In ancient Greece, music held a position between science and art. Music was the most perfect of the arts. In both the ancient and medieval times, music was considered to have divine origin and special powers.

In visual art, musical instruments have functioned as tools for playing music, but also as symbolic performances and sensuous metaphors. Both angels and demons are depicted with musical instruments. And although the iconography has changed over time, we can ask ourselves: is any musical instrument more “sinful” than others?

Angels were musicians in the service of Good. Angels act as Gods messengers in both Christianity, the Jewish faith and Islam. Horn-playing angles were symbols of God’s voice and are shown often in scenes of the End of Days. But the Angels could play many kinds of instruments, since they were good in themselves. Early Christianity adopted ideas from antiquity that singing and music was a means of highlighting the existence of God. Just as Zeus’s daughters, the Muses, were brought into the world to sing about the universe’s creation, the angels had a similar role in early Christianity.

In pictorial representations of Jesus’ birth, musical angels have an obvious prescence: “And suddenly there was with the angel a heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, the people of his good pleasure” (Luke 2:13 )

Devil’s musicians, however, appear in scenes of horror and warning. When the instruments end up in the hands of demons, fools and animals, they stand in the service of Evil. We find them in doom and death dance presentations in the seven deadly sins and the dance around the golden calf.

The bagpipe is one of the instruments that is often tied to the Devil in medieval and rennaisance texts. Per-Ulf Allmo¹ claims that this is the perfect Devil instrument, as it smells bad, and has a dubious origin. Who else would play on something made from goat stomachs and phallos-like pipes?

When Crispin de Passe wanted to show the descent of the damned into hell through the jaws of a demon, he included a bagpiper playing dance music. However, churches in Denmark show both angles and pigs playing bagpipes. How do we interpret that?

---

1 Allmo, P. (1990). Säckpipan i Norden: från änglars musik till djävulens blåsbälg. Musikmuseets skrifter (Bd. 18). Stockholm: Musikmuseet. s.382-4