes the powers of nature and the impulse to fulfil those desires and passions no matter what the cost or means to achieve it. As counterpoint to this "devilish key" we have Anne singing of hope, love and spring. Anne represents the goddess (Venus/Persephone) who, by the end of the opera, will give Tom absolution for his sins.
Tom begins his part of the duet with the words:
Now is the season when the Cyprian Queen
With genial charm translates our mortal scene,
When swains their nymphs in fervent arms enfold
And with a kiss restore the Age of Gold.
Tom sings his first line in the key of ‘G major’, which is assigned to the thirteenth Tarot Trump: Death. The Death card shows a skeleton wielding a scythe around which are littered the dismembered body parts of a human being. These body parts are symbols of Tom's former life and beliefs that now lie uselessly strewn about him. Tom's choice is either ignore the ‘positive parts’ of his former life and follow his destiny without their aid and guidance or integrate them. Anne next joins Tom, in a short trio as her father, expresses his doubts about Tom's attitude toward life.
O may a father’s prudent fears Unfounded prove,
And ready vows and loving looks Be all they seem.
In youth we fancy we are wise. But time hath shown,
Alas, too often and too late, We have not known
The hearts of others or our own.
Now the tonality revolves around the tone of ‘B natural’. This is the tonality of the eighteenth Trump: The Moon. A common image of this card shows a gateway with a road going through it. The Moon is a card of dire consequences as her father’s words clearly show. Various interpreters of this card have said it expresses treachery, false security, deceptive appearances and vain promises.
Recitative and Aria
Trulove tells Tom that he has secured a position for him in a countinghouse. Tom informs him that he has different ideas and not to worry. His daughter will not marry a poor husband. Trulove responds by saying that he only cares that she marry a husband who is honest and not lazy.
Tom, feeling rebuffed, calls the exited Trulove an 'old fool.' He quickly launches into another recitative:
Here I stand, my constitution sound, my frame not
ill favored, my wit ready, my heart light.
Tom begins in 'C major' which represents the sixteenth Tarot card: "The Lightning Struck Tower." As his first words indicate, he stands like a proud tower and begins to list his arguments for rejecting the meager rewards of honest work and why he intends to follow the whim of lady fortune.
The Tower card is an allegory showing a tower half-destroyed by lightning. The tower itself symbolizes the sin of pride, megalomania, and the wild pursuit of fanciful ideas. Lightning is a sign of power and energy sent to restore balance when we become too inflated by our egos.
Tom now sings in his aria:
Since it is not by merit We rise or we fall,
But the favor of Fortune That governs us all…
The aria begins in 'F major.' F is the tone of the ninth Trump: "The Hermit." The picture on the card is that of an old man carrying a lantern partially covered by the folds of his cloak. As two bassoons smugly waddle along as accompaniment, Tom mockingly rejects the hermit's plodding wanderings through life. 'If life be predestined to never gain wealth, I might as well follow my desires wherever they lead me.' This attitude illustrates the terror of becoming a nobody. It is the fear of coming to the end of our lives as we ask: "Is there anybody there?"
W.H.Auden, one of Stravinsky's librettists and a world-renowned poet wrote in his poem "The Age of Anxiety ":
The fears we know Are of not
knowing.
Will nightfall bring us Some awful
order- keep a hardware store
In a small town...teach science for
Life to Progressive girls-? It is
Getting late.
Shall we ever be asked for?
Are we simply not wanted at all?
At the end of the aria Tom expresses the first of four wishes: I wish I had money. Tom has never felt so alone in his life. The 'young fool' would have done well to listen to the advice of the 'old fool' Trulove. For like the Hermit, he could show Tom, by the light of his lantern, the path of wisdom. Tom's desire to trust luck and ride the horse of his desires without a moral compass has flung him into the dark, sinister and destructive forces of his unconscious where cravings and compulsions wait to regurgitate as Nick Shadow.
Recitative
The harpsichord announces Nick Shadow's entrance in a musical flourish. As the recitative proceeds, Nick introduces himself and tells Tom that he brings him "a bright future." He sends Tom to fetch Anne and Trulove to also hear the glad tidings he is about to announce. On the word "bright" Stravinsky uses a musical motif ending on the tone of ‘E’. 'E natural' is assigned not only to 'the Fool,' but also to the first card of the Tarot deck: "The Magician." In this situation, Nick takes on the characteristics of a sinister magician who comes to 'fool the fool' by sleight of hand and deceit before his very eyes.
The recitative turns into what amounts to an aria for Nick in 'G major.' We return once again to the thirteenth Trump: "Death.' This trump also symbolizes 'transition.' Nick's transition is the task of taking possession of Tom and expelling him from the Eden of Anne's home. Fabricating a tale of an inherited fortune left by a deceased unknown uncle, Nick tempts Tom with the 'apple' of wealth and the words: You are a rich man.
Quartet
The scene continues with a quartet in the key of 'B flat.' Tom is elated and riding high on The Wheel of Fortune which is the name of the Tarot Trump assigned to 'B flat.' While the symbolic lesson of the Hermit Trump leads a person down the solitary path of wisdom, the Wheel of Fortune card brings that person back into the world. The card's image shows a wheel standing off the ground. A monkey with its head pointed downwards embraces the left side of the wheel while a dog on the right side of the wheel is shown to be climbing upward towards a smiling, immobile sphinx. The two animals on different sides of the wheel stand for the rise and fall of fate. The sphinx is the non-personal element of the world we strive to reach believing it will bring us the fulfillment of our desires. Few realize that were we to place ourselves into the center of the wheel, the stress of the transitory nature of good and bad fortune would not affect us so drastically. This is why the sphinx smiles. At the end of the quartet, Anne and Tom wax poetic about their love until Nick interrupts with the warning that Tom's newly acquired fortune needs attention in London. The two lovers sing a farewell Duettino, "Farewell for now," in G major. The 'Death Trump' key once again symbolizing the transition from one life to the next.
Arioso and Terzettino
Tom sings:
Dear Father Trulove, the very moment my affairs are settled, I shall send for you and my dearest Anne…
The 'A natural' of the opening scene returns in this arioso and in the following terzettino in A major. This time the fifteenth trump The Devil and number twenty-one The World both assigned A natural lay claim as Nick has successfully enticed Tom to leave his Eden for the world. After the exit of Anne and Trulove, Nick turns to the audience and sings the final line of the first scene: THE PROGRESS OF A RAKE BEGINS. This conjuror and illusionist now reveals the musical key of 'G major': the 'Death' card. The music itself has finally revealed Nick's ultimate goal.
|