Is it true that the notes on the buttocks of the sinner in the picture of Bosch are real music?

In the spring of 2021, social networks have spread that the American student deciphered the notes written on the buttocks of the Triptich character Jerome Bosch. We checked whether this is really so.

“Garden of earthly pleasures” is perhaps the most famous work of the Dutch artist, which he completed by 1510. The right sash of this triptych is called "musical hell." One sinner is crucified here on the harp, the other, as to a shameful pillar, is tied to the Griff of Lyutny. The third, on the bodies of which the musical signs are captured, is crushed by this very lute. Also on the sash there are images of a wheeled lyre, pipes and drum, and there are several dozens of different characters on the sash.

In social networks, in recent days, they gained a large number of views and reposts of the publication that the student from Oklahoma deciphered musical signs that were written on buttocks with one of the characters in the picture. The posts are often attached link On the video on YouTube, where the decrypted "gluteal" music can be listened. Among the blogs where this story appeared, there was a popular public "The suffering of the Middle Ages".

Was there a decoding?

There is no doubt that a student from Oklahoma Amelia Hamrik really deciphered notes from the ass of the Boskhov character. She translated the set of badges on the buttocks into a modern musical system back in 2014. February 11 of the same year Hamrick told About this in his blog on Tumblr, having attached its own performance of this melody. The post gained frenzied popularity, and after a few days many publications wrote about this (in the world, for example, The Guardian And BBC, in Russia - Naked Science). When the media reported on the decryption of Hamrik, they joked on the Internet: “So this is how 500-year-old hellish music from the ass sounds.” Amelia herself called The composition of Buttsong, that is, the "song of the priests".

Music in the video on YouTube Played by Bosch notes?

According to the description under the video, this is modern music, composed by James Spalk based on the decryption of Hamrik shortly after its publication. The composition of the Spalinka is executed on the lute, harp and the wheeled lyre - the instruments depicted by the Bosch. The author does not hide that some fragments are his “assumptions”.

It is obvious that all this wealth of polyphony on one priest could not fit - a very small number of musical signs are drawn there, which can be played literally with one finger, as it actually sounds in the original versions Amelia Hamrik.

Hamrik really was the first to decipher these notes?

At least seven years ago, the media wrote about this find as its discovery. The search for publications until February 2014 also did not give out any earlier decoding, although it is strange that in 500 years no musicologist became interested in notes captured in such a famous picture.

IN one The articles about the “hellish music” of Bosch say that back in 2003, the composition of De Jordiska Fröjdenas Paradis (“Garden of Earthly Penusions”) of the Swedish group VOX VULGARIS, created “based on notes with buttocks” of the Bosch character, appeared. The work is and On the site The team, it is included in the album of The Shape of Medieval Music to Come. On the page, dedicated This album claims that De Jordiska Fröjdernas Paradis is an interpretation of notes depicted in the ass of the Boskhov hero, “the very music that a decade later will become known as“ music from the ass ”or“ hellish music from the ass ”. Some resemblance to the melody Hamrik in it can be found if desired, but still it is an interpretation, and not a “naked” decoding.

In October 2013 (a few months before the publication of Hamrick) The Shape of Medieval Music to Come was album Layd On YouTube by Passaro Trovao. The composition De Jordiska Fröjdernas Paradis is there too. Album dated 2003, Available and on Spotify, and on Last.fm, the composition of the VOX VULGARIS group inspired by the bosch Commented Back in 2008.

Moreover, the Swedish team is not the first to try to perform music “based” notes drawn on the buttocks of the sinner from the famous picture. Back in 1978, this did The Spanish ensemble Atrium Musicae de Madrid, which recorded the album of Codex Gl push and placed the corresponding fragment of the picture on the cover. Nevertheless, the glory of the discoverer of the Boskhov’s “Hell music from the ass” went to Amelia.

Thus, the test history for the most part is truthful, only the decoding was published back in 2014, and not the original melody walks on social networks, but the improved and supplemented music of the modern composer, written due to its motives. There are doubts that Amelia was the first in history to try to play “notes on the ass”, although this does not detract from her merits in the decoding.

Most of the truth

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. "Garden of earthly pleasures" on the website of the Prado Museum
2. Interactive trip through the triptych