Chapter II

MUSIC

INTRODUCTION

If we glance back at the course the evolution of the several arts has taken, we shall find that it began with architecture. It was the art which was least complete; for, as we discovered, it was, by reason of the purely solid material, which it attached to itself as its sensuous medium, and made use of according to the laws of gravity, incapable of placing before us under an adequate mode of presentation what is spiritual; it was consequently constrained to limit itself to the task of preparing from the resources of the mind an artistic external environment for Spirit in its living and actual existence.

Sculpture, on the contrary, and in the second place, was able, it is true, to accept the spiritual itself as its object. It was, however, neither one in the sense of a particular character, nor as the intimate personal life of soul, but rather as a free individuality, which is as little separate from the substantive content as it is from the corporeal appearance of Spirit; a presentment which only displays itself as such individuality, in so far as the same enters into it, in the degree that the same is actually required to import an individual vitality into a content which is itself intrinsically essential. Moreover, it only, as such ideal spiritualization, is fused with the bodily configuration to the extent of revealing the essentially inviolable union of Spirit with that natural embodiment which is consonant therewith. This necessary identity in the art of sculpture of Spirit's independent existence wholly with its corporeal organization, rather than with the medium of its own ideal essence, makes it incumbent upon the art still to retain solid matter as its material, but to transform the configuration of the same, not, as was the case with architecture, into a purely inorganic environment, but rather into the classical beauty adequate to Spirit and its ideal plastic realization.

And just as sculpture in this respect proved itself to be pre-eminently fitted to give vitality to the content and mode of expression of the classical type of art in its products, while architecture, despite all the service it rendered in the content which belonged to it, was unable in its manner of presentation to pass beyond the fundamental mode of a purely symbolical significance, so, too, thirdly, with the art of painting, we enter the province of the romantic. No doubt we find still in painting that the external form is the means by virtue of which the ideal presence is revealed. In this case, however, this ideality is actually the ideal and particular subjectivity, is, in short, the soul-life returning upon itself from its corporeal existence, is the individual passion and emotion of character and heart, which are no longer exclusively delivered in the external form, but mirror in the same the very ideal substance and activity of Spirit in the domain of its own conditions, aims, and actions. On account of this intimate ideality of its content the art of painting is unable to rest satisfied with a material that, in one aspect of it, is in its shape merely solid matter, and in another as such crude form is merely tangible and unparticularized, but is forced to select exclusively the show and colour semblance of the same as its sensuous means of expression. The colour, however, is only present in order to make still apparent spatial forms and shapes as we find them in the actuality of Life, even in the case where we see the art developed into all the magic of colouring, in which the objective fact at the same time already begins to vanish away, and the effect is produced by what appears to be no longer anything material at all. However much, therefore, painting is evolved in the direction of a more ideal independence of a kind of appearance which is no longer attached to shape as such, but is permitted to pass spontaneously into its own proper element, that is, into the play of visibility and reflection, into all the mysteries of chiaroscuro, yet this magic of colour is still throughout of a spatial mode, it is an appearance growing out of juxtaposition on a flat surface, and consequently a consubsistent one.

1. If, however, this ideal essence, as is already the case under the principle of painting, asserts itself in fact as subjective soul-life, in that case the truly adequate medium cannot remain of a type which possesses independent subsistency. And for this reason we get a mode of expression and communication, in the sensuous material of which we do not find objectivity disclosed as spatial configuration, in order that it may have consistency therein. We require a material which is without such stability in its relation to what is outside it, and which vanishes again in the very moment of its origin and presence. Now the art that finally annihilates not merely one form of spatial dimension, but the conditions of Space entirely, which is completely withdrawn into the ideality of soul-life, both in its aspect of conscious life and in that of its external expression, is our second romantic art—Music. In this respect it constitutes the genuine centre of that kind of presentment which accepts the inner personal life as such, both for its content and form. It no doubt manifests as art this inner life, but in this very objectification retains its subjective character. In other words it does not, as plastic art, suffer the expression in which it is self-enclosed to be independently free or to attain an essentially tranquil self-subsistency, but cancels the same as objectivity, and will not suffer externality to secure for itself an inviolable presence[377] over against it.

In so far, however, as this annihilation of spatial objectivity, regarded as a means of manifestation, is an abandonment of the same which is itself already in anticipation asserted of the sensuous spatiality of the plastic arts themselves[378], this principle of negation must also in a similar way have its activity conditioned by the materiality, which, up to this point, we have indicated as one of tranquil independent self-subsistency, just as the art of painting reduces in its province the spatial dimensions of sculpture to the simple surface. This cancelling of the spatial form therefore merely consists in this, that a specific sensuous material surrenders its tranquil relation of juxtaposition, is, in other words, placed in motion but is so essentially affected by that motion that every portion of the coherent bodily substance not merely changes its position, but also is reacted upon and reacts upon the previous condition[379]. The result of this oscillating vibration is tone, the medium of music.

In tone music forsakes the element of external form and its sensuous visibility, and requires for the apprehension of its results another organ of sense, namely hearing, which, as also the sight, does not belong to the senses of action but those y of contemplation; and is, in fact, still more ideal than sight. For the unruffled, aesthetic observation of works of art no doubt permits the objects to stand out quietly in their freedom just as they are without any desire to impair that effect in any way; but that which it apprehends is not that which is itself essentially ideally composed[380], but rather on the contrary, that which receives its consistency in its sensuous existence. The ear, on the contrary, receives the result of that ideal vibration of material substance[381], without placing itself in a practical relation towards the objects, a result by means of which it is no longer the material object in its repose, but the first example of the more ideal activity of the soul itself which is apprehended. And for the further reason that the negativity into which the oscillating medium here enters is from one point of view an annihilation of the spatial condition, which is itself removed by means of the reaction of the body[382], the expression of this twofold negation, that is tone, is a mode of externality which, in virtue of its very mode of existence, is in its very origination self-destructive, and there and then itself fundamentally disappears. And it is by virtue of this twofold negation of externality, in which the root-principle of tone consists, that the same corresponds to the ideal personal life; this resonance which, in its essential explicitness[383], is something more ideal than the subsistent corporeality in its independent reality, also discloses this more ideal existence[384], and thereby offers a mode of expression suited to the ideality of conscious life.

2. If we now, by a reverse process, inquire of what type this inner life must be, if we are to prove it on its own account adapted to the expression of sound and tones, we may recall the fact already observed that by itself, that is, accepted as a real mode of objectivity, tone, in contrast to the material of the plastic arts, is wholly abstract. Stone and colour receive the forms of an extensive and varied world of objects, and place them before us in their actual existence. Tones are unable to do this. For musical expression therefore it is only the inner life of soul that is wholly devoid of an object which is appropriate, in other words, the abstract personal experience simply. This is our entirely empty ego, the self without further content. The fundamental task of music will therefore consist in giving a resonant reflection, not to objectivity in its ordinary material sense, but to the mode and modifications under which the most intimate self of the soul, from the point of view of its subjective life and ideality, is essentially moved.

3. We may say the same of the effect of music. The paramount claim of that, too, is the direct contact with the most intimate ideality of conscious life. It is more than any other the art of the soul, and is immediately addressed to that. The art of painting, no doubt, as we have observed, is able to express in physiognomy and facial traits with other things the inner life and its activity, the moods and passions of the heart, the situations, conflicts, and fatalities of the soul; what, however, we have before us in pictures are objective appearances, from which the self of contemplation, in its most ideal self-identity, is still held distinctly apart. However much we become absorbed in or penetrate into the object, the situation, the character, the forms of a statue or a picture, admire a work of art, lose ourselves in or possess ourselves with it, the fact still remains that these works of art are and remain objects of independent subsistency, in respect to which it is quite impossible for us to escape the relation of external observation disappears. In music, however, this distinction disappears. Its content is that which is itself essentially a part of our own personal[385] life, and its expression does not result at the same time in an objective mode of spatial persistency, but discloses, in virtue of the continuity and freedom of its flight as it appears and vanishes[386], that it is a manifestation, which, instead of possessing itself an independent consistency, is dependent for its support on the ideality of conscious life, and only can exist for that inward realm. Tone is therefore no doubt a mode of both expression and externality; but it is an expression which inevitably disappears precisely at the point of and in virtue of becoming externality. At the very moment that our organ of sense receives the sound it is gone. The impression that should be given is at once transferred to the tablets of memory. The tones merely resound in the depths of the soul, which are thereby seized upon in their ideal substance, and suffused with emotion. This ideality of content and mode of expression in the sense that it is devoid of all external object defines the purely formal aspect of music. It has no doubt a content, but it is not a content such as we mean when referring either to the plastic arts or poetry. What it lacks is just this configuration of an objective other-to-itself, whether we mean by such actual external phenomena, or the objectivity of intellectual ideas and images. We may indicate the course of our further examination as follows:

In the first place we have to define more accurately the general character of music and its effect in contradistinction to the other arts, not merely from the point of view of its material, but also from that of its form, which the spiritual content accepts.

Secondly, we shall have to discuss the particular distinctions, in which musical tones and their modes[387] are developed and mediated partly in respect to their temporal duration, and partly in relation to the qualitative distinctions of their actual resonance.

Thirdly, and in conclusion, music possesses a relation to the content, which it expresses, either by being associated as an accompaniment[388] with emotions, ideas, and considerations independently expressed by word of mouth, or by its free expansion within its own domain in unfettered independence.

In proposing now, however, after having thus in a general way specified the principle and division of the subject-matter of Music, to enter into a more detailed examination of its particular aspects, we are inevitably confronted with a peculiar difficulty. In other words, for the reason that the musical medium of tone and ideality, in which the content moves as a process, is of so abstract and formal a character, it is impossible for us to attempt such a closer survey without at the same time broaching technical formulae and definitions such as belong to the relations of tone-measure or distinctions that apply to different instruments, scales, or chords. I must admit to no expert knowledge in this sphere of musical science, and can only offer my apologies for being unable to do more than limit myself to more general points of view and a few isolated observations.

1. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF MUSIC

The essential points of view which are of general importance in a survey of music we may examine under the following heads of division:

First, we have to compare music on the one hand with the plastic arts, and on the other with poetry.

Secondly, we shall by means of the above comparison be in a better position to understand the way in which music is able to master and disclose a given content.

Thirdly, and as a result of the latter inquiry, we may with more accuracy explain the peculiar effect which the art of music, in contradistinction to the other arts, exercises on the soul.

(a) With regard to the first point we should, if we are desirous of setting it forth clearly in its specific individuality, compare music with the other two arts from three distinct points of view.

(α) And, first, it may be observed that it stands in a relation of affinity to architecture, although it is in strong contrast with it.

(αα) Our meaning is this. In the art of building the content which should be made apparent in architectonic forms, does not, as is the case in works of sculpture and painting, wholly enter into the configuration, but remains distinct from it as an external environment; so, too, in music, under its aspect of the most specifically romantic art, the classical identity of ideality and its external existence receives its resolution in a similar, if converse, way to that in which architecture, as the symbolical type of presentation, was not as yet wholly able to secure such a unity. For this ideality of Spirit proceeds from what is purely the concentration of soul-life, to ideas and images and the forms of such, as elaborated by the imagination, whereas the art of music is throughout more occupied in expressing merely the element of feeling and furthermore surrounds the independently expressed ideas of the mind with the melodic chime of emotions, just as architecture in its province places around the statues of the god, no doubt in an unyielding way, the reasonable forms of its columns, walls, and entablatures[389].

(ββ) In this way tone and its formative combinations is for the first time a medium created by art and entirely artistic expression of a wholly different type from that we find in painting and sculpture acting through the material of the human body and its pose and physiognomy. In this respect, too, music may be more nearly compared with architecture, which does not accept its forms from what is actually presented, but as the creation of human invention, in order to inform them, partly according to the laws of gravity, and in part according to the rules of symmetry and harmonious co-ordination. Music does the same thing in its own sphere, in so far as it from one point of view follows the harmonious laws of tone which depend on quantitative relations independently of the expression of emotion, and in another aspect of it, in the recurrence of time and rhythm no less than in the further development of the tones themselves, in many respects is subject to the forms of regularity and symmetry. Consequently we find operative in music not merely the profoundest ideality and soul, but the most rigorous, rationality. It unites, in fact, two extremes, which readily lend themselves to emphatic contrast in their independent self-assertion. In this aspect of independence music more particularly assumes an architectonic character when we find in it a coherent temple of harmony of its own creatively composed and co-ordinated according to the laws of music, and released from the direct expression of soul-life[390].

(γγ) Despite all this similarity, however, the art of tones moves to quite as large a degree in a sphere wholly opposed to that of architecture. We find, no doubt, in both arts as a basis quantitative or more accurately measure relations; the material, however, which in each case is informed, agreeably to such relations, is totally different. Architecture attaches itself to the heavy sensuous material in its tranquil juxtaposition and external form in Space. Music, on the contrary, lays hold of the tone-spirit[391] as it rings freely out of the spatial material in the qualitative distinctions of musical sound and in the flow of a movement subject to the condition of time. For this reason the works of both arts belong to two entirely distinct spheres of spiritual activity. The art of building places in an enduring form its colossal constructions for external contemplation in symbolical forms. The swiftly evanescent world of tones, on the other hand, directly penetrates through the ears of man to the depths of his soul, attuning the same in concordant emotional sympathy.

(β) And if we, in the second place, consider the closer relation of music to the two other plastic arts[392], we shall find that the similarity and distinction, which attaches to such a comparison, is in some measure founded upon the truths already enunciated.

(αα) Of these music is furthest removed from sculpture; and this is not merely so in respect to material and type of configuration, but also in that of the completed coalescence of its ideal and external aspects. There is in short a closer affinity between painting and music. In part this is due to the predominant ideality of expression exemplified in both; in part it is referable to treatment of material, in which, as we have already seen, it is permissible for the art of painting to approach the very boundary of music itself. Painting has, however, for its aim in common with sculpture the representation of an objective form in Space, and is restricted in its material to the actual form of things already present outside the sphere of art. It is unquestionably true that neither in the case of the painter nor the sculptor do we accept a human countenance, a position of the human body, the outlines of a mountain, the leafage of a tree precisely in the forms they present to us as here or there in Nature; in both cases we are bound to justify what we have before us under the conditions of the art in question, to adapt it to a particular situation, no less than to employ it as a means of expressing the inevitable artistic result of the entire content of the work. We have, therefore, in both cases on the one hand an independently recognized content, which has to receive artistic individualization, and, on the other, we are confronted with the forms of Nature as they are similarly presented in isolation; and the artist is bound, if he be truly an artist, and seek to unite these two sources of inspiration in his composition, to discover in both the material and support[393] for his conception and execution. In short, he will, acting in the first instance on the security of such general principles[394], endeavour on the one hand to fill out with more concrete detail the generality of his imaginative idea, and on the other to idealize and spiritualize the human or any other of the forms of Nature, which are submitted to serve him as particular models. The musician, on the contrary, it is true, does not abstract from all and every content, but finds the same in a text, which he sets to music, or with absolute freedom gives musical utterance to some definite mood in the form of a theme, which he proceeds to elaborate. The actual region, however, of his compositions remains the more formal ideality, in other words pure tones, and his absorption of content becomes rather a retreat into the free life of his own soul, a voyage of discovery into that, and in many departments of music even a confirmation, that he as artist is free of the content. If we are in a general way permitted to regard human activity in the realm of the beautiful as a liberation of the soul, as a release from constraint and restriction, in short to consider that art does actually alleviate the most overpowering and tragic catastrophies[395] by means of the creations it offers to our contemplation and enjoyment, it is the art of music which conducts us to the final summit of that ascent to freedom. Or in other language that which the plastic arts secure through the objective fact of a plastic beauty, which displays the entirety of human life, human nature as such, its universal and ideal significance, in the detail of its particularity, without losing that essential harmony, this effect music must produce in a wholly different manner. The plastic artist need only exhibit, in that which is enclosed in the conception, what was already therein from the first, so that every detail in its essential determinacy is merely a closer explication of the totality which already floats before the mind in virtue of the content which is there to exhibit it. A figure, for example, in a plastic work of art, requires in this or that situation a body, hands, feet, bust, a head with a given expression, a given pose, other figures, or other aspects to which it is related as a whole, etc., and all these aspects presuppose the others, in making collectively essentially complete work. The elaboration of the theme is in such a case merely a more accurate analysis of that which already itself essentially contains it, and the more elaborate the picture is, which thereby confronts us, the more concentrated is the unity, and the stronger becomes the connection of the parts. The most consummate expression of detail must be, if the work of art is the best class, at the same time an elucidation of the highest form of unity. No doubt the ideal articulation and rounding off in a whole, in which the one part follows inevitably from another, ought to be present in a musical composition. But in some measure the execution here is of a totally different type, and moreover we can only accept the unity in a restricted sense.

(ββ) In a musical theme the significance which has to be expressed is already exhausted[396]. If it is repeated or carried on to further oppositions and mediations these repetitions, modulations, and elaborations by means of other scales may very readily appear superfluous, and rather are appertinent to the purely musical development and the assimilation of the varied content of harmonic progressions which are neither demanded by the content itself[397], nor remain dependent upon it, whereas in the plastic arts the execution of the detail and the passage to it is simply and always a more accurate exhibition and analysis of the content itself.

But of course it is impossible to deny that another theme is actually motived by the way a theme is developed, and each of them, then, in their alternation or their interfusion progress, change, are at one time suppressed, at another emphasized, and by their victory or defeat are able to make a content explicit in its more definite features, oppositions, transitions, developments, and resolutions. But in this case, too, the unity is not made more profound and concentrated by virtue of such elaboration as is the case in sculpture and painting, but is rather an expansion, an extension, a correlative series[398], an addition of remoteness or a return, for which the content, which is thus expressed, remains no doubt the universal centrum, yet does not keep the whole so securely together as we find it is possible to do in the plastic arts, particularly where their subject-matter is confined to the human organism.

(γγ) Looked at from this point of view the art of music, as contrasted with the other arts, lies too close to the medium of that formal freedom of soul life, and thereby cannot fail to a greater or less degree to be diverted beyond what is actually presented, in other words the content[399]. The recollection of a theme proposed is likewise a self-revealment[400] of the artist, in other words is an ideal realization, to the effect that this self is the artist, and he may progress just as he likes, and by what by-paths he likes. But on the other hand the free exercise of imaginative caprice of the above description is expressly to be distinguished from a musical composition which is essentially conclusive, that is to say, which constitutes a fundamentally self-integrated totality. In the free improvization[401] the absence of restrictions is itself an object, so that the artist is able to assert his caprice in the acceptance of any material he chooses, to interweave acknowledged melodies and motives in his improvized productions, to emphasize some new aspect of such, to elaborate them in a variety of modifications, or make them steps in his progression to other material, and advance from thence in the same way to developments of still more arresting contrasts.

In general, however, a musical composition determines the freedom of the composer, either by limiting it to a more self-contained execution, and the observance of what we may describe as a more plastic unity, or by permitting him with the full force of his personality and caprice to pass at every point into more or less important digressions, to let spontaneous ideas travel hither and thither as they please, to lay stress for the moment on this or that motive, and then once more to drown it in an overwhelming torrent. While, then, the study of Nature's forms is essential to both painter and sculptor, the art of music can look for no such fixed body of fact outside its own prescribed forms, with which it would be forced to comply. The extent of the regularity and necessity of its formal character is almost wholly determined within the sphere of tone itself, which does not come into so close an association[402] with the definition of the content that is therein reposed, and consequently in respect to deviations beyond the same permits for the most part a considerable opportunity for the free play of the characteristic impulse of the composer.

And this is the main point of view, from which we may contract music with the strictly plastic arts.

(γ) Looked at from another aspect music is, in the third place[403], most nearly affiliated to poetry; both in fact make use of the same sensuous medium, that is, tone. Despite this, however, these arts are very strongly distinct from one another not only in virtue of the mode of treating tones in each case, but also in respect to their different modes of expression.

(αα) In poetry, as we have found already in our general differentiation of the several arts, tone is not as such elicited and artistically produced by various humanly constructed instruments, but the articulate sound of the human organ of speech is reduced to the mere symbol of speech, retaining thereby nothing more than the value of a sign of ideas, which is by itself devoid of significance. Consequently we find here that tone remains throughout a self-subsistent sensuous entity, which, as the mere symbol of emotions, ideas, and thoughts, possesses the externality and objectivity which is inherent in itself simply in virtue of the fact that is a sign and nothing more. For the true objectivity of the soul-life as such does not consist in utterance and words, but in this fact, that I, as subject, am aware of a thought, a feeling, and so forth, that further I confront it as an object, and in this way have it present to the imagination, or forthwith develop for myself what is implicit in a thought or a conception, setting forth in a series the external and spiritual relations of the given content, and relating the particular features of it to one another. Unquestionably we think throughout in language, without, however, needing actual speech as spoken. By reason of this ability to dispense with speech-utterance in its sensuous aspect as contrasted with the spiritual content of ideas, etc., to elucidate which they[404] are employed, tone receives once more self-subsistency. In the art of painting no doubt colour and its arrangement, regarded simply as colour, is likewise by itself without significance, and in the same way, as contrasted with the spiritual embodied, thereby a self-substantive sensuous medium; but we get no painting from colour simply as such: we must first attach to it form and its expression. With these spiritually animated forms colouring is brought into an association by many degrees more constrained than that which pertains to uttered speech and its coalescing result of words with ideas.

If we will now look at the distinction between the poetical and musical use of tones we shall find that music does not depress the tone sound to the mere speech-utterance, but creates out of tone simply its own independent medium, so that, in so far as there is musical tone, it is treated as the object of the art[405]. And on account of this the realm of tone, inasmuch as it cannot serve merely as a symbol, is by virtue of this emancipated function of its life[406] able to attain to a mode of configuration, which makes the form that is its peculiar possession, that is to say, the modes of tone as artistically developed, its fundamental aim and object. In recent times especially, the art of music, by its wresting itself from all content that is independently lucid, has withdrawn into the depths of its own medium. But on this very account and to this extent it has lost its compelling power[407] over the soul, inasmuch as the enjoyment, which is thus offered, is only applicable to one aspect of art, in other words, is only an interest in the purely musical characteristics of the composition and its artistic dexterity, an aspect which wholly concerns the musical expert, and is less connected with the universal human interest in art.

(ββ) All that poetry loses, however, in external objectivity by being able to place on one side its sensuous medium, in so far as that can be wholly dispensed with by art, it secures for itself, in the ideal objectivity of its vision and ideas, which poetical speech presents to soul and mind. For it is the function of imagination to clothe these concepts, emotions, and thoughts in a world that is itself essentially complete[408] with its events, actions, moods, and exhibitions of passion, and by this means it creates works, into which the entire fabric of reality, both in its external aspect as phenomena and in the ideal significance of its content, is brought home to the emotions, vision, and imagination of spiritual life. It is this type of objectivity which the art of music, in so far as it asserts its independent claims in its own province, is compelled to renounce. In other words, the realm of tone possesses, no doubt, as I have already indicated, a relation to the soul, and an alliance which is consonant with its spiritual movement; but it fails to pass beyond a sympathetic relation which is always of an indefinite character, albeit in this aspect of it a musical composition, if originating in the soul-life itself, and permeated by genius and emotions of a rich quality, cannot fail to react on our nature with an equivalent power and variety. In the case of a content and the ideal and personal creation such as poetry implies our emotions pass more completely out of their elementary medium of undefined conscious life into the more concrete vision and more universal[409] imagination which is embodied in such content. This may also be the effect of a musical composition, so soon as the emotions which it excites in ourselves by virtue of its own nature and the artistic energy that animates it are involved more closely in ourselves with a distinct vision and ideas, and thereby present to consciousness the tangible definition of soul-impressions in a more stable outlook and more universally accepted ideas. This is, however, our imagination and vision, which no doubt has been suggested by the musical work, but which has not been itself directly disclosed by virtue of the artistic elaboration of musical tones. Poetry, on the contrary, expresses emotions, perceptions, and ideas as they are[410], and is further able to delineate a picture of external objects, although it cannot itself either attain to the plastic clarity of sculpture and painting or the spiritual intimacy of music, and is consequently obliged to call as auxiliary to its powers the direct vision we otherwise receive through the senses and the speechless apprehension of soul-life in music.

(γγ) Thirdly, however, the art of music does not confine itself to this independent position over against that of poetry and the spiritual content of conscious life. It allies itself with a clearly expressed content already completely elaborated by poetry, and as the accompaniment of emotions, opinions, events, and actions. If, however, the musical aspect of such a work of art remains the fundamental and predominant one, the poetry, whether in the form of poem, drama, or any other, has no right to assert an independent claim of its own therein. And as a general rule in this association, of music and poetry the preponderance of one art is injurious to the other. If therefore the text, a poetical creation, possesses a fully independent value of its own, the support to be expected from music should be merely an insignificant one, as we find, for example, was the case with the dramatic choruses of the ancients where the music was nothing more than an incidental accompaniment. If, conversely, the music is composed with a more independent individuality of its own, then the text in its turn should be of a more superficially poetical execution, and should as an independent production confine itself to emotions of a general character and ideas depicted on universal lines. The poetical elaboration of profound thoughts is as little appropriate to a good musical text as is the delineation of the objects of external Nature or descriptive poetry generally. Songs, operatic arias, the texts of oratorios, and so forth may be consequently, so far as the detail of their execution as poetry is concerned, jejune and of a certain degree of mediocrity. The poet must not make his merits as poet too conspicuous if the musician is to find in his text a genuine opportunity. In this respect it is especially the Italians, such as Metastasio and others, who have displayed the greatest skill, while Schiller's poems, which were never written with such an object in view at all, have been shown to be ill adapted and indeed useless for musical composition[411]. In cases where the music receives a more artistic elaboration, the audience understands next to nothing of the text, and this is more particularly so with our German speech and pronunciation[412]. For this reason it is not in the interest of music that the weight of interest should be reposed in the text. An Italian audience, for example, chatters away during the unimportant scenes of an opera, takes refreshment, plays cards, and so on; but the instant an aria of emphatic appeal or an important musical movement begins, every section of it is all attention. We Germans, on the contrary, take the greatest interest in the fortunes and speeches of the princes and princesses of opera with attendants, squires, intimates, and waiting-maids, and we do not doubt there are many among us still who regret the fact, when the singing begins, that the interest is interrupted, and take their refuge in conversation.

In religious music also the text is either for the most part a well-known credo, or a selection of single psalms, so that the words are regarded as merely an incitement to a musical commentary, which possesses an independent style peculiar to itself, that is to say one which not merely is used to expound the text, but which for the most part simply emphasizes the universal character of the content much in the same way that painting selects its material from sacred history.

(b) The second aspect of our present inquiry is that of the distinction that obtains between the way in which the art of music lays hold of its subject-matter as contrasted with the other arts, the form, that is, in which, whether it be as an accompaniment or independently of a given text, it is able to apprehend and express a particular content. As to this I have already observed that music is not only more capable than the other arts of liberating itself from an actual text, but also from the expression of a definite content, in order that it may find its satisfaction in an essentially complete series of combinations, modifications, contrasts, and modulations, which are comprised within the realm of absolute music[413]. In such a case, however, music is empty, without significance, and is, for the reason that one fundamental aspect of art, namely spiritual content and expression, is absent, not really genuine music at all. It is only when that which is of spiritual import is adequately expressed in the sensuous medium of tones and their varied configuration that music attains entirely to its position as a true art, and irrespective of the fact whether this content receives an independent and more direct definition by means of words, or is perforce emotionally realized from the tone music itself and its harmonic relations and melodic animation.

(α) In this respect the unique function of music consists in this, that whatever its content may be it is not so created by the art for human apprehension as though it either was held by consciousness as a general concept is so contained, or as definite external form is ordinarily presented to our perception, or as such receives its more complete reflection in the artistic counterfeit, but rather in the way in which a content is made a living thing in the sphere of the personal soul. To make this essentially veiled life and in weaved motion ring forth through the independent texture of tones, or attach itself to expressed words and ideas, and to steep such ideas in this very medium, in order to re-emphasize anew the same for feeling and sympathy, such is the difficult task assigned to the art of music.

(αα) The life of soul itself is consequently the form in which music is able to grasp its content, and thereby seeks to absorb within itself everything that can generally enter into the shrine of the soul and above all disclose itself under the veils of emotional movement. But from this it necessarily follows that the art of music must not attempt to minister to sense-perception, but must restrict its effort to making soul-life intelligible to soul, whether this is effected by its making the substantive and ideal depth of a content as such penetrate to the very core of soul itself, or by its preferring to disclose the life and motion of a content in the soul of some particular person, so that this inward life of itself becomes its actual object.

(ββ) This abstract inwardness of soul is in the most intimate sense differentiated, under the mode in which music is related to it, by feelings in other words the self-expanding medium of the personal subject, which unquestionably moves in a content, but suffers the same to persist in this direct self-seclusion of the Ego, and in a relation to the Ego, that is, void of externality. Consequently feeling is throughout simply all the envelope of that content, and it is the sphere which is claimed by music[414].

(γγ) It is a province which unfolds in expanse the expression of every kind of emotion, and every shade of joyfulness, merriment, jest, caprice, jubilation and laughter of the soul, every gradation of anguish, trouble, melancholy, lament, sorrow, pain, longing and the like, no less than those of reverence, adoration, and love fall within the appropriate limits of its expression.

(β) Tone as interjection, as the cry of grief, as sigh and laughter, is already, outside the province of art, the most immediately vital expression of soul-conditions and feelings, the ah and oh of the soul. We find in it a self-production and objectivity of soul as such, an expression which stands intermediately between unconscious absorption and the self-return to thoughts ideally determinate, a disclosure, which has no relation to external fact, but is confined to the contemplative state, just as the bird, too, in its song possesses this enjoyment and this production of its inner self.

The purely natural expression, however, of interjections is not as yet music, for though these outcries are no doubt no intentionally articulate sign of ideas as speech is and consequently express no conceived content in its generalized form as concept, but give vent to a mood and emotion in and through tone itself, a state which is reposed immediately in similar tones and opens the heart in the outburst of the same, yet this emancipation is not one which is promoted by art. The art of music must on the contrary bring the emotions into tone relations of definite structure, and wean the expression of Nature of its wildness, its uncouth deliverance, and ameliorate it.

We may perhaps say that interjections constitute the point of departure of music; but it is only music when an interjection in the form of a cadenza, and in this respect it has to elaborate its senuous material artistically in a higher degree than either painting or poetry before it is qualified to express the content of spirit. We shall have to examine later on more narrowly the particular way in which the content of music is worked up to such a pitch of adaptability; at present I will merely repeat the observation that the tones are themselves essentially a totality of differences, which are capable of disuniting and uniting themselves in the most varied kinds of immediate concords, essential discords, oppositions and transitions. To these opposed and united tones, no less than the differentiation of their movements and transitions, their entry, their progression, their conflict, their self-resolution and their disappearance, the ideal character both of this or that content and of the emotions, in the form whereof both heart and soul obtains the mastery of such content, corresponds in closer or more remote affinity, so that the like tone relations, apprehended and informed conformably thereto, disclose the animated expression of that which is present to Spirit as definable content.

The medium of tone asserts itself as more cognate with the ideally simple essence of a content than the senuous material previously dealt with for this reason that tone instead of making itself secure in spatial form and coming to a halt as the varied presentment of juxtaposition and extension, is comprised in the ideal realm of Time, and for this reason does not progress to a condition under which simple ideality and concrete bodily shape and appearance are differentiated. And this is equally true of the form of the feeling of a content whose expression mainly falls upon the art of music. In other words in sense-perception and conception we have already, as in self-conscious thought, the necessary distinction between the perceiving, conceiving and thinking Ego and the object of perception, conception, and thought. In emotion, however, this distinction is resolved, or rather it is never propounded, but the content is interwoven with the inner life without such division. When consequently music is united as an art of accompaniment with poetry, or conversely poetry is united with music as an interpreter to its elucidation, in such a case music is unable to render conspicuous in an external form or to reflect with intention ideas and thoughts as they are thus apprehended by self-consciousness; it is obliged as stated either to offer the simple character of a content in true relations to feeling, as they are cognate with the ideal relation of this content, or to seek more nearly to express, by means of tones which accompany and give intensity to poetry, that feeling itself, which the content of perceptions and ideas can arouse in the spirit that is both sympathetic and imaginative.

(c) Following the course of these remarks it is possible in the third place to form an estimate of the unrivalled power which is thereby directly exercised by music on the soul, which is neither carried forward to the vision of reason, nor diverts consciousness in isolated points of view, but is accustomed to live within the ideal range and secluded depths of pure emotion. For it is precisely this sphere, the intimacy of soul-life, the abstract appropriation of its own realm, which is grasped by music, which thereby sets in movement the source of these ideal changes, namely, the heart and soul, which we may consider at this concentrated focus and centre of our entire manhood.

(α) In a particular sense sculpture endows its art products with a wholly independent subsistency, an objectivity essentially exclusive whether we regard it from the point of view of its content, or that of its external art-manifestation. Its content is the substantive being of the life of Spirit possessed no doubt with individual vitality, but along with this reposing in self-subsistent coherence on itself; its form is the material configuration under the condition of space. For this reason a work of sculpture retains as an object of sense-perception the highest degree of self-subsistency. A picture, as we have already pointed out in our consideration of the art of painting, comes into closer contact with the spectator. In part this is due to the essentially more subjective[415] content thereby depicted; in part it is referable to the fact that it is merely the show of reality which it displays, thereby making us aware that it is not a thing independently substantive, but rather essentially something intended for something else, and exclusively so, in other words for the human vision and soul. Yet even in the case of a picture we have still left us a freedom more independent it fails to absorb; even here we have still only to do with an object externally presented, which only reaches us through sense perception, and only thus excites our emotion and imagination. The spectator may consequently approach the work of art as he likes; he may observe this or that aspect of it; he may analyse the whole, as it throughout persists confronting him, may make it the object of various reflections, and in short remain throughout at liberty to continue his independent review of it.

(αα) The musical work of art, on the contrary, no doubt, as such a work, posits in like manner the incipiency of a distinction between the work itself and the individual that enjoys it; that is to say in its actually resonant tones it receives a sensuous existence that is distinct from the soul of the listener. But on the one hand this opposition does not proceed, as in the case of the plastic arts, to an external subsistency in Space and the visibility of a mode of objectivity that coheres independently, but on the contrary makes its real existence vanish in the immediate passage through Time. On the other hand the art of music does not make the separation of its external material from its spiritual content in the same way that poetry does so, in which the aspect of idea is elaborated with more definite independence from the sound of speech[416], and more cut off as it is than any of the arts from this aspect of externality, issues as such in a unique progression of mental ideas constructed by the imagination. No doubt the observation may readily be made here that, agreeably with what I have already stated, the art of music is able to conversely to release tones from their content and thereby give them independent form; this liberation is, however, not that which really falls within Art's province, which on the contrary wholly consists in employing harmonious and melodic motion for the expression of the content originally selected and the emotions, which the same is qualified to excite. Inasmuch as, therefore, musical expression has for its content the inward life itself, the ideal significance of fact and emotion, and a tone-world which, at least in art, does not proceed to spatial configuration, and in its sensuous existence is wholly evanescent, it follows that music directly penetrates with its movements to the ideal habitat of all the fluctuations of soul-life. In other words it seizes on consciousness, where it is no longer confronted with an object, and in the loss of this freedom from the flood of tones as it streams on is itself whirled away with it[417]. Yet there is here, too, by reason of the divers directions which music may separately follow, an effect of varied character. In other words, when a more profound content, or, to put it generally, an expression more steeped in soul, is absent, we may find as a result that we experience on the one hand delight in the purely sensuous sound and harmony without any further emotional movement, or, on the other hand, we follow the course of the harmony and melody with our critical judgment, a progression by which the inmost heart of us is no further touched or affected. Or rather we may say that pre-eminently in the case of music there is such a purely critical analysis, for which there is nothing else presented in the work of art to evoke it beyond the skill of an expert in its laboured production[418]. If we, however, withdraw ourselves from this critical science, and give ourselves up unreservedly, we become entirely possessed with the musical composition and are carried with it quite independently of the power, which the art of it simply as art exercises upon us. And the peculiar power of music is an elementary force, that is to say it lies in the element of tone, in which the art here moves.

(ββ) The individual is not only carried away by this medium in virtue of the character of its exposition in any particular case, or simply drawn to it by the specific content thereof; but, viewed simply as self-conscious subject, the core and centre of his spiritual existence is interwoven with the work and himself placed in active relations with it. We have, for example, in the emphasis of the music's current rhythms, an opportunity to beat in time with it, or unite our voices with the melody, and in the case of dance-music at least, we may associate the movement of our legs. And, generally speaking, the claim is made upon us as distinct personalities. Conversely, in the case of purely methodical action, which, in so far as it is subject to time relations, is compatible with a distinct beat in virtue of its regularity and possesses no further content, we require on the one hand an expression of this regularity as such in order that this action shall be present to the individual under a mode that is itself subjective; and, on the other, we require a more intimate realization of this rhythm. Both requirements are supplied by the musical accompaniment. This is effected, for instance, by music as associated with the march of soldiers. Such arouses the soul to the rhythmical beat of the march, makes the individual full of the fact of his marching[419] and steeps him in the harmonious action of it. In something of the same sense the unregulated bustle of a table d'hôte and the unsatisfactory excitement it arouses annoys many people. Such feel that the moving up and down, the clatter and chatter should be subject to rule, and as we have in our eating and drinking an empty space of time to deal with, we should have that emptiness filled up for us. Such, therefore, is also an occasion among many others when music will help us considerably, suggesting as it does other thoughts, recreations, and ideas.

(γγ) In these instances we are made aware of the connection between the individual soul with Time simply, a condition in which the medium of music consists. In other words the inward life regarded as subjective unity is the active negation of the indifferent[420] juxtaposition in Space, and thereby negative unity. In the first instance, however, this identity remains in itself entirely abstract and void of content, and consists merely in this that it makes itself an object, though it then annuls this objectivity, which is itself of a wholly ideal type and of the same character which the subject of consciousness is, in order thereby to enforce itself as subjective unity. An ideal negative activity of the same kind in its sphere of externality is Time. For in the first place it effaces the indifferent co-extension of the spatial condition and concentrates the continuity of the same in the point of Time, the Now. The point of time, however, secondly, discloses itself at the same time as negation of itself; in other words this Now no sooner is than it annuls itself in another Now, and by doing this makes apparent its negative activity. Thirdly, we no doubt do not get, on account of externality[421], in whose element Time is in motion, the truly subjective unity of the first point of Time with the next, to which the Now by self-effacement proceeds, but the Now remains throughout in its change always the same[422]. For for every point of Time is a Now, and is as undifferentiated from the other Now, taken as the bare point of Time, as is the abstract Ego from the object, relatively to which it annuls itself[423], and in which it falls into self-coalescence, for the reason that this object is itself merely the empty Ego. The actual Ego itself, too, belongs yet more closely to Time, with which it coalesces, in so far as it is, if we abstract from the concrete content of consciousness and self-consciousness, nothing but this empty movement which posits itself as another and then cancels the exchange, in other words cancels itself, in order thereby to conserve the Ego and here only the abstract[424] Ego therein. Ego is in Time, and Time is the being of the conscious subject itself. Inasmuch, then, as Time and not the spatial condition as such supplies the essential element, in which tone secures existence in respect to its validity as music, and the time of tone is likewise that of the conscious subject, for this reason tone, by virtue of this fundamental condition of it, penetrates into the self of conscious life, seizes hold of the same in virtue of the most simple aspect of its existence, and places the Ego in movement by means of the motion in Time and its rhythm; while in addition to this the other configuration of tones, as the expression of emotions, brings yet further a more definite material to enrich the unity of consciousness, a wealth by which it is at once affected and carried forward.

We find, then, that the fundamental ground for the elementary might of the art of music is of this nature.

(β) In order, however, that music may exercise its full effect we must have something more than the purely abstract tone in its movement in Time. The further aspect we have to attach to it is a content, an emotional wealth steeped in spirit presented to the soul, and the expression, the soul of this content in tones.

We have no right, then, to entertain any exaggerated[425] opinion of the sovereign might of music simply as music, about which ancient writers, both sacred and profane, have told us so many fabulous tales. If we go back to the miracles which Orpheus performed as a pioneer of civilization we find indeed that tones and their movements spread their influence to the wild creatures, which encircled him shorn of their wildness, but they did not extend to humankind, who required the content of a nobler strain. It is something of this latter kind that we must attach to the hymns ascribed to Orpheus, which, in the form we have received from tradition, even though it be not their original one, support mythological and other ideas. In a similar way, too, the warlike songs of Tyrtaeus are famous, by means of which, so we are told, the Lacedaemonians, after long and fruitless conflicts, were stirred up to an irresistible enthusiasm and finally were wholly victorious over the Messenians. In this case, too, the content of the ideas which these elegies excited was the main thing, although pre-eminently in the case of barbaric peoples and in times of deeply moved passions we cannot deny that the musical aspect of them exercised a real force and effect. The pipes of the Highlanders contribute essentially to the animation of their courage, and the power of the Marseillaise as sung in the French Revolution is undeniable. The real source of enthusiasm is, however, to be looked for in the definite idea, in the true interest of the Spirit with which a nation is steeped, and which can be exalted to a more direct and living feeling when the notes of music, the rhythm and the melody carry along whoever may give himself up to them. In our own days, however, we can hardly hold that music is capable by itself of evoking such a courageous temper and contempt of death. Almost all armies nowadays have excellent regimental music, which calls the soldiers to their duties, releases them from such, gives life to the march and incites them to the attack. No one, however, dreams of beating the enemy with such means. The courage of the field of battle does not come with the blast of trumpets and the beat of drums, and it will indeed take a host of trombones before a fort will tumble in ruin at their blast like the walls of a Jericho. It is the enthusiasm born of ideas, cannon, and the genius of generals which are the main thing now rather than music, and this can only act as a support of the forces which have already filled and taken hold of the soul.

(γ) In conclusion, we may point out in respect to the personal effect of musical sound there is an aspect which is referable to the particular manner in which the musical work of art approaches us in its distinction from other works of art. In other words, inasmuch as musical tones do not as buildings of construction, statues, and pictures possess independently a permanent objective consistency, but vanish in the act of passing by the musical work of art requires in virtue of the fact of this purely momentary existence a continuously repeated reproduction. And what is more, the necessity of such a renewal of life points to a further more profound significance. For, in so far as it is the personal soul itself, which music accepts for its content with the object, to make manifest itself not as external form and objectively subsistent product, to this extent the expression of it must also assert itself immediately in the form of a communication disclosed by a living person, in which that person reposes his entire and unique personality. This is to the fullest extent the case in the song of the human voice, but it is relatively so in all instrumental music, which can only be executed by means of a practised artist and his living and spiritual no less than technical powers as such.

It is only by virtue of this personal relation in respect to the active effect of the musical work of art that the significance of the subjective aspect of music is substantiated, which, however, too, it is possible in this direction to carry to the extreme length of isolation in the case, that is, where the personal virtuosity of the reproduction as such is made the exclusive focus and content of the enjoyment to be derived.

With the above observations I will now close what I have to say with regard to the general character of music.

2. THE PARTICULAR DEFINITION OF THE MEANS OF EXPRESSION IN MUSIC

We have hitherto contemplated music purely under the aspect, that its function is to embody and give life to tone as the musical expression of the personal life of soul; we have now to ask ourselves the further question, by reason of what it is both possible and necessary that tones are no purely natural outcry of emotion but the articulate artistic expression of the same. For feeling as such possesses a content; tone regarded as mere tone is without such. It must consequently first be rendered capable by means of an artistic treatment of essentially assimilating the expression of an ideal life. Speaking generally, we may establish the following conclusions on this head.

Every tone is a substantive, essentially accepted real thing, which, however, is neither articulated nor consciously apprehended in a living unity, as is the case with the animal or human form, nor from the further point of view demonstrates in itself, as a particular member of the bodily organism, or any isolated trait of the animated body, whether in its spiritual or physical aspect, that this individualization can only exist in vital association with the other limbs and traits, and secure thus its meaning, significance, and expression. Viewed according to external material, a picture no doubt consists in single strokes and colours, which can also independently exist, but the real material on the other hand, which first creates a work of art from such strokes and colours, the lines and surfaces that is to say of the form, have only a meaning when viewed as a concrete totality. The separate tone, on the contrary, is independently substantive and can also be animated up to a certain degree by means of emotion and receive a definite expression.

Conversely, however, inasmuch as tone is no purely indefinite rustle and sound, but only possesses in general musical validity by virtue of its clear definition and pure tonality, it stands immediately, by reason of this definite articulation, not merely according to its actual sound, but also its temporal duration, in a relation to other tones; nay, this relation is that which first contributes to it its real and actual definition and along with this its difference and contrast as opposed to other tones or its unity with such.

In presence of the more relative self-subsistency this relation, however, remains as something external to the tones, so that the relations into which they are brought do not appertain to the single tones under the mode of their notion, as we find such in the members of the animal and human organism, or also in the forms of natural landscape. The coalescence of different tones in different relations is consequently something which albeit not contradictory to the essence of tone, is, however, in the first instance artificial, and not otherwise presented in Nature. Such a relation proceeds to that extent from a third party and only exists for such, namely, for the person who apprehends[426] it.

On account of this externality of the relation the definition of tones and their co-ordination subsist in the relation of quantity, in relations of number, which of course have their foundation in the nature of tone itself, yet are employed by music in a system which is, in the first instance, discovered by Art and modified[427] in the most varied manner.

From this point of view it is not essential vitality, regarded as organic unity, which constitutes the foundation of music, but equality, inequality, etc., and generally the form of the understanding[428], as it is asserted in quantitative relations. If we consequently speak definitely of musical tones we indicate the same purely by numerical relations as also by letters selected at will by virtue of which we are accustomed to indicate the tones according to such relations.

In such a reference back to mere quantities and their intelligible, external definition music possesses its most pronounced affinity with architecture, inasmuch as it, just as this latter art does, builds up its inventions upon the secure basis and scheme of proportions, a basis which does not essentially expand and coalesce through vital unity in an organically free articulation, in which the remaining differentiated parts are given with the one aspect of definition, but only begins to grow into free art in the further elaborations, which are enabled by it to arise out of the aforesaid conditions.

Although architecture carries the process of liberation no further than a harmony of forms and the characteristic animation of a mysterious eurhythmy, music, on the contrary, for the reason that it has for its content the most intimate, personal, and free life and essence of the soul, strides into and emphasizes the profoundest opposition that exists between this free life of soul and those quantitative relations on which it is based. It is, however, unable to persist in this opposition; rather it is its difficult function to overcome it as essentially as it accepts it, by assigning to the free movements of the soul, which it expresses, a more secure foundation and basis by means of these necessary proportions, a basis on which it then, however, gives movement to and develops the inner life in the freedom which for the first time receives its fulness of content by virtue of such fundamental necessity[429].

In this respect there are in the first instance two aspects of tone we should distinguish, according to which it is artistically to be employed. First, we have the abstract foundation, the universal but not as yet physically specified element, that is, Time, in the domain of which tone falls. After that we get sound itself, the real distinction of tones, not merely according to aspects referable to the difference of the sensuous material, which sounds, but also in that aspect of the tones themselves as they are related to one another, whether in their singularity or as a whole. To such we must then adjoin thirdly, the soul, which gives animation to the tones, rounds them off in a free totality, and gives to them a spiritual expression in their temporal movement and their real sound. By virtue of these aspects we receive for their more definite classification a series of stages as follows.

First, we have to occupy our attention with the purely temporal duration and movement, which it is the function of art not merely to leave to chance in their arrangement, but to determine according to definite measures, and to render various by virtue of their differences, and once more again to establish their unity in these distinctions. From this we deduce the necessity for time-measure, beat, and rhythm.

Secondly, however, music has not merely to deal with abstract time and the relations of longer or shorter duration, musical phrase and so forth, but with the concrete time of their sound according to definite tones, which consequently are not merely distinct from one another according to their duration. This difference reposes, in the first place, on the specific quality of their sensuous material, by reason of whose oscillations the tone is produced; on the other hand it depends on the different number of such oscillations, in which the resonant bodies oscillate in an equal measure of time. And furthermore these differences assert themselves as essential aspects for the relation of tones in their concord, opposition, and mediation. We may give this portion of our subject the general designation of the theory of harmony.

Thirdly, and finally, it is the melody, by virtue of which on these foundations of a beat characterized by rhythmical vitality and of distinctions and movements of harmony itself that the realm of tones is unitedly discharged in a spiritually free mode of expression, and conducts us thereby to the final main section of our subject, which will undertake to consider music in its concrete unity with the spiritual content it is intended to express in beat, harmony, and rhythm.

(a) Time-measure, Beat, Rhythm

So far as in the first place the purely temporal aspect of musical tone is concerned, we have first to discuss the necessity, which generally in musical time is the dominant factor. Secondly, we shall consider beat under the aspect of time-measure wholly regulated under scientific rule. Thirdly, we shall treat of the rhythm, under which a start is made in animating this abstract rule by the prominence or subordination it attains to definite divisions of time.

(α) The figures of sculpture and painting are placed side by side in space and present the extension of reality in actual or apparent totality. Music, however, can only place before us tones in so far as it makes a body under the spatial condition tremble, setting the same in an oscillating motion. These oscillations only affect art under the aspect, that they follow one another; and for this reason the sensuous material generally only enters into music with the temporal duration of its movement instead of taking with it its spatial form. No doubt that motion of a body is always present in space, so that painting and sculpture have the right to exhibit the appearance of movement, albeit their figures are in their reality at rest. In respect to this aspect of Space, however, music does not accept movement, and there remains consequently as part of its configuration only the time, into which the oscillation of the body falls.

(αα) Time, however, in consequence of what we have already above considered, is not as Space is, the positive condition of juxtaposition, but on the contrary negative externality. As juxtaposition, which is cancelled, it is the point of passage, and as negative activity it is the abrogation of this point of time in another, which is itself immediately cancelled, and becomes another and so on continuously. In the continuous series of these points of time every single tone not merely is asserted independently as single, but is brought from a further point of view into quantitative association with other tones, by which process Time is referable to number. Conversely, however, for the reason that time is the unbroken rise and passage of such points of time, which, regarded as mere points of time, possess in this unparticularized abstraction no distinction one to another, for this reason to a like extent time appears as the equable stream, and the duration essentially undifferentiated.

(ββ) In this indeterminacy, however, music is unable to leave time. Rather it is compelled to define it more narrowly, to give it a measure, and regulate its stream according to the rules of such a measure. By virtue of this regular treatment we get the time-measure of tones. And here at once arises the question, wherefore then once and for all music requires such measure. The necessity of definite periods of time may be evolved from this fact, that time stands in the closest affinity with, the self in its simplicity, which apprehends, and has a right to apprehend, its inward life through the medium of tones; time, in fact, regarded as externality, essentially possesses the same principle, which is active in the Ego as the abstract foundation of all that pertains to the soul and spirit. If, then, it is the simple self, which as soul-life has to be made objective in music, so, too, the universal medium of this objectivity must be treated conformably to the principle of that subjective life. The Ego, however, is not the indefinite continuance and the unbroken[430] duration, but is only self-identity when we regard it as an aggregate and a return upon itself[431]. The assertion of itself, wherein it becomes object, is doubled back in the being thus self-for-itself; and it is only through this relation to itself that it becomes self-feeling, self-consciousness and so forth. In this aggregate, however, we find essentially a breaking off of the purely indefinite change, such as we held time to be in the first instance, in which the rise and suppression, the disappearance and renewal of the points of time were nothing but a wholly formal passage from every now to another present of similar character, and consequently nothing but an uninterrupted progression. In contrast to this empty process the self is that which itself persists by itself, the totality whereof essentially breaks up the undefined series of time points, creates an infraction into the abstract continuity, freeing the Ego, which recollects itself in this process of discrete division and finds itself again therein, from what is a purely external process of change.

(γγ) The duration of a tone does not, agreeably to this principle, pass away in a process of relative indeterminacy, but emphasizes with its beginning and end, which accordingly is a definite beginning and cessation, the series of the time moments, which, apart from it, are not thus distinguishable. If, however[432], many tones follow one after another, and every one of them receives a duration which can be separately distinguished from each other, then we must assume that instead of having that original indefinite series devoid of content, we only once more get by a converse process the fortuitous, and, along with this to a like extent, the indefinite variety of particular quantities. This unregulated rambling about contradicts quite as much the unity of the Ego as the abstract progress forward; and it can only find itself reflected and satisfied in such a varied mode of definition in so far as single quantities are brought under one unifying principle, which for the reason that it subsumes the particular parts under its synthetic embrace, must itself be a definite unity, yet in the first instance as merely an identity of external application can only persist as one of an external type.

(β) And this carries us to the further principle of co-ordination which we find in the time-beat.

(αα) The first thing to be considered here consists in this, that, as stated, distinct divisions of time are united in a unity, in which the Ego independently creates its identity with itself. Inasmuch as the Ego in the first instance only supplies the foundation as abstract self this equability, in respect to the advance of time and its tones, can only assert itself as operative under the mode of a uniformity that is itself abstract, that is to say as the uniform repetition of the same unity of time. Agreeably to the same principle the beat according to its simple definition can only consist in this, that it establishes a definite unity of time as measure and rule not merely for the deliberate[433] breaking up of the time-series held previously without such distinction, but also for the equally capricious duration of single tones, which are now apprehended together under a definite bond of union, and that it permits this measure of time to be continuously renewed in abstract uniformity. In this respect time-beat possesses the same function as the principle of symmetry in architecture, as, for instance, when this places side by side columns of similar height and thickness at intervals of equal distance, or co-ordinates a row of windows, which possess a definite size, under the principle of equality. We find present in this case, too, an assured distinction of parts and a repetition in every way complete. In this uniformity self-consciousness discovers itself once more as unity, in so far as it in part recognizes its own equality in the co-ordination of a fortuitous variety; partly, too, in the return of the same unity, it is recalled to the fact that it has already been there, and precisely by means of its return asserts itself as the prevailing principle[434]. The satisfaction, however, which the Ego receives through the time-beat in this rediscovery of itself is all the more complete because the unity and regularity do neither apply to time or tones as such, but are something which is wholly appertinent to the Ego, and is carried into the time relation by the same as a means of self-satisfaction. We do not find this abstract identity in what is wholly of Nature. Even the heavenly bodies retain no regular time-measure[435] in their motions, but accelerate or retard their course, so that they do not pass over equal spaces in identical periods of time. The same thing may be said of falling bodies, with the motion of projectiles, etc., and we may add that animal life to a still less degree regulates its running, springing, and seizing of objects on the principle of an exact recurrence of one definite time-measure. In this respect the time-measure of living things proceeds far more completely from spiritual initiative than the regular definitions of size applicable to architecture for which we may more readily discover analogies in Nature.

(ββ) If, however, the Ego is to return upon itself by means of the time-beat by thus appropriating throughout an identity which it itself is and which proceeds from itself, we imply in this, in order that the distinct unity may be felt as a principle, that in a similar degree what is presented to it should be that which is unregulated and not uniform. It is in short only through the fact that the definite beat of the measure prevails over and co-ordinates what is capriciously unequal, that it asserts itself as unity and regulating principle of a fortuitous variety. It must consequently appropriate the same within itself, and suffer uniformity to appear in that which is not so. This it is which first gives to the time-beat its specific and essential definition to be asserted too in contrast to other measurements of time, which can be repeated relatively to the same principle.

(γγ) By reason of this the multiplicity which is enclosed in a given time-measure possesses its definite standard according to which it is divided and co-ordinated. From this we arrive, in the third place, at distinct kinds of time-measure. The first thing of importance to notice in this connection is the division of time according to either an even or an uneven number of equally divided parts. Of the first kind we have, for example, the two-four and the four-four time. In these even number is predominant. Of the opposite kind is the three-four time, in which the co-ordinate divisions constitute a unity of equal parts, of course, but in a number that is uneven. Both types are to be found united in six-eight time, to take an example, which no doubt numerically appears to be similar to the four-four time, but as a fact, however, does not fall into three but into two divisions, of which, however, the one no less than the other, relatively to its closer aspect of division, accepts three, that is an uneven number, as its principle.

A particularization of this kind constitutes the constantly repeated principle of every particular measure of time. However much notwithstanding the definite time-measure is bound to control the variety of the time-duration and its longer or shorter sections, we must not therefore extend its effective power to the length that it places this variety in subjection in a wholly abstract way, that in short, for example, in the four-four measure only four notes of equal length as fourths can appear, in the three-four time only three, and so forth. The regularity restricts itself to this, that as, for instance, in the four-four time the sum of the separate notes are only equal to four equal parts, which may not only be divided into eighths and sixteenths, but conversely may again contract into less divisions, and indeed are capable moreover of more diffuse division.

(γ) The further, however, this elastic mode of differentiation is carried the more necessary it is that the essential divisions of the time should be asserted as predominant and also should be indicated in an effective way as an illustration of the fundamental principle of their co-ordination. This is carried out by the rhythm, which first gives vital significance to time-measure and the beat. With respect to this vitalization[436] we may distinguish the following points.

(αα) In the first place we have accent, which to a greater or less degree attaches in an audible way to definite divisions of time, while others pass by on the other hand without an accent. By virtue of such emphasis, or lack of emphasis, which is itself of various kinds, every particular measure of time possesses its particular rhythm, which is placed in exact association with the specific mode of division to which its rhythm applies. The four-four time, for instance, in which an even number is the principle of division, has a twofold arsis; on the other hand there is that on the first note or fourth division, and then, though in weaker power, on the third. The first is called on account of its stronger accentuation, the strong accent, the second in contrast to it the weak one. In the three-four time the accent rests entirely on the first fourth, in six-eight time on the contrary it is on the first of the eight divisions and the fourth, so that in this case the twofold accent asserts a division of equal length in two halves.

(ββ) In so far as music is an accompaniment rhythm is brought into essential relation with poetry. In the most general way I will on this merely venture the observation that the accents of the musical beat ought not to directly contradict those of the metre. If, for example, one of the unaccentuated syllables, relatively to the rhythm of the verse, is placed in a strong accent of the beat, while the arsis, or it may be the caesura, falls in one of the weak accents of the music, then we get a false opposition between the rhythm of the poetry and that of the music which it is better to avoid. We may affirm the same thing with regard to the long and short syllables. These also ought in general to fall into harmony with the duration of the tones, so that the longer syllables are coincident with the longer notes, the shorter with the shorter, albeit this accordance is not to be pressed with absolute precision, inasmuch as music is frequently permitted greater play for the duration of its long notes, no less than for the exuberant subdivision of the same.

(γγ) In the third place we may at once in anticipation observe that we have to distinguish the animated rhythm of melody from the abstractly considered and severely regular return of the beat rhythm. In this respect music possesses a similar and, in fact, yet greater freedom than poetry. In poetry the beginning and termination of words[437] need not necessarily coincide with the beginning and end of the verse feet; rather a thoroughgoing coincidence of this nature gives us a verse that halts and is without caesura. And, furthermore, the beginning and ending of the sentences and periods ought not throughout to mark the beginning and conclusion of a verse. On the contrary, a period will terminate more satisfactorily in the beginning or even in the middle and near the last feet of the verse. From which point we begin with a new one which carries the first verse into the one that follows. The same thing holds good in the case of music relatively to its time-beat and rhythm. The melody and its different phrases[438] need not absolutely commence with the fall of a beat and close with the conclusion of another: such may in a general way move freely to this extent that the main-arsis of the melody may be incident to that portion of a musical beat, on which, relatively to its ordinary rhythm, no such emphasis applies; whereas, conversely, a tone, which in the natural process of the melody would necessarily receive no accentuated prominence, may quite conceivably be placed in the strong accent of the time-measure, which requires an arsis, so that consequently such a tone, relatively to the time-rhythm, has a different effect from that which the same tone claims to assert as distinct from that rhythm and purely in the melody. This opposition, however, asserts itself most strongly in so-called syncopations. If, on the other hand, the melody absolutely adheres in its rhythms and divisions to the time rhythm it tends to drag, and lacks warmth and invention. In short, what is required is a freedom from the pedantry of metre and the barbarism of a uniform rhythm. A deficiency in more free movement readily increases the limpness and sluggishness to the point of actual gloom and depression; and in this way, too, many of our popular melodies possess aspects of mournfulness, drag and burden, in so far as the soul merely possesses a means of advance as its expression more monotonous than itself, and in virtue of such is constrained to consign to it also the doleful emotions of a broken heart. The speech of Southern peoples, on the other hand, more especially the Italian, offers a rich field for a rhythm and flow of melody which is more notable for its variety and movement. And it is precisely here that we mark an essential distinction between German and Italian music. The uniform coldness of the Iambic mode of scansion, which recurs in so many German songs, kills the free and jubilant impulse of the melody, and restrains any further rise and devolution[439]. In more recent times Reichard and others, owing to this very fact that they have said good-bye to this iambic drone, have imported into their lyrical compositions a new and rhythmical life, although we still find traces of the former type in some of their songs. However, we do not only mark the influence of the iambic rhythm in songs, but also in many of our most important musical compositions. Even in the Messiah of Handel the composition does not only in many arias and choruses follow the meaning of the words with declamatory truth, but also adheres to the fall of the iambic rhythm, partly in the distinction simply that it makes between its long and short duration, partly in the fact that the protraction of the iambic rhythm requires a more elevated tone than the corresponding short syllable in the metre. I have no doubt this is one of the characteristic features of Handelian music, owing to which we Germans feel so much at home with the same, quite apart from its excellences in other respects, its majestic swing, its victorious onward movement, the wealth it discloses of profoundly religious no less than more simple idyllic emotions. This rhythmical substance of the melody comes more directly to our sense of hearing than that of the Italians, who are inclined to find in it a want of freedom, as something, too, that strikes the ear as strange and alien.

(β) Harmony

The further aspect, in virtue of which alone the abstract basis of time-beat and rhythm receives its fulfilment, and thereby is enabled to become actually concrete music is the kingdom of tones regarded as such. This more essential domain of music is dominated by the laws of harmony. We have here a further elementary fact to deal with. In other words, a material substance[440] does not only through its oscillation for art emerge from the mere visible reproduction of its spatial form, and is carried further into the elaboration of its configuration in Time[441], but it produces distinct sounds according to its particular physical constitution no less than its different length and brevity and number of vibrations through which it passes in a given period of time, and consequently in this respect, too, Art is compelled to take account of it and give it form agreeably to its own nature.

With regard, then, to this second element we have to emphasize with more accuracy three main points.

The first one presented to our consideration is the difference between the various instruments, whose invention and elaboration has been found essential to create that totality of musical sound, which in respect to musical sound constitutes a sphere of different tones independently of all distinction of the relation of pitch whether it be a high or a low one.

Secondly, however, musical tone is, quite apart from the different peculiarities of either instruments or the human voice, itself an articulated totality of different tones, tone-series, and scales, which in the first instance repose on quantitative relations, and in the determination of these relations are tones which it is the function of every instrument and the human voice, according to its specific quality, to produce in less or greater completeness.

Thirdly, music neither consists in single intervals nor in purely abstract series of tones, that is, keys unrelated to each other, but is a concrete interfusion of opposed or mediating sound, which necessitates a forward progression and a passage from one point to another. This juxtaposition and change does not depend on mere contingency and caprice, but is subject to definite rules, which constitute the necessary foundation of all true music.

In passing now to the more detailed consideration of these several points of view I am forced, as already stated, to limit myself for the most part to the most general observations.

(α) Sculpture and painting discover their sensuous material, such as wood, stone, metals, and the like, or colours and other media of that type more or less straight to hand, or, at least, they are only compelled to elaborate the same in a subordinate degree, in order to adapt them to the uses of art.

(αα) Music, on the contrary, which throughout is set in motion through a medium artificially prepared for the purposes of art from the first, must necessarily pass through a distinctly more difficult preparation before the production of musical tones is secured. With the exception of the human voice, which returns us Nature in her immediacy, Music is compelled itself to create all its other instruments of genuine musical tone throughout before it can exist as an art.

(ββ) With regard to these means as such we have already above formed our conception of the timbre proper to them in the sense that it is the result of a vibration of the spatial medium, is the first excitation thereof of ideal import, which enforces itself as such in contradistinction to the purely sensuous juxtaposition, and, by virtue of this negation of spatial reality, asserts itself as the ideal unity of all the physical qualities of specific gravity and the purely sensuous type of corporeal coalescence. If we inquire further as to the qualitative peculiarities of the medium thus made to emit musical sound we shall find that in its character as material substance no less than as artificially constructed, it varies greatly. We may have a longitudinal or oscillating[442] column of air, which is limited by a fixed channel of wood or metal, or we may have a longitudinally stretched string of gut or metal, or in other cases a stretched surface of parchment or a bell of glass or metal. In this connection we may draw attention to the following distinguishing features. In the first place it is the lineal direction[443] which is mainly predominant, and produces the instruments most effective in musical employment; and this is so whether, as in the case of wind-instruments, the main principle is represented by a column of air which is relatively more deficient in cohesion or by a material line adapted to tension, but of sufficient elasticity to be made to vibrate, as is the case with stringed instruments.

Secondly, we have the principle of surface rather than line represented in instruments of inferior significance, such as the kettle-drum, bell, and harmonica. There is, in fact, a subtle sympathy between the self-audible principle of ideality and that type of rectilinear tone[444], which, by virtue of its essentially simple subjectivity, demands the resonant vibration of simple line extension rather than that of the broad and round surface. In other words, ideality is as subject this spiritual point, which is made audible in tone as its mode of expression. But the closest approach to the exposition and expression of the mere punctum is not the surface, but the simple linear direction. From this point of view broad or round surfaces are not adapted to the requirements and enforcement of such audibility. In the case of the kettle-drum we have a skin stretched over a kettle or basin, which by being struck at a single point sets the entire surface vibrating with a muffled sound. Though a musical sound, it is one which from its very nature, as belonging to such an instrument, it is impossible to bring either to clear definition or any considerable degree of variety. We find a difficulty of an opposite type in the case of the harmonica and the bells of glass which are set in vibration in it. In this case it is the concentrated intensity of tone which fails to project itself, and which is of such an affecting character that not a few, when hearing it, receive actual nervous pain. But, despite this specific effect, this instrument is unable to give permanent pleasure and is with difficulty combined with other instruments on the rare occasions such an attempt is made. We find the same defect on the side of differentiation of tone in the bell and a similar punctually repeated stroke as in the case of the kettle-drum. The ring of a bell, however, is not so muffled as in the latter; it rings out clearly, although its persistent reverberation is more the mere echo of the single beat as struck at regular intervals.