Warning Concerning Copyright Restrictions The Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research. If electronic transmission of reserve material is used for purposes in excess of what constitutes "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. -----------~~--·- .. -· The German Library: Volume 27 Arthur ·Schopenhauer Volkmar Sander, General Editor PHILOSOPHICAL EDITORIAL BOARD WRITINGS Peter Demetz (Yale University) Reinhold Grimm (University of California) Jost Hermand (University of Wisconsin) Edited by Wolfgang Schirmacher Patricia A. Herminghouse (University of Rochester) Walter Hinderer (Princeton University) Victor Lange (Princeton University) Frank G. Ryder (University of Virginia) Volkmar Sander (New York University) Egon Schwarz (Washington University) A. Leslie Willson (University of Texas) CONTINUUM • NEW YORK 112 • On History an attempt to achieve this; to some extent the latter ar~ older than the former. For who will believe that those who, at 1Dcalculable cost set in motion the human powers of many thousands through­ out ~any years, in order to erec;t pyramids, monoliths, rock tombs, /:: obelisks, temples, and palaces, which still stand after thousands of ,:\ years, could have had in view only themselves, the short span of 11 their own life, too short to enable them to see the end of the On the Metaphysics of Music \1' construction or even the ostensible purpose that the uncultured . ·, state of the ~asses required them to use as a pretext? Obviously ·'·.\'·i the real purpose was to speak to their latest descenda~ts, to enter I into relationship with these, and thus to restore to umty the ~on­ sciousness of mankind. The buildings of the Hindus, Egyptians, he outcome of my discussion of the real significance of this even of the Greeks and Romans, were calculated to last for several T wonderful art, which is given in the passage of volume 1 re­ thousand years, because, through higher culture, their horizon was ferred to below, and is here present in the mind of the reader broader. On the other hand, the buildings of the Middle Ages and was tha~ there is indeed of necessity no resemblance between i~ of modern times were intended to last a few centuries at most. producttons and the world as representation, i.e., nature, but that This is due also to the fact that more confidence was placed in there must be a distinct parallelism, which was then also demon­ writing, after its use had become more gene~al, and even more strated. I have still to add some fuller particulars of this parallelism after the art of printing had been born from its womb. Yet even that _are worth noting. The four voices or parts of all harmony, in the buildings of more recent times we see the urge to speak to that as, bass, tenor, alto, and soprano, or fundamental note, third, posterity; it is therefore scandalous when they are destroye~ or fif~, and octave, correspond to the four grades in the series of disfigured, to let them serve base, utilitarian purposes. Written existences, ~ence t~ the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, and monuments have less to fear from the elements, but more from to man. This obtams an additional and striking confirmation in barbarians than have stone monuments; they achieve much more, the ~ndamental rule of music, which states that the bass should The Egyptians sought to unite both kinds by coveri~g.thei~ stone remam at a much greater interval below the three upper voices or monuments with hieroglyphs; indeed, they added pa1Dtmgs ID case parts than these have between themselves, so that it may never the hieroglyphs should no longer be understood. approach nearer to them than an octave at most, but often remains Translated by E. F. ]. Payne even further below them. Accordingly, the correct triad has its pl~ce in the third octave from the fundamental note. In keeping :1th t~is, the effect of extended harmony, where the bass remains b! a ~,stance from the other parts, is much more powerful and autaful than that of close harmony, where the bass is moved up ~:arer ~o ~hem. Such close harmony is introduced only on account . bthe hm1ted range of the instruments. This whole rule however thIS y no means arb' 1trary, but has its. root ID. the natural' origin of, e tonal system, namely, insofar as the shortest harmonic inter- Vas1 , wh· 1c h soun d ID· uruson· b y means of the secondary vibrations, / / 114 • On the Metaphysics of Music Arthur Schopenhauer • 115 are the octave and its fifth. In this rule we recognize the musical only an entirely subordinate position, and adapt themselves com­ analogue of the fundamental disposition of nature, by virtue of pletely t.o it. But the relation assumes the opposite aspect in regard which organic beings are much more closely related among ~em­ to the given poetry, and hence to the song or libretto of an opera, selves than they are to the inanimate, inorganic mass of the mineral to which a piece of music is added. For in these the musical art at kingdom. Between this and them are placed the most decided once shows its power and superior capacity, since it gives the most boundary and the widest gulf in the whole of nature. The high profound, ultimate, an~ secret information on the feeling expressed voice, singing the melody, is of course at the same time an integral m the words, or the action presented in the opera. It expresses their part of the harmony, and in this is connected even with the deepest real and true nature, and makes us acquainted with the innermost ground bass. This may be regarded as the analogue of the fact that soul ~f the events and occurrences, the mere cloak and body the same matter that in a human organism is the supporter of the of whi~ are p~esented o~ the stage. With regard to this superiority idea of man must nevertheless at the same time manifest and sup­ of music, and insofar as it stands to the text and the action in the port the ideas of gravity and of chemical properties, hence the ideas relation of universal to particular, of rule to example, it might of the lowest grades of the will's objectification. perhaps appear more suitable for the text to be written for Because music does not, like all the other arts, exhibit the ideas the music than for the music to be composed for the text. With or grades of the will's objectification, but directly the will itself, we the usual method, however, the words and actions of the text lead can also explain that it acts directly on the will, i.e., the feelings, the composer to the affections of the will that underlie them and passions, and emotions of the hearer, so that it quickly raises these call up in him the feelings to be expressed; consequently the; act or even alters them. as a means for exciting his musical imagination. Moreover that Far from being a mere aid to poetry, music is certainly an inde­ ~e a~~ition of poetry to music is so welcome, and a son; with pendent art; in fact, it is the most powerful of all the arts, and mtelhgible words give such profound joy, is due to the fact that therefore attains its ends entirely from its own resources. Just as o~r most <fu:ect and most indirect methods of knowledge are here certainly, it does not require the words of a song or the action of sttmulated simultaneously and_ in union. Thus the most direct is an opera. Music as such knows only the tones or notes, not the that for which music expresses the stirrings of the will itself but causes that produce them. Accordingly, even the vox humana is for the most indirect that of the concepts denoted by words. With the it originally and essentially nothing but a modified tone, just like l~n~age of th~ feelings, our faculty of reason does not willingly that of an instrument; and like every other tone, it has the charac­ sit m complete idleness. From its own resources, music is certainly teristic advantages and disadvantages that are a consequence of able to express every movement of the will, every feeling· but the instrument producing it. Now in this case it is an accidental through the addition of the words, we receive also their objects, circumstance that this very instrument serves in a different way the motives ~at give rise to that feeling. The music of an opera, as the organ of speech for the communication _of _concepts, a~d as ~resented m the score, has a wholly independent, separate, and incidentally, of course, music can make use of this circumstance m as lt were abstract existence by itself, to which the incidents and order to enter into a relationship with poetry. But it must never characters of the piece are foreign, and which follows its own un­ make this the main thing, and be entirely concerned only with the changeable rules; it can therefore be completely effective even with­ expression of what are often, indeed essentially, silly and insipid out the text. But as this music was composed with respect to the verses (as Diderot gives us to understand in Le Neveu de Rameau).