It’s safe to say that society gets around to labeling as “genius” those who are highly developed individualistically and uniquely productive to world-impacting excess. Such a person’s portion of genius necessarily shows itself early in life –it becomes clear early.

Precociousness (from the Latin praecox, “early ripening”) is mesmerizing for us to see, to experience, because it takes us other mere mortals out of the commonplace, well beyond normal expectations. We are seeing something truly different, which shows, which dramatizes, the complex, inscrutable miracle of being.
This perceptual orientation is probably what leads us to expect Uranus to play a major role in hyper-individuation, to link this with the Ascendant as well. –Some old texts did call such contact “genius” … While “specialization” and “precociousness” might have been better choices for the norm, let us look at some extremes to get the feel clearly in our mind.

Precociousness, genius, of a high order is vividly well-established in the profile of certain composers in music history. We can learn some things from their horoscopes, from their lives.

The first composer we must acknowledge is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [Jan 27, 1756 at 8:00 PM LMT in Salzburg, Austria]. Mozart’s prodigious early beginnings and genius-productivity are very well known. We would think he had several Uranus statements connected with the Ascendant!! –Well, two will have to do: Uranus is exactly on the Descendant (opposing the Ascendant) … and is conjunct the Nodal Axis there. This promises an enormous, highly individualized projection to the public. And to top it all off, Pluto squares all this intensity from a position exactly conjunct Mozart’s Sagittarian Moon! Mozart had vast “somethings” to say! [Historians and biographers say that there seems to have been a direct conduit from Mozart’s Unconscious into Ego awareness and expression. In our Information Age now, it is suggested that every second of every day Mozart’s music is being played somewhere on earth.]

Mozart began writing pieces for the klavir (precursor of the piano) at age 4. At 6, he was off on a concert tour, playing for the public and for royalty. He could play any music put before him and he could improvise variations and transpositions; he could compose sonatas and symphonies on the spot. He could do all of this on a keyboard covered with cloth, not being able to see the keys!!! Age 6.

Mozart wrote 12 operas in German and Italian, some 50 symphonies, 23 piano concertos, 7 violin concertos, a vast number of chamber pieces, concert arias, large works for the church, etc. all with spectacular inventiveness –All within a lifetime of only 35 years.

So, at first inspection, our feel about Uranus-import with the Ascendant, with precociousness, is born out; Mozart’s horoscope is a tailor-made fit for the hypothesis, being alerted to hyper-individuation. The astrology guides us into Mozart’s gene pool, into his magnified portion of the life-miracle.

Camille Saint-Saens [October 09, 1835 at 7:00 AM LMT in Paris France] was called “the new Mozart”, also “the most awesome child prodigy in the history of music.” –At 2 ½ he was picking tunes out on the piano, he had absolute pitch (like Mozart); he could read and write before 3. At 5, he was deep into study of Mozart’s orchestral score for Don Giovanni. At 7 he was reading Latin.

His musical output was not as voluminous as Mozart’s, but his music was reviewed as elegant and consummately perfect in technique. At the same time, however, critics saw superficiality in his work, a “chilling academic flavor.” Saint-Saens was a great traveler and published books about his travels, about music, about philosophy. Liszt called Saint-Saens the greatest organist in the world. And so it goes.

Uranus is in its own sign in Saint-Saens’ horoscope, strongly trine the Ascendant and Saturn upon it! Note that this Saturn squares the Midheaven as well [“chilling academic flavor”?]. And we can not help but see the enormous importance of Jupiter in the 9th and its intricate configuration with 6 planets. –But Uranus, the final dispositor, may be key here to signal precociousness.

Felix Mendelssohn was another early genius [February 03, 1809 at 8:00 PM, LMT in Hamburg Germany]. Music historians show that Mendelssohn eclipsed Mozart in the most important works produced early in life; for Mendelssohn, at ages 16-17 with MC=AP and Saturn=Asc. –Mendelssohn was called a “bourgeois genius”, having come from a well-educated, philosophically lettered family; cool and classy. He was a brilliant orchestral conductor as well as a prodigious composer, pianist and painter. Individualistically, all his work is typified by a sense of “restrained romanticism”, a sense of caution, the conservative. [Sun/Moon=Saturn/Neptune; Saturn trine Venus] This prolific genius died at age 38!

A new measurement-thought perhaps should enter our hypothesis here: the septile is a minor aspect (52 degrees, 8 fewer than a sextile) that few people care to manage (me included). I’ve always thought it gets in the way, so to speak, not having much claim to fame caught between the semisquare and the sextile. But look carefully at Mendelssohn’s Uranus, the focus of this essay –maybe we’re being shown something: it is tightly septile the Ascendant. Could the septile also be a spur to the precocious when it links Uranus with the Ascendant?

George Frideric Handel was another colossus in music history. [February 23, 1685 at 5:45 AM LMT, Halle Germany]. Handel’s prodigious output (composing The Messiah, by the way, in 22 days… It would take a skilled musician today perhaps four months just to copy it!) had a widely recognized expedient, ambitious, business-practicality air to it (note the Capricorn Ascendant, with Saturn sesquiquadrate the Ascendant). Handel spent practically all of his adult life in England (note Pluto, ruling the 9th, square with Jupiter, ruler of the Midheaven). –The Uranian ‘touch’ is present here as well with Uranus square the Ascendant. He composed 46 operas, over 30 oratorios and grand anthems, 77 Cantatas, 22 instrumental sonatas, etc.; his output is collected in 97 volumes of manuscripts in the British Museum.

When we look at Beethoven [December 16, 1770 at 11:03 AM LMT in Bonn Germany], we see Uranus square the Ascendant. When we look at Wagner [May 22, 1813 at 4:11 AM LMT in Leipzig Germany] we see Uranus opposed his Ascendant.

Interestingly, such monumental personages are known by their last name alone, so famous are their identity and output!

So we are seeing the spur of Uranus –it’s a hot rock thrown into the waters of the genetic pool. The Ascendant is stirred up into reality, and Nature takes over.

***A random quick-list to go further: Einstein had Uranus septile the Ascendant! Freud, Uranus quindecile the Ascendant; Hitler, Uranus conjunct the Ascendant; Rossini, van Gogh, and Yogananda, Uranus quintile the Ascendant; China, Uranus quincunx the Ascendant; the United States of America, Uranus conjunct the Ascendant!

Settling in with normalcy, if you will, my Uranus is 55-degrees out from the Ascendant –even beyond the pesky septile (!)—so I’m not concerned; I certainly was not precocious … taller, yes, but not so outlandishly gifted as, say, Bobby Fischer with Uranus sextile the Ascendant!

How’s your Uranus connection? How should we follow it up in your horoscope?

Noel Tyl