Sound Figures of Modernity: German Music and Philosophy

4. The Will as World and Music: Arthur Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of Music

I begin—musically, of course—with a prelude in order then to permit the fugue (Fuge)—or, more correctly, the un-fugue or nonsense (Unfug)— to follow. The imposition of this prelude is not insignificant. According to one commentator, the composition in question confronts us with what is “probably the most radical musical piece” in history.1 “Musical piece” is a tricky designation, however, because, in order to appreciate it, one must liberate oneself from the prejudice that music is audible. We are dealing after all with composed silence—not the relative silence that, as a literally soundless base, is constitutive of all music, the origin from which it sounds, to which it returns with every pause, and, in which, as an “after,” it ends—but rather an absolute and total silence. The piece is John Cage’s 4´33´´. First performed on August 29, 1952, in Woodstock— which, seventeen years later, would become the site of organized noise and of a happy-go-lucky acoustic megacommune—the piece consists of three individual sets titled, respectively, “Tacit,” “Tacit,” and “Tacit.” Having been generated in aleatory operations according to the I Ching, their lengths of 33´´, 2´40´´, and 1´20´´ generate the name 4´33´´. At the 92 4 The Will as World and Music Arthur Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of Music   Translated by Gerhard Richter beginning of each set, the pianist closes the cover over the keys, opening it once again at the end. Something happens, but nothing can be heard, except a possible rattling and, in the words of Georg Büchner’s Lenz, the “voice that one customarily names silence.” In spite of these strict numerical requirements, Cage does allow the pianist—and the audience— some room to maneuver: the individual sets can be performed more quickly or more slowly, and the silentium can be accelerated or retarded. We hear that the piece not only has a point but is a point. Yet the theme and the form that here become one are predicated on a nothingness whose musical instantiation is indebted to the inspiration Cage found in Zen Buddhism, which is not unfamiliar with the paradox of abstract “white painting.”2 Schopenhauer, the Euro-Buddhist, concludes his main work in an extraordinary fashion by opening onto a barely audible philosophical analogon: a laconic conclusion, set off by a dash that, wishing to perform a true and final cadence, holds its breath and quiets its thoughts before the “real world with all its suns and milky ways” collapses, stating “—Nothing.”3 Could we not therefore say that Schopenhauer’s philosophy, especially his philosophy of music, came into its own with Cage’s 4´33´´ ? In a sense we could. As Lydia Goehr, whose essay “Schopenhauer and the Musicians” inquires into the sounds of silence and the limits of philosophizing about music, points out—without discussing Cage’s 4´33´´— three modes of relative silence are at issue: the meaningful silence of musical language as non-discursive and non-conceptual; the silence that occurs when the philosophy that speaks about music reaches its limit; and the silent presence of Schopenhauer in the history of reception.4 This notion of speaking about a speechless musical language is a paradox to which we will briefly return. On the whole, however, Schopenhauer ’s philosophy of music took paths very different from those that would result in Cage’s 4´33´´. As a result, critics of his philosophy enjoy the indisputable advantage of frolicking without constraint in the realm of the audible. The historical fate of Schopenhauer’s reception, as is well known, has been characterized by extreme variability. Prior to the revolution in March 1848, for instance, his work experienced such limited success as to drive his books into the publishing world’s equivalent of nothingness: shredding and recycling. Following the revolution, however, he ascended to the status of the philosopher, a position he enjoyed until Nietzsche ungratefully broke his teacher’s neck. Yet what is crucial for my The Will as World and Music 93 topic is an appreciation of Schopenhauer’s contradictory reception by certain professions and vocations. Professional philosophers and professors of philosophy, whom Schopenhauer despised and even taunted as “scribblers of nonsense” and corrupt proponents of that which is supposed to nourish—the alma mater—returned the taunting. One hand sullies the other—manus manem non lavat. In contrast, artists, especially musicians, held Schopenhauer in the...