Chapter 17

(α) The true province of such independence is, however, not the accompaniment of vocal music undeniably conditioned by a text, but instrumental music simply. As already observed, the human voice is the appropriate musical expression of man's inner life in its entirety, a life also expressed in ideas and words, which therefore discovers in its own voice and song its distinctive organ, so often as it seeks to express and recover this inner world of its ideas permeated throughout with the concentrated intensity of emotion. In the case of instruments taken by themselves, however, this basis of an associated text of words disappears; here we find an opening for the empire of a music that is confined strictly to its own unassisted powers.

(β) Such a music of particular instruments presented us in quartets, quintets, sextets, symphonies and the like, without text or vocal music, remains unrelated to any movement of ideas independently asserted, and is for this very reason compelled to have recourse to emotions of a more indefinite character, emotions which in such music can only be expressed in general terms. The aspect of importance here, in short, is the varied motion of the music simply, the ups and downs of the harmony or melody, the stream of sound through its degrees of opposition, preponderance, emphasis, acuteness or vivacity, the elaboration of a melodic phrase in every respect that is suitable to the means of musical art, the musician-like fusion of all the instruments as oneensembleof tone, or in their succession, alternation, and emphatic display of themselves and each other. It is in this sphere pre-eminently that the distinction between theordinary personand theexpertof music asserts itself. The ordinary man likes best in music an expression of emotion and ideas that is at once intelligible, that whereof the content is obvious; his predilection is consequently for music under the mode of an accompaniment. The connoisseur, on the contrary, who is able to follow the relation of musical sounds and instruments as composition, enjoys the artistic result of harmonious modulation, and its interwoven melodies and transitions on its own merits. He is entirely absorbed by this alone, and is interested in comparing the detail to which he listens with the rules and principles he is fully able to apply to it, in order thus to follow the performance with judgment and delight, although even in his case it frequently happens that our modern type of virtuosity, with variations in tempo or other nuances for which our connoisseur is unprepared, will perplex him not a little. A complete satisfaction of this kind comes rarely to the mere amateur. He is seized with the vain desire to master this apparently phantomnal process of music, to discover arresting points for his attention in the musical development, and generally more definite ideas and a more detailed content in the volume of sound that invades him. In this respect he seeks to attach to music a symbolical significance, yet can find in the same little beyond mysterious problems that vanish in the moment they are propounded, which baffle his powers ofsolution and in general are capable of a variety of interpretations.

Thecomposeris able, it is true, on his part to associate with his work a definite significance, a content of specific ideas and emotions, which are expressed articulately in movement that excludes all else; conversely he can, in complete indifference to such a scheme, devote himself to musical structure simply and the assertion of his genius in such architectonic. Composition, however, of this character readily tends to become defective both in the range of its conception and emotional quality, and as a rule does not imply any profound cultivation of mind or taste in other respects. And by reason of the fact that such a content is not necessary, it frequently happens that the gift of musical composition not merely will show considerable development in very early age, but composers of eminence remain their life long men of the poorest and most impoverished intellectual faculty in other directions. More penetration of character may be assumed where the composer even in instrumental music is equally attentive to both aspects of composition; in other words, the expression of a content, if necessarily less defined than in our previous mode, no less than its musical structure, by which means it will be in his power at one time to emphasize the melody, at another the depth and colour of the harmony, or finally to fuse each with the other.

(γ) We have throughout posited subjectivity in its unconstrained presentment within the limits of music as the general principle of this type of composition. This independence of a content already proposed to it from an alien source will, however, more or less assert itself in opposition to mere caprice, though the restrictions under which it admits it are not defined rigorously. For, albeit this type of composition has its own rules and modes, the authority of which no mere whim or fancy can reject, yet they are regulations which only affect the broader aspects of music; in actual detail there is no end to the opportunity which the inner content of soul-life[471], provided it once accepts the boundaries fixed by the essential conditions of musical composition, may discover for its otherwise free expatiation and exposition.And, in fact, as a result of the elaboration of modes congenial to this type, the caprice of individual composers asserts, in contrast to the steady advance of purely melodic expression and music in association with a definite text, a practically unrestrained mastery in every sort of conceit, caprice, interlude, inspiriting drollery, startling suspension, rapid transition, lightning flashes, extraordinary surprises and effects.

(c)The Artist as Executant

In sculpture and painting we have a work of art presented us as an external and independentresultof artistic activity; we do not regard this activity itself as the actual creation of life[472]. It is, however, necessary to the presentation of a musical work of art that we should have an executant musician in co-operation, just as in dramatic poetry we have the representative presence of living manhood as an essential factor in this type of art's realization.

We have, then, reviewed musical composition under the two aspects, that is to say, in so far as it sought to conform with a specific content, or struck out on its own free path of independence. We may now in the same way distinguish between two main types of purely executive art. The one is wholly absorbed in the work of art on hand, and makes no attempt to reproduce anything over and beyond this. The other, on the contrary, is not simply reproductive; it actually creates expression, delivery, in short the essential animation of the work, not merely from the composition as composed, but predominantly from its own resources.

(α) In the case of the epic poem, wherein the poet seeks to unfold an objective world of event and modes of action, the rhapsodist, who recites it, has no occasion to do anything further than wholly withdraw the expression of his own personality in the presence of the exploits and events he brings home to us. The more reserved he is in this respect the better; indeed such recitation is not incompatible with a monotoned and unemphasized delivery. What is effective here is the fact of the poem, the poetical execution, thenarrative itself, not its realization in voice and speech. This illustration will suggest to us therationalefor our first type of musical reproduction. In other words, if the composition is in a similar way of a genuine objective quality, in the sense that the composer has simply translated his subject-matter, or the emotion that is absorbed with it, into musical language, the artistic reproduction should retain the same objective character. It is not merely true that here there is no reason for the executant to import into it his idiosyncrasies; by doing so he necessarily impairs the true artistic effect. He must subordinate himself entirely to the character of the work, and prescribe to himself simply this attitude of attention. On the other hand, he must not, as is too frequently the case, confuse such an attitude with that of the purely servile artisan, and lower himself to the level of an organ-grinder. If such execution is to retain any artistic claim the artist is bound to avoid leaving the impression of a musical automaton, which merely repeats its prescribed lesson mechanically, and instead to animate the entire work with the heart and soul of the composer himself. The virtuosity of such a vital reproduction is restricted, however, to the just elucidation of the technical difficulties presented by the work, and in doing so the object will be not merely to cover any appearance of triumph over an exacting task, but to portray the freest movement under such conditions, and, in so far as superior artistic endowment and experience can in the particular case manage to do so, attain in the reproduction to the spiritual altitude of the composer and reflect the same in actual performance.

(β) It is another matter when we come to deal with works of art, in which personal idiosyncrasy and caprice are even by the composer himself features brought into prominence, and where generally we find the traces of such a clearly objective quality in expression, the treatment of the harmonic or characteristic development less pronounced. In such a case thebravuraof virtuosity is, it is our first distinction, quite admissible; and over and above this executive ability is not only limited to the reproduction of the actual score, but may considerably amplify; an artist willhimselfadd to the composition in his delivery, supplement defects, add substance to what is comparatively superficial, import intoparts a new life, and in doing so assert independent judgment and invention. In the Italian opera, for example, much is always left to the singer's discretion; in particular where we have embellishments a more liberal opportunity of display is granted, and in so far as the exposition of sound is further removed from the mere interpretation of the libretto, the execution in its independence becomes a more spontaneous flow of melody, in which the soul of the singer is permitted to enjoy itself and exult in its own free rapture. When therefore it is objected that Rossini for one has made the singer's task too easy, the stricture is only in part justified. The difficulty is none the less there, only he frequently leaves it to the trained intelligence of the executant to work it out for himself. If in the result we are conscious of the co-operation of genius, the work as thus reproduced makes an exceptionally favourable impression. We have not merely awork of artreproduced, but we are conscious at the same time of actualmusical creation.In this very present realization of life the external conditions of artistic reproduction disappear, such as place, opportunity, the local associations of a divine service, the content and intent of a dramatical situation; we have no further need for, nor do we desire any text, we have left us simply the unspecialized impulse of emotion, in the element of which the soul of the artist can surrender itself without let or hindrance to its own rapture, displaying thereby inventive genius, the finest qualities of emotion, and a mastery of technique; and in fact, provided we find the right spirit, ability, and personal charm to justify it, it may venture to interrupt the flow of melody itself with humour, caprice and virtuosity, and accept for once the moods and suggestions of the moment.

(γ) This kind of virtuosity is yet more remarkable in cases where the instrument is not the human voice, but one ofhuman invention.By this I mean to say that such naturally in the kind of sound they produce are further removed from the soul's direct expression; they are in relation to that of an external object, apiece of dead mechanism, and music is essentially a spiritual movement and activity. When we find, therefore, this externality of the instrument vanishes altogether, in the case, that is, where the music of the soul breaks right through this alien crust of mechanism, bymeans of such virtuosity, even an instrument of this character is transformed into one as fully adapted to express the soul of the artist as it is possible to conceive. Among the memories of my youth I can still recall the case of an astonishing executant on the guitar, who in his own eccentric fashion had composed huge battle-pieces for this comparatively insignificant instrument. By profession, if I remember rightly, he was a weaver, and in conversation he had little enough to say for himself. But no sooner did he begin to play than one wholly forgot the absurd pretensions of his composition, forgot these precisely as he forgot all else but the music, and the marvellous result he made of it by being totally absorbed body and soul in his instrument, entirely witless of any form of nobler execution than that expressed in the tones of a guitar[473].

A virtuosity of this type, in so far as it asserts such a unique superiority, is not only a proof of extraordinary mastery over material forces, but we receive from it as it strides victoriously over difficulties apparently unplayable, even turns aside to add to them, or in wayward mood breaks in upon us jestingly with I know not what interruptions and surprises, and by original invention even makes us enjoy what would otherwise be vulgar, is a direct reflection of absolutely free soul-life[474]. It is quite true that a mere charlatan[475]of this type is unable to produce original works of art; but where real genius is part of the endowment we can have extraordinary mastery in composition no less than over a particular instrument, the limitations of which this virtuosity lays itself out to overcome, and in audacious vindication of its triumph will reproduce the artistic effects of other instruments entirely remote in other hands from its own. It is an accomplishment of this kind which delightsus with our acutest sense of the life of music. And this riddle of riddles we discover in the fact that a mere piece of mechanical craft can become an instrument one with our life, which enables us to follow, as through a flash of lightning, a power of ideal conception no less than execution, by virtue of which the imagination of genius penetrates to the core of life as instantaneously as it vanishes therefrom.

Such, then, are the most essential features, which I have selected from my own experience of music, the more general points of view which I have detached from the subject and concentrated attention upon in the present discussion.

[377]Ein festes Daseyn, lit., an assured existence.

[378]We should not expect the plural. Hegel apparently includes the transitional relief of sculpture.

[379]Lit., "But also strives to set itself back into the previous condition." He refers to the mutual relation of tones.

[380]In sich selbst Ideellgezetzte.That is, posited as ideal in the way music does with its object, as to which further explanation is given below.

[381]It is difficult to follow closely this very technical interpretation of musical sound, and a doubt may be perhaps permitted as to whether it corresponds to the scientific facts. I mean it does not appear fully to do justice to the reaction of the organ of human hearing itself and the intelligence with which it is related upon the sound waves that through such mediation are cognized as musical sound. The ideality appears to me to be more complete than even Hegel's theory would suggest, or, at any rate, some of his expressions. And surely, too, in sight, though it may be true we see independent objects, we only do so, in so far as their secondary qualities are concerned, by virtue of a considerable action of what he here callsSeelenhaftigkeit.But this is not the place for more than a suggestion. The main points of contrast are in Hegel's interpretation sufficiently obvious.

[382]Des Körpers.I am not sure that I quite follow the meaning of this second moment of negation. If it means the reaction or synthetic process of human hearing it removes in great measure the objection above. We then have as the twofold negation the negation by the ideality of sound and that through the human sense. But owing to Hegel's use ofMaterialto indicate the medium which is subject to oscillation, it would rather appear to mean that one vibration is cancelled by another.

[383]Das an und für sich schon etwas Ideelleres ist.This would correspond to the ideality of the first negation of spatial condition.

[384]He means its own ideal existence.Aufgebenmust here be used in the primary sense of "delivers." He does not mean that it gives expression to the ideality of spirit; this is added by the next clause.

[385]This is, I think, Hegel's meaning fordas an sich selbst Subjektive.Its content is also formally ideal or abstract as above explained, but to express this he would rather have used the wordideellorinnerlich.It is also, as I have pointed out, in great measure ideal in the sense that as musical tone it is not natural even in the qualified sense that colour is. It is even more dependent on the human organism for its quality and synthesis. But I do not think Hegel means subjective in this sense, but that it directly expresses human emotion.

[386]Both ideas are contained in the wordVerschweben, which means to hover and slowly vanish away.

[387]Figurationen.Their modal combinations.

[388]It is obvious that in this respect music to some extent infringes on the distinction Hegel has already pointed out between its content and that of poetry.

[389]Byverständige FormenHegel means, of course, forms that express an artistic, that is, an intelligible purpose. The whole passage is not very clearly expressed. The general meaning is, however, that as architecture surrounds its statues with a medium of material environment co-ordinated by artistic design and invention, so, too, music in its medium of emotional content is equally indefinite and may be used as an accompaniment (as architecture is a kind of accompaniment to statuary) in the melodic play of its harmonies to definite ideas in uttered speech. The reader of Browning will doubtless recollect the fine use made of architecture as metaphorical illustration in the poem "Abt Vogler." I think it was Schopenhauer who first spoke of architecture as frozen music. But Schelling speaks of it in the same way.

[390]I presume Hegel here refers primarily to scholastic music, musical exercises intended to exhibit the structure of music. The exercises, for example, of Cramer or Fuchs. Bach's forty-eight fugues would occupy a transitional place.

[391]Tonseele.There is, of course, something almost mystic in Hegel's conception of musical sound as the ideality issuing from the material world.

[392]That is, sculpture and painting.

[393]ByHaltpunkteHegel appears to mean material that will act as stays and supports in contrast to those which are indifferent.

[394]I presume bysolchen festen BestimmungenHegel refers to the general definition of artistic function just enunciated. But the sense may possibly be, "while the point of departure is the stable determinations of natural form."

[395]We are inevitably reminded of the release which Art was to such men as Beethoven, Dante, Milton, and Blake.

[396]In the theme.

[397]It seems doubtful how how far a musician would accept this at least in so far as it applies to classical music of the formal type. The development, for instance, on the repetition of a theme in a sonata is at least part of the formal content of the sonata movement as a whole.

[398]Ein Auseinandergehen.Variations on a theme would be a good example. But surely the development of a theme may do precisely this in great measure, I mean disclose both the depth of it and its concentration.

[399]No doubt this is so if we assume the content to be mainly a theme, a motive. But the content of a movement includes the development. The main difference after all is the fundamental one that in music the content is unfolded in a time series and in the plastic arts instantaneously in spatial form. And in poetry the apprehension is also in a temporal series.

[400]It is impossible in English to reflect the play of words betweenErinnerung(memory) andEr-innerung(self-penetration or ideal realization).

[401]I am not sure whether Hegel exactly means byPhantasirenwhat we understand as Improvization. But it is the only form of music that strictly applies to his definition. Even the rhapsodies of Liszt are controlled by the form, as in a sense all music is.

[402]As the plastic arts. It certainly is not so closely associated with a definition given outside it by Nature, that is, but it is obviously very closely associated to the formal modes of music, such as the laws of counterpoint, fugue, sonata, etc.

[403]The first is its relation to architecture, the second that to the plastic arts.

[404]That is, the ideas. By "receiving self-subsistency" Hegel means it maybe regarded independent of the art, something essentially outside it.

[405]ByTonHegel means, of course, musical sound. The object of music is music and ideas only in so far as they are expressed in music.

[406]In diesem Freiwerden.In this free medium of its existence.

[407]How far would Hegel have applied this criticism to the great symphonies of his compatriots? I think it is obvious, at any rate, that his criticism of pure music is somewhat lacking in sympathy. Nowadays it is not even a wholly obvious fact that the song or the opera are the most popular. The truth is that musical education, and that is what the appreciation of programme or symphonic music implies, has made enormous strides since his day. But his criticism will still hold for many in regard to more modern developments in Strauss and his school.

[408]ByfertigHegel must mean here that the world of poetry is one whose claims to independent coherence is generally acknowledged.

[409]By "universal" Hegel appears to mean more universally intelligible, He uses the same word in a like sense just below.

[410]If Hegel means to imply that pure music, in so far as it presents ideas by suggestion, has any advantage over music the effect of which is entirely a musical effect he is on dangerous ground. The Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven may or may not be more popular than Beethoven's other symphonies, but it is unquestionable that its artistic merit depends exclusively on its claims as musical composition. And indeed its worth as music suggestive of ideas is mainly so great because, as Beethoven himself claimed, it is rather a suggestion of emotional mood than the imitation of natural sounds or the suggestion of distinct ideas. So far as popularity or universality of appeal is concerned, he may be right. But this is obviously no final test of the significance of music as compared with other arts, though it may mark a distinguishing feature. And surely music expresses emotions at least "as they are" (selber) more directly than poetry. Poetry no doubt gives them as we express them in ordinary life. But music makes us feel them as they are unexpressed in our souls, a still higher grade of reality.

[411]Hegel probably never heard Beethoven's ninth symphony with its "Song of Joy." As to its success as set to music there may be two opinions, but the fact that it is the culmination of so celebrated a composition is in itself a qualification of Hegel's statement.

[412]Both Mendelssohn and Schumann deplored the fact that they could get no really good libretto and would unquestionably not have received all the statements here without considerable qualification. Hegel appears to be too dominated by the character of Italian opera. German opera as further developed by Wagner and even in the hands of Beethoven and Glück and Weber makes a very different demand. It is unquestionably true that there must be a certain reciprocity of quality between the two. But some of the finest music has been written for some of the finest poetical language, namely that of our Bible. Composers like Bach, Handel, and S. S. Wesley insisted on having the very best form of their religious ideas they could obtain.

[413]Lit., "Within the purely musical realm of tones." Hegel's strictures would only apply to the most formal kind of exercises or studies. It would really be a misnomer to say that Chopin's studies for the piano or Spohr's or even Kreutzer's exercises for the violin wholly come under it.

[414]It is on this ground that Aristotle calls music the most imitative art. They represent emotions directly without the mediatory office of Nature's objectivity (vide"Three Lectures on Aesthetic," by Bernard Bosanquet, p. 53).

[415]It is more subjective because the content is more ideal, and more closely related to the artist's personal qualities.

[416]More definite than feeling and soul-life is from tone.

[417]That is, vanishes with the evanescence of the music.

[418]Die Geschicklichkeit eines virtuosen Machwerks. Machwerkis used, of course, in a depreciating sense. The contrast is between it and a truly inspired composition.

[419]Lit., "Of the business on hand."

[420]Gleichgültig.I am not sure whether Hegel means fortuitous in the sense that Nature in its abstraction is such, or purely objective,i.e., no self-reflection, probably the latter. They are "dead elements."

[421]That is, spatial externality.

[422]The meaning appears to me that apart from conscious life which can contrast the fleeting moments of Time with its permanent self-identity the process is without meaning—there is no process, it is a παντά ρεῖ with no differentiation.

[423]It cancels itself in so far as it makes itself an object. The dialectical movement of self-consciousness is here viewed in the bare form of its original abstraction.

[424]Das Ich als solches.

[425]Abgeschmackte.Not so much bad taste here as false judgment.

[426]Auffasst.Hegel would appear to mean the intelligent hearer rather than the composer, though the word would refer to either. Even then it is not clear why music should not be said to exist by its mere performance. But, of course, such presupposes the human executant, and this is possibly what Hegel intends to imply.

[427]Nüancirt.Made subject to the nuances or modifications introduced into such relations.

[428]Verstandas contrasted withVernunft.The analytical faculty of science.

[429]That is, the quantitative basis.

[430]Die haltungslose Dauer.That is, a duration that is unbroken by arresting points in its progress.

[431]That is, self-conscious, synthetic unity holding the temporal process in relation to itself. It thus becomes not merely awerdenbut afür sich seyn.In contrast to the purely abstract process the self isdas Bei sich selbstseyendei.e., that which persists along with itself. This totality or aggregate of particulars Hegel callsSammlung.The analysis is really an analysis of the form of conscious experience.

[432]This is the converse case of a series of definite points of contrast, but unrelated by any integrating principle. I admit frankly that I am not sure I have wholly seized the meaning in these difficult paragraphs. I have adhered in my translation, therefore, as closely as possible to the original.

[433]Markirte.

[434]Herrschende Regel.

[435]Because their orbits are elliptical and motion is accelerated as they approach the focus.

[436]Verlebendigung.

[437]He means of a specific collection of words, sentences.

[438]Perioden.

[439]Umschwung.Perhaps all that is meant is the return to the previous level, as we should speak of the rise and fall of voices.

[440]Ein Körper.

[441]Seiner zeitlichen Gestalt.

[442]Gezwungene.I presume the meaning is that the oscillations are effected by a curved form of musical instrument.

[443]I am not sure there is not a certain confusion here. Our text, at any rate, when speaking of wind instruments, refers to the column of air as the medium of sound, but in the case of stringed instruments draws attention rather to the thing which creates the waves of vibration, the string itself. The nature of the timbre of an instrument is no doubt an important one, but it may be questioned whether this distinction between line or column and surface is very satisfactory or sufficient.

[444]Jenem linearen Tönen.The expression appears to me not very easy to interpret even from Hegel's own point of view. In what sense can you call a musical tone linear? The theory here stated, though ingenious enough, appears to me to miss the fundamental question, what actually constitutes the timbre of an instrument, in its assertion, for instance, of distantly related harmonies or non-assertion of such. Even assuming that the form of the instrument, or the part of it set into vibration, may partially explain this, it is obvious, I think, that Hegel's manner of stating it is open to considerable criticism.

[445]Die näher abgeschlossene Bestimmtheit.The meaning seems to be that definition of them in which they stand out with most distinctness from others.

[446]The comparison is unfortunate—in two respects. Violet is a cardinal colour, and the theory of Goethe to which it refers is, of course, untenable.

[447]The true scientific reason why octaves resemble each other so much more closely than two notes at any other interval is that the upper of two notes at an octave's distance is the first "upper-partial" tone of the lower, and all its harmonies are also harmonies of the lower note; the compound tone, for there is no entirely simple tone, of the higher note contains no new sound, which is not in the compound tone of the lower. This is not the case with two notes at any other interval.

[448]Ihre besonderen Seiten.I presume this means what is immediately called below the several intervals between note and note.

[449]There is really a distinction between the consonance of the dominant and a major or minor third.

[450]That is, the third is only third in relation to the key-note, or the leading-note only as the note previous to the octave.

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