Abstract

Musicians and thinkers in the twentieth century, even with different orientations, often refer to the Pythagorean doctrines of the music of the spheres. Typical among others is the case of Schönberg with his reference to the Jewish Kabbalah. Two strands of thought can be found in the avant-gardes of the twentieth century: on the one hand the idea that music holds the power to express feelings and emotions and on the other hand the idea, close to Pythagoreanism, that music addresses the sky and has powers that they go beyond the common means of expression. Undoubtedly Pythagoreanism, one of the cornerstones of musical culture over the centuries, has revealed itself as one of the ideologies most linked to the spirit of the twentieth-century avant-gardes