SKETCH OF A NEW ESTHETIC OF MUSIC
The spirit of art^ the measure of emotion^, of humanity^ what it is—it remains unchanged in value through changing years; the form that this. Art forms are the more enduring, the more closely they conform to the nature of their individual arts, the purer they keep their essentiality. CHARACTERIZATION OF THE ARTS 3 mediation and completion of configuration; these are eternal and inviolable requirements of the art.
But all arts, resources, and forms always aim at one end, namely, the imitation of nature and the interpretation of human feelings. Music, compared to them, is a child that has learned to walk, but still needs to be led. And the legislators will not see this wonderful quality, lest their laws should be thrown to the winds.
ABSOLUTE MUSIC
On the contrary, 'absolute music' is something very austere, reminiscent of music stands in orderly rows, of the relationship of Tonica to Dominant, of Developments and Codas. Our legislators have identified the spirit and emotion, the individuality of these composers and their time. The composers sought and found this form as the most suitable vehicle to convey their ideas; their souls fled – and the lawgivers discover and cherish the garments Euphorion left behind on earth.
Beethoven, the romantic revolutionary, fulfilled such a desire for liberation that he took a small step on the path that led music back to its loftier self: a small step in the great task, a broad step. Evensa Schumann (of a somewhat lower stature) is seized in such passages by a sense of the limitlessness of this pan-art (think of the transition to the last movement of the D minor symphony); and the same may be said of Brahms in the introduction to the Finale of his First Symphony. Next to Beethoven, Bach has the greatest affinity with 'infinite music'.* His organ fantasies (but not the Fugues) undoubtedly have a strong touch.
BACH, BEETHOVEN, WAGNER 9 no reverence for his predecessors (although he
'absolute' music, and these concepts have become so fossilized that even intellectuals adhere to one dogma or the other, without recognizing a third possibility beyond and above the other two. In reality, program music is exactly as one-sided and limited as that called absolute.
PROGRAM AND MOTIVE II different plant-seeds grow different families of
Add to the above the characterization of nationalities – national instruments and airs – and we have a complete inventory of the panoply of program music. Indeed, music is given to vibrate our human moods: fear (Leporello), oppression of the soul, bewilderment, fatigue (Beethoven's last quartets), decision (Wotan), hesitation, despondency, encouragement, hardness. Tenderness, excitement, calmness, the feeling of surprise or anticipation, and more; also the inner echo of external events interwoven with these moods of the soul. Word and acting conveyed the dramatic progression of the action, followed more or less meagerly by a musical recitative; arrived at the resting point.
It is up to the interpreter to resolve the rigidity of the signs into the primitive emotion. But the legislators require the interpreter to reproduce the rigidity of the signs; they, moreover, regard its reproduction as nearer to perfection. The veil of the mystical, the secret harmonies of nature, the thrill of the supernatural, the dim vagueness of the borderland of dreams, all that he so effectively demarcated with the precision of words – all this, one might suppose, had he can interpret to the utmost with the help of music.
However, this is not possible; the lively, expansive nature of the divine child resists—demands the opposite. Great artists play their works differently with each repetition, reworking them quickly, speeding them up and slowing them down, in a way that they could not indicate with signs - and always. Thf; the author probably had in mind the I:in^;uuKcs of BouthcTri Europe; the word is oinpioyed in Knj^lish, and in the languages of the Scandinavian proup, with exactly the same meaning as in German.
Given the great importance attached to these elements of art, this "musical" temperament is naturally of the highest consequence. But a deliberate evasion of the rules cannot be disguised as creative power, still less. Which, within our music today, almost approaches the essential nature of art.
In a few moments, we collected some fifteen analogs of various types, . among them specimens of the lowest kind of art. And Beethoven himself: - Is the theme of the finale in .. anything other than tin- somewhere with "Second" . introduces Allegro? - or you; i) the main theme of the Third Piano Concerto, only in minor. In England, under the rule of high "concert pitch," the most famous works may be played half a tone higher than they are written without altering their effect.
MAJOR AND MINOR 27
However deeply ingrained attachment to the ordinary and indolence may be in the ways and nature of humanity, energy and resistance to the existing order are equally characteristic of all that Hfe has. Only when they look back from a distance do they realize with surprise that they have been deceived. The reformer of a certain period causes irritation because his changes affect the people.
Yet we find cases in which the reformer marched ahead of the times, while the rest fell behind. And then they must be forced and beaten to take the leap over the passage they missed.
NATURE, AND THE REFORMER 29 minor key with its transpositional relations, our
You cannot estimate at a glance what wealth of melodic and harmonic expression would thus be accessible to the ear; but a lot of novels. The harmony of today, and not for long; for all signs predict a revolution and a next step towards that 'eternal harmony'. Let us remember once again that in the latter the gradation of the octave is infinite, and let us strive to draw a little. They represent a refinement in chromaticism, based, as it now seems, on the entire scale.
Then, by dividing this second series of whole notes into third-notes, each third-note in the lower series will. Thus we have really arrived at a system of whole notes divided into sixths of a note; and we can be sure that even sextones will sometime. Just for the sake of distinction, let's call the first note C, and the next third notes CJt, and.
On the other hand, the question is important and big, how and how these tones will be produced. Since the height depends on the number of vibrations, and the apparatus can be "set" to any number. Only a long and careful series of experiments, and a constant training of the ear, can make this unknown material accessible and plastic.
Assuming that one loves the South (as I do) as an excellent school for the health of the soul and senses in the highest power, as an uncontrollable flood. and the radiance of the sun spreading over a race of independent and self-dependent beings;—. well, such a one will learn to be more or less wary of German music, because, while it spoils his taste anew, it undermines his health. NIETZSCHE AND GERMAN MUSIC 35 . belief) if he dreams of the future of music, he must also dream of the salvation of music from the north, while in his ears the introduction to deeper, stronger, perhaps more is ringing. 34; Nirvana did not reach all; but he who, gifted from the beginning, learns all there is to learn, experiences all there is to experience, gives up what he should give up, develops what he should develop, realizes what he should know - achieves will be Nirvana."* (Kern, Geschichte des Buddhismus in Indij.).
If Nirvana is the realm "beyond Good and Evil," one way leading to it is pointed out here.
ADDENDA
The individuality, like a lens, receives the impressions of light, reflects them, according to their nature, as negative, and the hearer perceives the true image. Insofar as taste participates in feeling, the latter – like everything else – changes its forms. That is, at one time or another some aspect of feeling will be favored, unilaterally cultivated, especially developed.
Wagner, at this point insatiable but not inexhaustible, turned from sheer necessity to the expedient after reaching the climax to start soft again and rise to a sudden new boost. There is depth of feeling and depth of thought; the latter is Hterary and may have no. But it seems to every student of philosophy that depth of feeling means exhaustiveness of feeling, complete absorption in a given mood.
It destroys creativity.' For creation means that the form is brought out of the void; whereas routine thrives on imitation. For behold, the innumerable strains that shall once sound have existed since the beginning, ready, floating in the ether, and with them other innumerable ones that will never improve. Only stretch out your hands and you shall seize a flower, a breath of the sea breeze, a ray of sunshine; avoid routine, for it strives to grasp only what your four walls are filled with, and the same thing over and over;.
He had too much routine, and his composing machinery was thrown out of gear, just. The sentence is a masterpiece of the native cunning of the instinct of self-preservation; but equally proves — and this is our point — the. The lack of sustained tone, and the merciless, unwavering adaptation of the unchanging semitonic scale.
It gives a single man command over something complete; in its potentials from the softest to the loudest in the same register it surpasses them all. The trumpet may sound, but not sigh; in reverse the flute; the pianoforte can do both. And the pianoforte has a possession entirely peculiar to itself, an inimitable device, a photograph of the sky, a ray of moonlight—the pedal.
Beethoven, who undeniably made the greatest progress on and for the piano, fathomed the mysteries of the pedal, and we have him to thank for that.