Music and mathematics. A sonic journey from chaos to cosmos. Exhibition

Description

December 11, 2025 - August 23, 2026

Music and mathematics share many similarities. Music moves us mathematically, and thanks to mathematics, we understand the purest essence of music.

This exhibition offers a sonic journey that, starting from absolute silence, explores the sound of nature: the music of matter and the mathematics that govern musical patterns.

“MUSIC IS MATHEMATICS IN MOTION.”

PIERRE BOULEZ, MUSICIAN.

Music and mathematics are fields of study that share many similarities. It is generally accepted that Pythagoras and his disciples were the first to establish a direct link between music and mathematics. Since then, many other mathematicians have attempted to refine the relationships between these two worlds. Even Kepler dedicated decades to trying to describe the music generated by the movement of celestial bodies. His theory was incorrect, but he was right to consider that music is present everywhere.

Both disciplines study abstract objects, have complex structures, rules of manipulation, well-defined notation, and are absolutely precise in their results. Working in them requires practice, creativity, and an analytical mind. But their relationship goes far beyond the skills necessary for their study. Mathematics is present in every aspect of music, from the physics of sound to instrument making, from rhythmic patterns to tonal harmony, from classical to electronic music.

MUSIC AND MATHEMATICS: A COMMON LANGUAGE
The exhibition “Music and Mathematics” is a historical journey through both disciplines. Through seven areas, like the notes of the diatonic scale, it guides us through the close connection between them, so profound that it helps us understand why order, regularity, and proportion nourish music and why emotion, feeling, and affection nourish numbers. After exploring myths and encountering figures from science and music, we begin with absolute silence to immerse ourselves in the origin and chaos of the universe, in the sounds of nature. The exhibition explores what sound is, how we perceive it, and why music has such a powerful capacity to move us, to make us appreciate its structure, the aesthetic experience it offers, and how it can be mathematically represented.

What does the music of matter sound like? How do mathematics govern musical patterns? Arithmetic, geometry, logic… By listening to the music of life, we discover those rhythmic beats and a myriad of acoustic effects that transform living beings into veritable polyrhythmic machines. The exhibition also highlights the healing power that underlies musical notes; music activates the human brain on a sensory, motor, perceptual-cognitive, and emotional level. Therefore, neuroscience studies the benefits it produces, for example, in people with autism, brain injuries, or neurodegenerative diseases. Music, and the mathematics that underpin it, has always been an explanatory model of the universe, ever since the very birth of philosophical reflection. Because music doesn't only reign on Earth: the planets also form an orchestra that resonates throughout the cosmos.