You can often read on the Internet about the medieval church's fear of the seemingly simple musical interval that is periodically used today. We checked whether such dubious fame really circulated about the newt many centuries ago.

Triton is a musical interval of three whole tones, which in the academic sense represents dissonance, that is, a dissonant combination of notes. In 2012, speaking about the newt, guitarist of the legendary band Metallica Kirk Hammett stated: “Around the 16th and 17th centuries, the Vatican outlawed it because they called it ‘the movement of the devil’ or ‘the devil in music,’ and you weren’t allowed to write music that had that movement in it.”

Hammett is far from alone in this knowledge. Iconic rock musician Ozzy Osbourne admitted in a 2003 interview that he had recently learned about the “diabolical interval prohibited in the 17th century,” on which, as it later turned out, a significant part of the music of his band Black Sabbath was built. The fact that medieval (that is, earlier) prohibitions and an ominous nickname are associated with the newt can be read on numerous musical and general thematic educational websites, in art history scientific works, magazines (“Musical life" (1984) and "Philosophical Sciences"(1991)) and individual journalistic books ("Gogol: a symphony of prose", "Epistemology of art"). Some of the bloggers assertsthat for violating the ban one could even end up at the stake. And in 2016, the Internet passed information, that the Republican candidate for US President Ted Cruz called for a ban on this “devilish” interval today.

So, what is this mysterious newt? An interval of three tones can be obtained in different ways, but they will all be divided into two types:

1) increased quart;

2) diminished fifth.

It sounds like this:

Ominous, isn't it? At least in recent centuries, this property of the tritone has been used by composers who wanted to add notes of anxiety and make the listener tense. Franz Liszt in his symphony “Dante” (1855–1856) actively uses the interval where the hero descends through the circles of hell:

At the beginning of Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre (1874), you can hear the violinist playing the transition from A to E flat, which is nothing more than a tritone:

In Gustav Holst's experimental orchestral suite "Planets" (1914–1916) the tritone is particularly prominent in the piece entitled "Mars". Let us remember that Mars is the god of war, and in those years the First World War was raging in Europe:

And of course, this “infernal” mood became especially widespread in rock music. An example is the first notes of the composition Purple Haze (1967) by Jimi Hendrix:

For the band Black Sabbath mentioned above, the tritone really became an iconic technique. Group of the same name song, recorded in 1969 and number one on their first album, spawned the enduring tritone craze in heavy metal, and guitarist Tony Iommi recalls the recording with reverence.

John Sloboda, Professor of Musical Psychology at the Guildhall School of Music and Theater (London), has his explanation the tritone effect: “Our brains are tuned to perceive the notes it expects, and music in general is more often consonant than dissonant, so we expect a good chord. So when the chord is not quite what is expected, it produces an emotional thrill effect.” However, sometimes the newt can sound fun, as in compositions from animated series "South Park" And "The Simpsons"

But what about the Middle Ages and the stigma of diabolus in musica in relation to the tritone? The fact is that there is not a single medieval musical document that has reached us in which this metaphor would appear. Before her other colleagues mentions musicologist Andreas Werkmeister in 1702, saying that "E against F is the devil in music" and citing "authorities of the past", with Werkmeister applying it to the chromatic semitone rather than the tritone. Johann Joseph Fuchs quotes the epithet in his seminal work of 1725 Gradus ad Parnassum, and Georg Philipp Telemann in 1733 describes the combination “E versus F”, which was supposedly called “the devil in music” in the old days.

Of course, some medieval authors did not associate this interval as dissonant (out of connection with the devil) - for example, the great music theorist and reformer Guido d'Arezzo in certain situations recommended avoid it. But let's look at other examples.

The tritone appears several times in the two-voice conduction Dum sigillum summi Patris by one of the greatest composers of the 12th–13th centuries, Perotin:

Triton appears repeatedly in a collection of 13th-century Spanish songs Cantigas de Santa Maria. Flemish music theorist Jacob of Liege, author of the largest medieval work on music (seven-volume work “Mirror of Music”, ca. 1330), turned on tritone among the 13 main intervals, and also proposed the semi-tritone as a separate, 14th interval. In 1357 the Dane Johannes Bohen even classified tritone as consonantia per accidens, that is, as “consonance according to circumstances.” In 1558, Italian music theorist Josephfo Zarlino notedthat although the diminished fifth is inharmonious in itself, it is pleasant as a synchronous interval. His contemporary and compatriot Nicola Vicentino in his treatise “Ancient Music Adapted to Modern Practice” (1555) was more persistent: “Although difficult to sing, this interval is necessary whenever the words require a miraculous effect, because by its nature it is lively and shows great force when ascending, and when descending it produces a very mournful and sad effect... Some singers are embarrassed to practice it. Eventually, with constant practice, anything in any profession becomes easy.”

Thus, contrary to rumors, many medieval composers actively used the “devilish” interval, and music theorists gave it an important place in composition. They began to call him “diabolical” (in sources available today) only in modern times. And certainly the ban was not imposed by the Catholic Church. And these days, the romantic legend about the unenviable fate of the newt in the Middle Ages is actively supported by rock musicians.

As for the resonant statement of US presidential candidate Ted Cruz, for the first time it appeared on the Submediant resource, which positions itself as a satirical site on music topics.

Cover image: Wikipedia