This philosophical concept originated in Ancient Greece. You might know Pythagoras from his famous geometrical theorem a² + b² = c² for a right-angled triangle. He also discovered that there is a mathematical relation between the length of a string and the pitch of the note that comes out of it when you pluck it. Think of a guitar or violin: the way the musician places his or her fingers on the fingerboard makes the string shorter, and therefore a note with a higher pitch comes out than when an open string gets played (i.e. no fingers are used).

Pythagoras and his students believed that planets, the Moon, the Sun and a “sphere of stars” emit music that can’t be heard by the human ear. Don’t forget that until the work of Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, the consensus was that the Earth is at the centre of the Universe and the other planets, the Sun and stars orbit around it (geocentrism) ! From the ratios of the distance between the Earth and two of these “spheres”, Pythagoras inferred that there was some kind of harmonious “universal music”. The Pythagoreans also thought that musical harmony could cure the body and the soul: harmony between the four elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire), as well as harmony with the Gods were all considered essential for a good life.

 

 

A contemporary of Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, took this idea further but with a Christian perspective: this “harmony” became seen as proof for the existence of an intelligent designer-God who created a Universe where the planets “sing in perfect concord”.
Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice also references this notion:

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Even more recently, the concept of a universal music has appeared in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion, a book that covers the whole history of the Middle-Earth that you might know from The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. In this fantasy world, music correlates with a power to create, but a divinity called Melkor refuses to play the same theme as the other deities, causing chaos.