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A couple of days ago I heard a fascinating story that intrigued me so much that I felt compelled to compose a piece of music, music which is based on a Medieval melody that was transcribed by Amelia Hamrick, a college student at the time, from a painting, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” painted 500 years ago by Hieronymus Bosch, which included musical notes on the buttocks of a tortured soul in the Hell panel of this incredible triptych. Some think these notes were arbitrary, but I don’t think so, as what I hear is a hauntingly beautiful melody that evokes the very subject of this panel, of Hell and suffering and fitting for the strange imagery and symbolism of this panel. The video I’ve included starts out with just the melody as Amelia transcribed and is repeated 3 times, each time including music I composed and layer over the original melody. The only change I have made is notating it in a 3/4 time signature instead of 4/4, as what I hear is a macabre waltz, a dark sad and eerie dance.
