Introducing Herbert Whone

Meditation Calendar for 2008

Treasure Hunt

RILKO Journal No. 65 drew my attention to a work by Maryel Gardyne entitled The Atom and the Octave — a "CD book for Personal Computers". This informative "book" shows how the relationships between the notes of the Pythagorean or 'natural' octave are reflected in physical, chemical, and biological functions, and also in planetary motions — all topics will be of interest to followers of the Hermetic Philosophy lectures in the Ardue "University". There is a relevant Web site at: Atom and Octave.

This thought-provoking work also confers high praise on a slim volume entitled The Hidden Face of Music by Herbert Whone, published at £3.00 by Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, in 1974.

Music

As this sum was rather more than my meagre resources could readily afford, I thought I should try to contact the author, if he were still alive, in the hope that he might have news of a possible re-print. I eventually obtained his address through the good offices of the Public Library Service and wrote to him, suggesting that if a new edition were not forthcoming in the near future, I might be granted permission to use some short extracts in the Calendar.

Mr Whone not only gave his permission, but most kindly located a copy of the book, signed it, and sent it to me as a gift.

I hope readers will enjoy the extracts in the calendar. I also hope they will enquire if their own local libraries have a copy. If not, and if sufficient enquiries are made, the libraries might possibly encourage some publisher to reprint it. It is too valuable a jewel to be left in obscurity.

About Herbert Whone

"In this his second work, the author of The Simplicity of Playing the Violin has written a series of essays in an attempt to lead the reader into the deeper implications of music. 'A human being is not completely known by his physical structure; and no more is a musical interval completely known by its appearance on paper'.

"By looking beyond the musical interval as it appears on paper, he sees that the laws which govern the composition and the playing of music are the same laws which govern the composition of Man, Nature, and the Universe. Everything has a symbolical meaning; and it is the symbolism inherent not only in the instruments or parts thereof with which we play our music but also the various parts of the human body, which he discusses in these essays.

" 'Man', he says, 'by the process of evolution, has grown away from his source, the Absolute, and consequently is at war with himself. His life is an unresolved conflict for a return to that source'. Music and art, we are informed, are vicariously living out that unresolved problem of the human race. Music and art create unity, and it is unity that Man seeks — unity with his source.

"This cultured and essentially wise book will come as no surprise to the readers of The Simplicity of Playing the Violin. Of that work, Yehudi Menuhin wrote: 'This book is to be treasured — containing primordial and essential verities, and providing that celestial 'fix' without which earthy and violinistic navigation is reduced to aimless meandering'.

"Herbert Whone, a Yorkshireman living in Harrogate, is a well-known violinist and teacher. The Music Journal writes that he has 'A wealth of practical, intuitive wisdom which should be an inspiration to many jaded string teachers ... the power of clearly expressed ideas'. And it is the power of these ideas which come across so clearly in The Hidden Face of Music: ideas on a subject which, in a letter to his publisher, Herbert Whone admitted is 'elusive and unfathomable'. But despite this he has lucidly and sensitively brought clarity and explanation to ideas that have long remained hidden."