The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann deserves our attention for a number of reasons and not only for its comments on music. At one point in particular, when the infected inmates of the institution convene for another distraction the discussion between the intoxicated hero and his philosopher-friend Lodovico Settembrini turns to the topic of music. Settembrini is generally adamant that the inmates have lost their plot as fully functional human beings. More importantly they constitute a dangerous political potential. This is a consequence of their moral corruption and their intoxication. Their delusion is evident by their loss of clear perception, clear will and clear thinking. Tightly wrapped in their own subjectivity and dozing in thin air, the essence of humanity is seeping from them. Settembrini, the humanist, is alarmed and attempts to inspire a balanced view in anyone with a practical and pragmatic conscience. He believes, after all, that the essence of humanity does not consist in an instinctive community, in intoxicated belonging or in any acceptance of authority or vision, but in the common presence and promotion of reason. Settembrini is a rationalist because he believes that humans are human on account of a shared faculty of reason and a shared capacity for dialogue.
Music offers an opportunity for some fundamental reflections for Settembrini. His most frequently quoted comment (the conductor Daniel Barenboim refers to it in his latest book) is also his most provocative: “Art is moral in so far as it wakes us. But what if it does the opposite? If it anesthetises, sends us to sleep and opposes activity and progress? This too music can do, it understands the effects of opiates most essentially. A diabolical effect, gentlemen. The opiate is from the devil, because it creates stupor, inertia, inactivity, slavish arrest… there is something suspicious about music, gentlemen. I maintain it is by nature equivocal. I do not exaggerate if I declare it to be politically suspect.” (ZB, 121)
Settembrini’s comment points to the intoxicating effects of music which – on their own and unguarded – may corrupt the human spirit. “Music”, Settembrini affirms earlier in the conversation, “is invaluable as an ultimate medium of enthusiasm, as a power which takes us upwards and forward, if it finds the spirit prepared for its application. But it must have been preceded by literature. Music by itself does not advance the world. Music by itself is dangerous.” (ZB, 120)
Settembrini’s point that music implies a risk and can contribute to moral and political corruption is worth considering carefully. Certainly, there is no shortage of examples where music and musicians have played a dangerous role in corrupting communities and civilisations. But, on the whole, music appears on its own; it remains uncontaminated by moral or political concern and value. Kierkegaard most famously identifies this in the contrast between the ethical and aesthetic attitude where music features as a thoroughly transient art which allows no reference to any enduring context of responsibility. The aesthetic attitude simply lacks a cognitive framework in which it could comprehend any objective dimension of reality adequately. Any ethical attitude (and this includes any political concern as this is based on ethical value) requires a temporal framework of endurance and a complex interplay between reflective and active attitudes.
Notwithstanding these ontological subtleties, Settembrini makes a fundamental point and it seems to be the following: Music on its own is dangerous because it lacks an autonomous interpretative grounding. It is an art of pure, suspended and self-absorbed subjectivity – an art that primarily intoxicates and removes us from reality and coherent conduct. Music on its own is a mere force without any content – a life force in fact and accordingly a force driving principally towards death as the Magic Mountain eloquently illustrates. Accordingly, Settembrini pleads that music “must be preceded by literature”.
The reference to literature seems to be generic here. This is potentially an important point. Literature represents the human activity of creating, interpreting and affirming discursive meaning – critical, conscious and conceptual meaning, perhaps, to be more precise. In the context of the Magic Mountain and under Settembrini’s terms meaning is always critical, conscious and conceptual – the word is seen as the vehicle for critical dialogue. Music, however, is primarily seen to erode such dialogue on account of its intoxicating capacity. At its morally best music is able to enforce and amplify a pre-existing vision of truth. However (this seems to be Settembrini’s point) such a vision of truth must be essentially conceptual. It must underpin any derivative “truth” of music. In fact (and by inference) a perverse vision of reality can be amplified equally powerfully by music and musicians. This is the delusion – and the shame of musicians. Thus, music without a context of conceptual meaning, music without logos remains dangerous because it does not per se further human endeavours of truth seeking.
It is important to acknowledge what this means. In the first instance, it implies that the word, the logos, occupies a privileged position in relation to truth for us and that the abandonment of this privilege may imply an abandonment of civilised conduct. In the second instance it implies that there is no truth seeking limited to music itself. Music is not a realm where truth is disclosed on its own and as such – contrary to the views and wishes of enthusiasts. Music is able to further disclose truth through its dynamism, through its power of taking us “upwards and forwards”, however, such truth must in principle be available to our interpretative horizon in a conceptual grasp. Music (this is the sobering realisation of Settembrini’s conversation) must be dependent. Unless it is dependent it risks becoming morally “suspicious”. The conscious contextualisation of music determines its moral ambiguity.
ZB: Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg, Frankfurt: Fischer, 1982
Kant’s answer
Cynics may argue that the relevance of Immanuel Kant, the enlightenment philosopher, has exhausted itself in obsessively regular and domestic habits. Accounts of Kant’s life often emphasize the anecdotal report that the citizens of Koenigsberg in East Prussia used the philosopher’s predictable afternoon walks as an opportunity to confirm the accuracy of their clocks. Thus Kant is perhaps responsible for more than one Copernican revolution- the habits of the philosopher as a verification of time itself.
However, does attention as a result of order and regularity already constitute relevance? The philosopher is in a difficult position here. Attention and relevance are of vastly differing import to him for his contribution is relevant to the presence of contaminating substances in our spiritual drinking water. Invisible or otherwise indiscernible to most they may only come to attention when the many are already infected by disease. We know that when it comes to water quality, absence seems more relevant than presence. Again, why do we need the philosopher? The philosopher insists notoriously on purification –this makes him relevant and required. It also makes his contribution obscure and at times annoying. Frequently, he remains (and Kant is no exception) unnoticeable to the everyday drinker.
What I have particularly in mind here concerns Kant’s famous conception of “disinterestedness”. This is relevant to our understanding of our attitude to art and our appreciation of its beauty. Particularly in music, where imagination can reign unfettered and passions can be whipped into a frenzy, the idea that our attitude needs to be “disinterested” to appreciate its beauty strikes many as peculiar. One reason for this can be a common misunderstanding which should be eliminated from the start: the disinterested listener is not an uninterested or unengaged listener. To be sure, this is a difficult point to appreciate by many but one upon which we must nevertheless insist.
According to Kant we can distinguish three forms of appreciation and judgment: the appreciation of the good (or bad for that matter) articulates a practical interest or at least an interest in a thing or activity as it exists. If we judge something to be good, we relate its purpose to interests – either real or potential. Judgements about goodness are related to a will to see the object of the judgment realised. A similar relationship is established with the agreeable. If we deem something agreeable we take an interest in its reality and we deem such reality pleasurable. Finding something to be agreeable is thus equivalent to expressing a desire for it- notwithstanding the fact that such a desire may in a concrete sense be tempered or even suppressed.
An appreciation of beauty seems entirely different to Kant. Such appreciation is essentially a contemplative affair. It does not express a desire for real existence or indeed for possession nor does it articulate a conceptual understanding of a practical or pragmatic purpose. Appreciation of beauty – which, we assume for the sake of this context underpins much if not most musical listening- is “solely and alone a dis-interested and free appreciation” as “no interest, neither of the senses nor of reason forces us towards approval” (Kant, Critique of Judgement, § 5).
Such an abstract statement conceals a fair amount of relevance. In the first instance, it alerts us to a distinction of forms of appreciation that in many cases become confused and conflated. It is simply difficult to separate what is good from what is agreeable or beautiful. So musicians frequently find judgments about beauty that are actually judgments about pleasure or interest. There are two immediate explanations for such confusion: either the complexity of the phenomenon does not allow a separation of the appreciation or the person attending to the phenomenon is unable to make such a separation. Schopenhauer identified the latter with lofty arrogance: According to him, “the ordinary person, this factory product of nature which the latter produces daily by the thousands is, as I said, unable to engage in an entirely disinterested perception, which is the genuine contemplation, at least not in any sustained form: He can only direct his attention towards the things in so far as they have some – even very indirect – relevance to his desire” (Schopenhauer, WWV, § 36).
Schopenhauer’s haughty view suggests that a pure appreciation of beauty may be rare and unlikely. Needless to say that in circumstances of increasing focus on individual interest and agenda any capacity for the appreciation of beauty is reduced or eliminated. This is not good news for musicians or listeners who find themselves in contexts where interests are polarised. Polarisation tends to produce determination to cling to – and reinforce interests. In such cases, aesthetic judgements are likely to be increasingly mixed, merging judgments of beauty and the agreeable especially. Pure appreciation of beauty will be rare as it would presuppose a sustained capacity for contemplation.
Should this imply that the notion of “disinterest” must be discarded? A follower of Kant must argue against this. Abandoning a commitment to disinterestedness will leave us with an inability to appreciate the difference between technology, entertainment and art. When it comes to music and musicians such confusion will become very messy and in fact debilitating. Music has an emotional impact on us and it does appeal to be agreeable. It stimulates our desire and interest (with Kant) which means that it does not merely delight us (gefällt) but that it in fact even entertains us (vergnügt). In addition its complexities of conception and creation rely on technical abilities which we will admire and wish to promote. However, neither the appreciation of its quality nor its appreciation as agreeable completes an aesthetic and fully artistic appreciation. In order to take music seriously we will need to attend to its beauty. This requires us to suspend interests and any judgments related to it as agreeable. If we manage to elevate ourselves towards such contemplation, exercise our capacity to suspend desire and interests and attend to the phenomenon in question with the clarity of a disinterested attitude we may in fact step closer to an authentic conservation and advancement of music. Suffice to say that such disinterestedness may become passionate in a peculiar way.
How do you spell “Leinsdorf”?
A slippery discussion with an aspiring conductor and candidate of postgraduate studies caused dizziness above a hollow abyss of ignorance. Our conversation on conductors and conducting had to cut laboriously through pompous defences of narcissism. When we finally arrived at the subject matter of relevant literature the candidate drew blanks. There was much head-nodding (the hands were engaged in writing fervently) and finally the telling question: “How do you spell Leinsdorf?”
The conductor Erich Leinsdorf (author of The Composer’s Advocate- A radical orthodoxy for musicians, Yale University Press: New Haven, 1981) would have appreciated the stunning nature of our conversation. Imagine a doctoral student in physics inquiring about the spelling of “Heisenberg”. The student aside, we would be justified to conclude that the end of the discipline itself was upon us. Leinsdorf, an eloquent advocate for the comprehensive education of musicians and one of the 20th century’s most notable conductors, would agree that any similarly serious conductor must know the subject matter. And knowing the subject matter of conducting would seem to suggest (among other things) knowing more than the names (or the spelling) of those who have significantly formed it. The reality is escaping from such expectations in the case of my conducting candidate whose inability to spell clearly disguised a much more fundamental ignorance and lack of attention.
Conductors and musicians, it seems, are increasingly focussed on impression management and on the imitation of artistic intention. This might be a function of times when a spectacular rise to fame and a capacity to enchant enthusiastic but ignorant patrons is a priority. A pursuit of success at all costs and a reliance on charisma comes at a decreasing ability to face the music and search for an authentic meaning of the score. Authentic forms of musical interpretation and the personal commitment to the truth of music would require involved study of music and its performance history. Busy musicians simply do not have that time. Public expectations do not allow that time. Fudging becomes a way of life. The business of music making increasingly favours individuals with a strong sense for power, a weak sense of the limitations of their knowledge and no sense for the appropriateness of their ambitions. A combination of ambition, ignorance and audacity, however, has rarely produced sustained benefit for all. Accordingly, it can only be helpful to remind all of some important foundations which need to inform the education of musicians with the help of Erich Leinsdorf.
Leinsdorf’s book outlines some pretty clear demands. It argues that musical interpretation is a search for meaning. As such, it requires interpretative skills and a will to truth. It presupposes a capacity to read and understand complex scores in considerable detail. It demands a comprehensive knowledge of performance traditions and contexts. Conductors in particular require a clear understanding of orchestras, their instruments and their modes of preparation. Leinsdorf demands from them the ability to speak at least four languages as conductors must be able to relate directly to operas and their respective Italian, German and French original texts.
Leinsdorf’s conception of the education of an interpreter is grounded in a unified view of human consciousness and creativity. While it is fashionable to emphasise the near-exclusive importance of inspiration to music, Leinsdorf argues for a fusion of grace and intellect: “It is unfortunate”, he writes, “that intellect has been made into an antipode of emotion and inspiration necessary to create great works. Inspiration and intellect are not incompatible; they must complement each other if a composition is to be a masterpiece. We can feel awe at the unfathomable and at the same time recognise the importance of conscious thought and effort.” (CA, 23)
The interpretation of music requires a critical capacity and the search for its meaning demand a critical effort. This focuses on questioning the ideas and clichés which are inherited or accepted and which can determine a prevalent perspective of a musical work. In the context of a performance tradition and readily available interpretations of musical works, critical reflection enables the interpreter to qualify or suspend accepted beliefs thus clearing the path for a new and illuminating conception of a particular work. Critical reflection and creativity are mutually informative. The former suspends habitual modes of thinking through questioning of ordinary responses and interpretations. It leads to an uncovering of new potential and thus a stimulation of creativity and creative initiative. The latter makes proposals and projections which must be questioned and tested. In the interpretative context, some but not all creative ideas are worthy of survival. Some but not all charismatic visions deserve an audience. In addition to aesthetic and spiritual enchantment critical reflection and artistic conscience determine what has a right to survive here.
Musical performance as interpretation thus benefits from reflection. It is fundamentally dependent on the will to engage with letter and spirit of a score – a will to truth. This includes a need to suspend an often predominant concern with the ego of the performer. “Vanity”, Leinsdorf writes, “is indeed the archenemy of the interpreter, because it interferes with his ability to receive messages from other minds. Freischwebende Aufmerksamkeit (“free-floating attention”), a technique that is the sine qua non of dream analysis, is in my view the essential quality for a great interpreter. Unfortunately, the consensus has been that those performers who exhibit the oddest, most flamboyant or most eccentric personalities have the greatest talent. This may seem true, as long as we do not know the composers they perform too intimately. If we do, the performer’s idiosyncrasies and vanities rise to the surface like oil in water.” (CA, 49)
Musicians seem to play multiple roles. Some of these require a presence of a strong and unyielding ego. Others require – what we may call with Leinsdorf – freely suspended attention, ie. an attention that is disinterested to the concerns of its ego but merely present in the pursuit of meaning. We call the latter ordinarily listening. In the case of my faint conductor the roles may become increasingly determined and narrow: an extreme sense of entitlement and importance and a weak sense of responsibility and conscience lead to spiritual deafness. This freezes authentic interpretative engagement – not a good prospect for the musician. While he remains suspended above an abyss of groundless satisfaction those condemned to make music with him experience the absurdity and despair of nonsense.
A fair go for Hanslick
Eduard Hanslick, the notorious Viennese music critic and writer on musical aesthetics, has had a rough time. After a start that was notably spoilt by Wagner’s mocking portrayal of him as Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger he has been disqualified more recently as the “chief polemicists for the absolutists” (Susan McClary). To be sure, contemporary philosophers of the analytical tradition have shown sympathetic interest in- and appreciation for Hanslick, who was incidentally an accomplished pianist with skills in composition. But the reasons for this may ultimately be self-interested: Hanslick’s arguments prove useful to professional philosophers of music. They can be neatly dissected. In addition Hanslick is interested in the nature of emotion and in the role cognition and judgement play in their constitution. This attracts those yearning for an escape from the dissonant curses of consciousness and passion to a life of academic equilibrium.
I am arguing here that Hanslick still deserves a fair go. This may require us to turn down the noise of operatic or academic opinions (two phenomena which in combination wreak havoc on the life of the spirit) and turn directly to a reflection on his essay On the beautiful in Music. Here we find two well-known arguments: a negative thesis that music does not represent emotion and feeling and a positive thesis that music is essentially self-referential – not a language of feeling but simply “sounding, moving form.” It is one characteristic of the Hanslick reception to focus on the distinctness of the arguments all but ignoring that both theses are in fact expressions of a more fundamental and unifying view.
In fact, the crucial point is Hanslick’s contextual understanding that music addresses itself properly to pure intuition. He insists that music is neither an intellectual nor an emotional, but a spiritual art. The human faculty most relevant to music in this context is neither reason (Verstand) nor feeling (Gefuehl) but imagination (Phantasie). “It is peculiar”, Hanslick writes at the outset of his treatise, “how the older Aestheticians merely moved within a contrast between “feeling” (Gefuehl) and “reason” (Verstand) as if the main issue would not have to be settled in between this alleged dilemma” (VMS, 41). The identification of this “in-between” (inmitten) is the important point. It warrants a closer look.
For Hanslick a mediation of emotion and reason is firstly achieved by limiting exclusive claims such as the suggestion that the spiritual essence of music amounts to a representation of emotion (his negative thesis). He is clearly insistent on this as he separates the spiritual from the emotional emphasising the peculiar characteristics of the latter in instances of purely emotional responses to music: “We oppose this pathological seizure (Ergriffenwerden) to the conscious, pure contemplation of the sounding work. This contemplation is the only artistic, truthful form of listening; it qualifies the raw passion of the savage and the gushing reaction of the musical enthusiast as belonging to one class” (VMS, 119).
While we are not mistaken to talk about emotion in relation to music, the exclusive account of music in emotional terms is always incomplete and ultimately inauthentic. Music is a spiritual art. This suggests some affinity with the emotional life, but it also suggests a realm of conception and experience that is autonomous – and ultimately independent from mere feeling. Feelings and emotions are totalitarian and tend to claim exclusiveness. They can in fact establish a tyranny over consciousness overwhelming our spiritual consciousness on its way. In this process they reveal their pathological roots.
Such a decisive demarcation of the spiritual essence of music from emotional representation has often generated a view that Hanslick might instead be advocating some kind of intellectual formalism in his positive thesis of music as “sounding moving form”. This seems equally mistaken. An exclusive approach to beauty through understanding or reason would transform – for Hanslick- our relationship with music from an aesthetic one into a logical one. It would amount to an entirely dispassionate relationship with music. However, “without inner warmth, nothing great or beautiful has been achieved in life” (VMS, 97) Hanslick tells us. Neither logical nor pathological approaches to music have a privileged – or even an authentic place in our relationship with music. Hanslick is clear why this is the case: feeling and reason are merely “boundary regions” of the beautiful. Our perception of sounding beauty occurs through intuition (Anschauung) and takes place in our imagination (Phantasie), its natural homeland–neither in our abstract understanding nor in our feeling alone.
Pure contemplation or intuition (Anschauung) transcend feeling and understanding. The “reflection of the imagination” (Nachdenken der Phantasie, VMS 120) reveals the essentially spiritual characteristic of music. A musical work is “spiritual” (geistvoll)- not merely emotional (gefuehlvoll) or merely logical. Feeling is an appearance of spirit but should by no means be confused with its essence. It is a partial and in extreme dominance an inauthentic appropriation of music. In the case of musical performance feeling assists in the communication of the spiritual dimension of music enlivening the moment of recreation. The performer unleashes the emotional dimension of music through the sensuous attributes of music – music “ravishes” the listener in the “amorphous, demonic power” of the tone itself (VMS, 102). However, this emotional – or ultimately physical- impact of music in performance (pathological in a higher sense) will transform our aesthetic relationship to music into a pathological one if it is afforded exclusive influence.
This instrumental importance of emotion in music should not be confused with the pure contemplation which reveals the work of art as a “pure metal”. Once we contextualise the elementary powers of music, the artistic dimension of music is revealed in spiritual perception. This requires an entirely different attitude towards music in which the reflection of the imagination can perform its unique function. The careful distinction between passion and spirit alone suggests that Hanslick deserves a fair go if only for the reason that our contemporary culture constantly confuses the two.
VMS: E. Hanslick, “Vom Musikalisch-Schoenen”, in: E. Hanslick, Vom Musikalisch-Schoenen, Aufsaetze, Musikkritiken, Leipzig: Reclam, 1982, 33-145.
On Resonance – phenomenological reflections
The phenomenon of resonance is a genuinely musical phenomenon. Naive perceptions may lead us to the conclusion that resonance is enhanced by performers with- or within cavernous spaces. After all, some experience suggests that hard or hollow substances reflect sound more directly. However, hollow-headedness only supports superficial impressions. Music knows the difference between loudness and resonance. Loudness is a characteristic of noise. Resonance, however, is a characteristic of meaningful sound. The latter is not a matter of an arbitrary aggressive return but a result of sympathetic cognition. Resonance requires clear conception and empathic recognition- not mere functional reflection. For a musician this means most certainly that resonance is a phenomenon enhanced by – and in turn enhancing – meaningful listening.
Naturally, such abstract conceptions require further clarification. Why- and how does sound actually sound? Sound requires resonance. It remains mute without resounding. What makes resounding possible? Resonance presupposes a coherence between stimulus and response. The phenomenon of resonance responds to sound because sound and resonance share a common musical logos. Sound calls towards a medium of recognition. The responding medium can provide sound with utmost reinforcement. It can and will do so where sound finds itself within an authentic medium of reflection. We speak here about sound being “true”. Expressed more emphatically: Sound sounds within a medium and resonates within a context of reflection. This medium and context allow sound to sound if sound in turn recognises the authentic characteristics of the embracing context. This implies that sound sounds because it remains truthful to the conditions of its own resonance.
Resonance and sound constitute a dialectic phenomenon. Sound and resonance, the possibility of empathic recognition, inform each other. Sound must recognise its context of resonance. Yet, the context for sound has to be transparent. It must allow sound to travel freely and authentically in its original momentum. If we deny the immanent fulfilment to sound, we inhibit resonance and in fact impede sound itself. This would be an entirely unmusical outcome and contrary to any artistic relationship with sound!
How do we determine the possibilities of resonance for any sound? How do we determine the appropriate sound for any medium of resonance? The answer to these questions seems straightforward to me: We determine sound and its possibilities of resonance through clear perceptions. Clear perceptions imply clear conceptions. Without clear conceptions our mind and our imagination become storage places of noise and confusion. There are manifold ways in which accumulated confusion betrays itself. The most obvious ones are confusing judgements and confused perceptions. Determining sound and resonance then is a form of cognitive purification, an exercise of clear thinking, of clear perception and of clear judgment. The latter – it seems- will thrive where balance prevails and where noisy reverberation as a result of hollow reflection is reduced to a minimum. Resonance of sound is certainly not helped by wobbly reverberations of noise. However, insisting on clear thinking and clear conception will bring forth clear perceptions in due course and enhance true sound.The phenomenon of resonance is a genuinely musical phenomenon. But its importance is not restricted to the playing of music.
Fakery and Forgery: Why Con artists must face the music
Music has a perplexing relationship with truth. According to the analytical philosopher Nelson Goodman known musical works cannot be forged. This supposed characteristic grounds Goodman’s well known classification of music as an allographic art. Allographic works of art are distinguished from autographic artworks. The identity of the latter is defined by a “history of production” whereas the identity of the former is defined by their notation. Autographic artworks such as paintings can be copied. Any such imitation may corruptly claim authenticity. For this to be the case, someone needs to claim- or pretend to claim a particular “history of production” of the work in question. The difference between a copy and a forgery in art is then essentially an historical – not an aesthetic- difference. We establish the authenticity of an artwork by making findings about the true history of an object.
According to Goodman, however, such a differentiation does not apply to pieces of music. A “known” musical work cannot be forged. Goodman’s argument relies on an epistemic grounding of musical identity. We supposedly know a work of music through its notation, that is, when we know its pitches and its timing. We may listen to different versions of a work or encounter different copies of the score. But in effect any copy of the work is simply a different version of the work. A known musical work cannot become subject to forgery because the identity of a copy is – for Goodman – not dependent on a history of production. It is only dependent on the notation of the original score itself. Thus, forging Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is simply a process of copying the score of the original symphony. There may be mistakes in such a copy. There may be instances of deviation from the original, of error and inadvertent or intentional misrepresentation. But, a copy of a notated musical work can never become a forgery. It will always be a “version” of the work.
How good is the argument? And how does it accord with the musical phenomena or realities? Does it account for fakery in music? Does it explain the phenomena of con-artists and musical pretenders?
One problem with Goodman’s view is that his concept of a “known” work is largely unclear. The epistemic conditions under which we can claim to know a musical work are in reality not complete. Knowledge of a musical work is a matter of ongoing interpretation. This process is in essence never closed. The interpretation of a musical work is always incomplete as we continue to search for the meaning of an intentional object. This implies that only a history of reception or interpretation of the score in its totality approximates the known work. In essence we can never fully “know” a musical work. Restricting knowledge of a work to notated symbols, symbols of pitch and duration as Goodman does, does not reflect how we get to know a musical work or why we actually engage with music of the past. I am suggesting that recognising familiar or known works does not sustain our interest. We continue to be attracted by musical works of the past because despite their familiarity they reveal themselves as mysterious and unknown to us. A compelling performance or reading of a “known” work leaves us with a sense of surprise about our ignorance of the work. Such a performance leaves us with a striking impression of having heard the work anew, perhaps even for the first time and in fact suggests that we did not know this work very much at all.
Our dissatisfaction with Goodman’s view has to do with an understanding what a musical score is and what it does. For Goodman, the score is epistemologically a literal device in which a code signifies sound unambiguously. Knowledge of the work is derived from simply reading and articulating the pitches and rhythms. For Goodman, the signs of a score are the necessary and sufficient conditions articulating the identity of a work. However, in practice that is not so. A score or a text (the case is the same in the allographic works of literature) is dependent on a complex context and history of interpretation. This history includes various moments of articulation, from the notation (which is an approximation of the composer’s or author’s imagined conception), through the publication process with its historical determinations and transformations to an entire history of interpretation and reception. A different way of looking at this phenomenon would be to say that a musical work (or any allographic work for that matter) establishes its identity through a complex dialogue between composers or authors, readers or performers and listeners unfolding in time. This dialogue as a whole establishes our knowledge of a work of music. The identity of the musical work cannot be separated from our essentially historical search for its meaning.
There is a slightly different way of looking at this which also alerts us to some potential cultural demands: The musical work is an intentional object. We engage with – and know it through listening. Listening is an active process that includes perception and reflection. Listening is essentially dialogical: The composition and the performance propose. The listener reflects and responds. The musical work is the topic of a historically determined dialogue between creators, re-creators or performers and listeners. This means any concrete knowledge about it is subject to a dialogical unfolding. Listening is an active search for knowledge including dimensions of interpretation. (Adorno seems to imply as much when he speaks of the “riddle-nature” of the musical work) This search can be truthful or it can be faked and even forged, that is, deliberately, pretentiously or corruptly imitated.
Knowledge of a work of music is conditional and contingent on the confidence we have in the authenticity of the history of musical interpretation. A work is only “known” at a point in history because we have confidence in the authenticity of the search to that point. Since authenticity requirements play a part at any point in this dialogue and since they can be conceivably “forged” we can also “forge” the work. Peter Kivy (“How to forge a musical work”, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol 58, 3, 233-235) has provided us with an interesting example which points into this direction: A complex forgery in which a manuscript, supporting historical documentation and aspects of the history of reception are forged can actually alter the identity of a work of music at any point in time. While we would have to revise our conception of any original work at that point, a revision of that intentional conception is possible at the point where the forged aspects are proven to have been faked. However, to establish this we require from all participants in the dialogue a will to truth.
If the combined history of creation and interpretation indeed determines the authenticity of the work of music we are faced with some pretty strong cultural demands: All musical engagement needs to be truthful or we will contribute to the fakery or forgery of musical works. Performers need to be serious in their interpretative search and listeners need to be critical, that is, attentive to the search for meaning. Otherwise the ongoing interpretative dialogue may become a sham. A musical work makes a claim to authenticity and identity by virtue of its history of creation and interpretation. If this history is shaped by fakery or forgery, the identity of the musical work is in question. Music which loses its claim to identity turns instead into decorative babble. The implication for musicians and listeners is clear: Either we face the music truthfully or we endure the tedium of a faceless music.
Impressions, humbug and the listener
A recent essay by the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt discusses the prevalent phenomenon of humbug (Frankfurt, On Bullshit, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). In his essay Frankfurt aims modestly for a development of “a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis” (2). On the path the author exposes a range of phenomena that appear relevant to music and musicians. In particular these include the subtle distinction between lies and bullshit. His discussion has considerable relevance for the presence of falsity and fakery in music.
Before considering the latter further in their relevance to musical listening, however, let me redraw some main points and distinctions. The inventions of the bullshitter, Frankfurt argues, are distinct from those of the liar. The liar recognises the importance of truth – be it through a denial. This recognition motivates in the first instance any falsification and fabrication. However, the bullshitter simply ignores the demands of truth altogether. The bullshitter “does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does and opposes himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all.” (61). The liar wishes “to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality” (55) whereas the bullshitter is unconcerned “how the things …truly are.” (55). Bullshit is a form of brazen ignorance of the kind Socrates condemns as most damaging to an individual’s existence. Bullshit excludes any questioning stance, any capacity and intention to seek refutation of one’s convictions and opinions which is central to truthfulness. The bullshitter ignores (or actively obscures) any path that may lead to truth. Instead she flees the possibility of truth – in spectacular cases with frequent reference to a bold “vision” and noisy acclaim.
Needless to say, the bullshitter thrives in an increasingly complex world where the notion of truth itself has become relative and obscure. Humbug becomes the norm where people feel called upon to hold and articulate views about matters they know too little about. Where listeners shun the arduous journey of discovering facts and of searching for the truth of a matter for themselves – activities that can be difficult, confronting and unsettling- and instead follow comfortable conversation and superficial chatter a humbugger and bullshitter will remain at large, recognised, however, often by a dramatised posture of authority and kaleidoscopic, flamboyant babble.
Whatever the circumstance, bullshitting aims at creating, sustaining and promoting impressions. Bullshit is a form of impressionism and essentially a musical phenomenon. The impressions of the bullshitter are created by performances which resemble music making. They are the result of an energetic flow, advanced often with much conviction and charisma, which persistently stimulates the sensuous perceptions of the listener. Such stimulation seeks to limit the listeners’ capacity to reflect and to think for themselves. It resembles tones and sounds which require persistent sounding. If the sounds appear agreeable and the listeners remain captivated the performance will distract from any further reflections on the validity of the impression. Thus, the bullshitter produces a distracting variety of music: noise, operatic distractions and excitement or intimate and flattering personal attention. These musical manoeuvres suppress reflection and thinking which essentially occur in silence, in calmness and in distance.
Bullshitters and humbuggers are musical performers of a particular kind. They are “pied pipers” – with all the theatrical attributes that serve to orchestrate such a role. They solely seek to captivate and persuade the imagination of listeners – often by appealing to insecurities, fears or needs of their captive rats. They must deny listeners any possibility to inquire into the meaning of their impressions for fear of being discovered- hence the interest of the bullshitter and humbugger in reaching and manipulating the marketplace through publicity, through acclaim and through claims of success. The noise of the marketplace allows the bullshitter to conceal any emptiness of meaning. The marketplace is too noisy for real listening. It is no place for genuine dialogue that might expose substance, but thrives on impressions, on chatter and on gossip. In the marketplace the bullshitter has little to fear. The bullshitter in fact supplies the marketplace with the colourful and noisy monologues that inspire much of her- and its yearnings.
The trouble with all this is that humbug provides us with no opportunity for real listening. Musical listening does not develop from any monologue in the marketplace. It is a dialogical process to which a listener must be invited to bring an autonomous and a qualified reflection. The dialogue between composer, performer and autonomous listener constitutes what is heard in music, its meaning and truth. This dialogue, naturally, can occur within the same person and need not be restricted to a concert-performance in which performers and listeners are in fact separated. In fact any musician is ultimately a composing and/or performing listener or a listening composer and/or performer. The critical point here is that only where the listener is allowed, indeed is challenged by the creator (or the creative consciousness) to unfold an autonomous imagination and critical curiosity does musical listening take place. Such listening as “reflection in action” (Donald Schoen) hears and brings music to presence. It unfolds paradoxically in a context of silence -in other circumstances we hear noise.
The rhetorical, operatic dimensions of musical performance, the overstatement of emotion or the invented projection of drama and excitement which are the hallmark of humbuggers and “pied pipers” leave a listener essentially mesmerized and dazzled. The task of a listener is to constitute musical experience in reflection. This is a difficult and fragile task. It is difficult, because it requires attention and alertness. It is fragile, because it brings some ambiguous attributes of attention to music. As an audience we are in fundamental ways unable to critically challenge our own musical experience without disrupting the perceptual flow at the time. Critical and reflective challenge to this flow which articulates limitations may be undesirable as it disturbs our consciousness while musical performance unfolds. It undermines the musical experience which is primarily sensuous, subjective and particular in nature. A genuine sensory experience needs to position itself initially beyond critical reflection to be freely available and to be appreciated. However, such a position denies authentic aspects of reflection, dialogue and critical listening to the formation of an enlightened experience. How do we close the gap between sensuous immediacy and critical reflection? How do we ensure that our listening is not bamboozled by humbug?
The key here is an understanding of musical – or interpretative listening itself. Musical listening is not merely determined by sensuous particulars, notwithstanding that its primary experience is defined through sensuous particularities. Musical listening in fact reflects, retains, recognises and relates. It relies on conscious transformations, it reacts to emotional projections and it refers to cognitive demands. Musical listening is dialogical. This seems essential to the constitution of musical sense. What we hear does not just sound beautiful, it also does – and must make sense. Music is not a mere kaleidoscope of unrelated, pleasing sounds. Music is a field in which we search for meaning, for sounding, moving form and for clarity. This search takes time, progresses dialogically and with respect to a musical logos. It must be allowed to occur. The listener must be free to exercise it. This search cannot be suffocated by noise or seduced through confusion.
Music has the constitution of a question, a riddle nature (as Adorno puts it). It unfolds best without hysterical noises and without dazzling acclaim. Impression and illusion are contingent in music (as they are elsewhere) upon truthful substance. It is the task of a listener to pursue and search for this substance. It is the task of the performer to assist this search – not to prevent it. This means, however, that a true musician pursues openness of perception, promotes critical alertness, welcomes the unexpected and transforms intuitions and convictions into questions. This is indeed bad news for the humbugger and bullshitter for it suggests that no matter how talented, they serve themselves and not the music.
Music and Leisure
It seems timely to remind all about the relationship between music and leisure. Aristotle does so famously in his Politics which discusses the public and the practical life. The characteristics of this life are its business and urgency. It is a life in which deadlines demand decisive actions and emergencies call for urgent attention. The life of business and politics is driven by the unrelenting pressures of competition, survival and achievement. This life knows no leisure.
The politician busily endeavours to organise the affairs of the polis. Urgent demands for response and action make it unlikely that real reflection enters into any of her decisions. Her mandate requires constant attention to her stakeholders whose interests are pushing her into closure and decision making. Her fate depends on her public standing and on overcoming her detractors. This requires constant attention, at times desperate vigilance. Responding to the pressures of the moment her decisions are likely to be flawed, her thoughts are likely to be confused and her actions are likely to be incoherent.
The trader in the marketplace hurries from opportunity to opportunity. She must incessantly praise her wares, entice her customers or flog her products. Faced with a choice between truth and market- share, she will choose the latter and neglect the former. Any decline of activity and business, of achievement or attention implies in fact a decay of her mode of being. A trader cannot afford to slow her advance. A loss of urgency and business brings a loss of the invented self. The consequences are potentially catastrophic as the groundlessness of this fictional activity is exposed. The trader or politician who defines herself through her active and public life thus lives in constant demand to prove herself and in constant fear to lose herself. She is fundamentally unfree. She is addicted to publicity and gossip. She experiences neither happiness nor “felicity of life”. These – as Aristotle tells us- “are not possessed by the busy but by the leisured: for the busy man busies himself for the sake of some end as not being in his possession, but happiness is an end achieved, which all men think is accompanied by pleasure and not by pain.” (Politics 1338a)
What about music and the musician though? What are the potential characteristics of his activity and art? Aristotle offers one general answer and three detailed possibilities which we must carefully consider: Music is in the first instance a self-sufficient activity and hence a reflection of human freedom and autonomy. It is an activity of leisure, an activity which calls on our capacity for reflection, for listening, for calmness and relaxation and for the acceptance of the present in its presence. Music does not primarily crave public success. It invites human participation. It leads an autonomous existence of creative possibility and freedom. This explains Aristotle’s warning against becoming a professional musician. While professionals will “necessarily perform better than those who practice only long enough to learn” (Politics 1339a) the professional performance of music contains dangers of introducing business, urgency and confusion into this art of leisure. “We may consider” he writes “the conception that we have about the Gods: Zeus does not sing and harp the poets himself. But professional musicians we speak of as vulgar people, and indeed we think it not manly to perform music, except when drunk or for fun.” (1339b).
Aristotle’s point about the barbarity of the professional musician is familiar to us. In fact it is an echo of his insistence in the Nicomachean Ethics that the superior life is the contemplative life, the bios theoretikos. The busy life among practical tasks and acquired things commits to results, to public achievement, to applause and acclaim. It delivers us into a form of slavery. It transforms us in extreme cases into barbarians, into hunters of media fame, into warriors for market dominance and into killers of time. But music rejects haste, urgency and business. It is itself temporal form and it grants us time.
The rejection of urgency and business is by no means a rejection of all activity, though. Aristotle makes it quite clear that only an active life has the potential for happiness. However, the active life needs to be pursued within self-sufficient activity whose ends must not to be confused with spectacular achievements, accumulation of matter or public acclaim. An important passage in the Politics points out that the “active life is not necessarily active in relation to other men, as some people think, nor are only those processes of thought active that are pursued for the sake of the objects that result from action, but far more those speculations and thoughts that have their end in themselves and are pursued for their own sake; for the end is to do well.” (1325b)
This definition of an activity as aiming for “well-doing” (eupraxia) is highly relevant to the musician. It grounds the relationship between music and leisure. Music and music making exist as “energeia” – as actuality. In other words they have their ends in themselves and not in the products of their making. This, however, means that music is not driven by an intention to make a product with attributes that exist outside the activity of production. Music is thus not driven at all. It is leisured – it lets itself- and those who make it- be.
When considering music further, Aristotle identifies three possibilities through which we can identify the leisure of music: Firstly, music may be a form of relaxation (anapausis) which grants us relief from the relentlessness of the every-day. In this sense we engage with music “as one indulges in sleep or deep drinking” (1338b). Secondly, music may be a form of education. After all, it influences our being, forms our character and sounds out our mood creating an attunement to the world. In this way music may accustom us “to be able to rejoice rightly”. (1339a). Thirdly, music may be a form of cultural or “intellectual entertainment” (diagoge), a sophisticated form of cultured leisure. All three possibilities are according to Aristotle relevant to music – it is “reasonable to reckon it under all of these heads”. Their common theme, however, is the self-sufficient activity which identifies music as leisured. Education, relaxation and cultured entertainment all deny the pragmatic urgency of the every-day. Their excellence resides in themselves. They present us thus with the possibility of freedom.
There is a danger that such reflections on music and leisure are perceived as removed, abstract and perhaps irrelevant. However, this is a superficial impression. In fact these thoughts have very real correlations in concrete life. Musicians know that the aim of their performance cannot be – whatever the appearance- the attainment of acclaim and applause. Playing to the gallery will not enable them to be at their best. The aim of music making must be the achievement of “doing well” itself (eupraxia). This attitude aims at potential and achieves the crucial convergence between possibility and actuality.
Musical performance is thus concretely determined by leisure and by the capacity to conceive and work with leisured states of mind, body and spirit. This can be clearly seen when attending performances by highly accomplished virtuosi: their playing is always distinguished by ease, by freedom and by leisure. Their artistry is a combination of intuition, timed intensity and insight within a self-sufficient discipline. Even the most difficult work becomes seemingly effortless in the hand of a master. The virtue of a virtuoso in fact lies in the capacity to distinguish between the heightened intensity of music and the urgent energies which qualify business and politics. Unlike the urgency of noise, the timing of virtuosity is natural and self-sufficient. Unlike the busy trader or fervent politician the musician does not react to deadlines, emergencies or critical situations. The strength of his connection with leisure always includes any concrete realities of playing. He remains self-sufficient in the present, directing this playing into the future. Music as leisure cannot be otherwise. It closes the gap between possibility and actuality.
Music, “subjective innerness” and “fluid, free evaporation”: Remarks on Hegel
Hegel’s thoughts on music do not seem to get as much attention as they deserve. This may be entirely Hegel’s own fault. Hegel repeatedly emphasizes the mystery of music and his own limitations in discussing it. But such scepticism does not necessarily inspire prospective readers with courage to read on. A complex subject matter calls for writers of confidence and conviction. Readers follow ignorant conviction more readily than sincere doubt. Proclaiming uncertainty and exposing difficulty, the philosopher works seemingly against himself.
We are in a similar position in regard to Hegel: we cannot be sure what he actually said about music. His Lectures on Aesthetics are compiled by one Heinrich Gustav Hotho, a Hegelian of the 19th century who did have insights into Hegel’s own lecture notes but cannot be credited with the invention of meticulous, critical scholarship. Since the Lectures were not prepared by Hegel himself for publication we do not really know what Hegel exactly said on this topic.
These doubts aside, Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics say important things about music and its place among the arts. In the historical unfolding, which is Hegel’s characteristic method of analysis, music seems to be the gatekeeper of “romantic art” and indeed of art itself. This is so despite a doubt whether or not music is in fact an art at all. Why do we find such ambiguity in Hegel?
I am suggesting that Hegel tunes in to the phenomenon itself carefully. He notes two points in particular which confront us with significant questions: There is first the essential connection between music and subjectivity. Hegel recognises that music is characterised by its ability to “move the innermost self”. It does so by taking charge “of the ultimate subjective innerness as such” (VüA III, 135). How is that possible? Hegel’s answer is as obvious as it is ingenious in its simplicity: Music and subjectivity share the essential determination of temporality. Time is the force that binds music and the subject. Time is “in music the absolutely dominant” (VüA III, 169). However, time is also the constitutional element of our consciousness. Our ego, our soul and our feeling are in time. Music is essentially temporal. So is our subjectivity. The inverse is equally true: Time is constituted by our subjectivity. Time is also constituted by music. Music and subjectivity are thus ontologically congruent by virtue of their temporality. This enables music to “move” the human soul: “The ego is in time,” Hegel writes, “and time is the being of the subject itself. Since time and not spatiality as such provide the essential element in which the tone in respect of its musical importance gains its existence and since the temporality of the tone is that of the subject, the tone invades the self even according to this commonality, grasps it in its most fundamental being and puts the I into temporal movement and its rhythm into movement.” (VuA III, 156/157) Time is an elemental power through which music and musical tone seizes human perception and experience. Because music is an art of time, music can allow resonance of “the way and mean in which the innermost self is moved itself in regard to its subjectivity and ideal soul” (VüA III, 135).
The primordial power of music places it altogether close to the apex of art. After-all, music identifies, captures and exposes the movement of subjectivity in its abstract and ideal form. However, it does so in a fleeting way. While music seizes the motions of subjectivity, the tone falls silent as soon as the ear has grasped it. “The tone”, we read in Hegel’s Lectures, “only resonates in the depth of the soul” (VüA III, 136). It does not have any objective existence. Music does not endure and it does not achieve objectivity for itself or for the human subject. To be sure, music possesses an elemental power which draws the listener into the musical experience. It seduces the ego towards the embrace with its own temporality. But this embrace also isolates music from any enduring world. The world of music is “fleeting, free evaporation”. It does not establish an enduring presence. While it does reflect and capture our subjectivity it does not do so in any objective sense.
Hegel is careful to distinguish (albeit implicitly) between musical tone and physical sound with this characterisation of tone. If tone truly exists in the depth of the soul only, such existence distinguishes it from the sound of the every-day, from any other audible physical presence in the external world and from any noise. The latter is an unremarkable phenomenon with mere potential significance. The former is temporally determined in its intensity, formed and present to our meaningful perception and interpretation.
Music as tone takes us only on the path towards art: Hegel challenges the musical metaphysics of the early Romantics (eg. Writers like Tieck, Wackenroder and even Herder) who claim metaphysical and even religious importance from the elementary powers of music. The absence of an objectifiable, enduring spiritual content and expression exclude music from any such claim. There is no ontological co-ordination of presence available to music itself. Music is a mere opportunity for the reflective and interpreting consciousness to generate a form of enduring meaning within subjectivity. Music is a mirror in which we recognise ourselves, but it is, it seems, unable to liberate us from the prison of our subjectivity. Music has no metaphysical, let alone, religious significance; it is “spirit and soul, which sounds immediately for itself.” (VüA III, 197)
The failure of music to transcend subjectivity raises our second serious question: Is music even an art or is it not rather a knack, a trick? Music achieves a resonance within the human soul. It leaves a trace but it evades capture. Music has an “elementary power” which draws the listener into a musical experience. But music itself and its tones do not objectify anything, do not endure: “As soon as the ear has grasped it” Hegel writes, “it falls silent. The impression which is to be achieved here is subjectively internalised: the tones only resonate in the depth of the soul, which is seized in its ideal subjectivity and brought into motion” (VüA III, 136). Hence, perhaps, Hegel’s point that music making is a process of “re-collection” (Er-innerung), of the collection and realisation of “inner-experience”. One is tempted here to conclude with Kant that music is merely an “agreeable” art.
Hegel does not wish to believe so and he is keen to affirm the spiritual significance of music nevertheless. He simply does not see that purely instrumental, so-called “absolute” music can achieve this. He sees, however, an opportunity in cases where text is set to music. Unlike E.T.A Hoffmann in his Beethoven enthusiasm, Hegel affirms the superiority of song above purely instrumental music. In his love of the concept Hegel cannot see how an art that is purely ineffable and in addition wordless can have otherwise a claim towards spiritual significance. It is not difficult to see why Hegel places poetry above music: the former contains musical elements and musical characteristics but it articulates itself in the word and achieves a form of objective representation and determination which eludes music in its mere concern with sound. Poetry achieves a synthesis of the dialectic between subjectivity and objectivity, between tone and word, which in music is announced as a possibility but remains unfulfilled in reality.
Hegel still cannot escape the ancient quarrel between word and tone, it seems. Identifying time as an essential determination of subjectivity and music makes an important point, though. It shows that a conception and understanding of time and temporality must be at the heart of our attempts to settle this conflict. Hegel’s solution to elevate music that uses the word above wordless music, however, is only a partial solution. In particular, it is not entirely reflective of musical reality. While the “fluid, free evaporation” of music accounts for the phenomenon in very basic terms, the possibility of music constituting an art of (what the Viennese critic Hanslick calls) “sounding, moving form” is effectively ignored. Despite its evaporating characteristics, musical tones condense into musical material, into melodies, harmonies, rhythmic patterns, themes and structures to which we can refer in an enduring sense, which seem to achieve meaning, objectivity and presence for our intuition. It is a presence that is not merely formal or self-referential: it achieves concrete significance and reference in the practice of interpretation.
The musical form is temporal, not spatial, to be sure. It is accordingly distinguished from the spatial objectivity of a sculpture or painting. But it is nevertheless present, identifiable and enduring. And it can be represented and symbolised in a present and enduring format. The important and interesting challenge is to find an explanation how these two contrasting ontological determinations combine in the one phenomenon. This is not only an intellectual question. It informs the practice, even existence of the musician and the perceptions of the listener. Their attention can focus on musical evaporation. But they can also engage in the (at times arduous task) of interpretation and thus face the musical forms of condensation. Their existence is reflected in this ambiguous and at times conflicting determination. Any perceptions of music as “fluid, free evaporation” or interpretations of it as “sounding, moving form” determine their identity, their mode of being and naturally the musical culture they share.
(References to Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics [VüA III] from G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, Band III. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986.
Power and Truth
Human life is sustained by the instinct for survival and by a drive towards self-affirmation. Nietzsche identified this famously as “the will to power”. Nietzsche also drew attention to the fact that truth and survival do not of necessity form a harmonious balance and may in fact be in conflict. This is already identified by Socrates when he rejects survival as a self-sufficient aim. The dictum that the “unexamined life is not worth living” is an unambiguous affirmation of truth over mere life. The assertion here is that a human life which is merely interested in its own completion and not in its connection with truth looses its legitimacy. Human life – Socrates argues- is not only subject to the will to power, but must commit to a will to truth. This commitment may well come at a paradoxical cost – namely survival itself. Nietzsche in fact argues that such a commitment may be a delusion: the will to truth could be a disguise for a will to power.
If Nietzsche’s view is taken to mean that any search for truth is ultimately a different expression of the will to power, a displacement of physical conflict with intellectual conflict for example for the purpose of domination and survival, humanity, civilisation and community are in doubt. They would in fact be delusions or sentimental distractions. Life is then synonymous with a primordial struggle of all with all. The ultimate purpose of an all-encompassing will to power is domination on all levels. There is a conception of this dialectic paradigm, however, that would afford us a different perspective: A will to power understood without biological or personal value-dimensions may simply describe an ontological principle of growth, of becoming, of gathering, persevering and prevailing. In this most abstract understanding the will to power also describes the structural workings of the will to truth. Such a conception, however, is only possible within a commitment to abstraction in the first instance which has already affirmed the will to truth when seeking to transcend a contingent conception of the will to power as a concrete will towards individual prevalence.
Understood in this way, will to power and will to truth appear in mutual harmony and permeation: Without the will to truth a will to power decays into tribal cacophony. Without the will to power the will to truth remains silent. The balance between will to power and will to truth is an important foundation for the artistry of musicians. While the musician seeks to project his art and articulate his inspiration with force and with a sense of ambition, dominance and self-affirmation, his articulation itself is subject to a discipline and to an art. The musician borrows the intoxicating powers of the rhapsode for a purpose. He harnesses the will to power to sound out truth. He exposes the will to truth to the winds of power. While it is easy for the musician to become intoxicated with the powers of suggestion, such intoxication cannot be sustained and may in fact carry him astray like a somnambulist. Thus in his use of the will to power the musician must remain conscious of his will for truth. Handing himself over to the will to power would not only deny the achievements of civilisation, but it in fact undermines the central foundations of his art.