The Sum of Music

How composers from Mozart to Bach made their music add up | Music | The Guardian: "What's the next number in this sequence? 5, 10, 20, 30, 36 … ? And the next in this? 640, 231, 100, 91 … ?

If you know your Mozart then you'll identify 43 as the number that comes after 36 in the first sequence. These are the opening lines of The Marriage of Figaro sung by Figaro as he measures out the room that he will share with Susanna once they are married. It's a curious selection of numbers that when added together comes to 144, or 12 squared: perhaps a coincidence or maybe a numerical representation of the impending union of Figaro and his bride Susanna.

The second sequence continues with 1,003, the number of Don Giovanni's female conquests in Spain. The other numbers are part of the famous Catalogue aria sung by Leporello, Don Giovanni's servant, which include his other conquests: 640 in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey.

Mozart loved numbers. Johann Andreas Schachtner, court trumpeter and friend of the Mozart family, wrote about the young Wolfgang: "When he was doing sums, the table, the chair, the walls and even the floor would be covered with chalked numbers.""

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