VI
Though
they are quite fragmentary and incomplete and must be elaborated
further at the next opportunity, I wish to emphasize again that
yesterday's lecture and today's are intended to give
teachers in school what they need as background for their
instruction.
Yesterday,
I spoke on the one hand of the role that the interval of the fifth
plays in musical experience and on the other hand of the roles played
by the third and the seventh. You have been able to gather from this
description that music progressing in fifths is still connected with
a musical experience in which the human being is actually brought out
of himself; with the feeling for the fifth, man actually feels
transported. This becomes more obvious if we take the scales through
the range of seven octaves — from the contra-tones up to the
tones above c — and consider that it is possible for the fifth
to occur twelve times within these seven scales. In the sequence of
the seven musical scales, we discover hidden, as it were, an
additional twelve-part scale with the interval of the fifth.
What
does this really mean in relation to the whole musical experience? It
means that within the experience of the fifth, man with his “I”
is in motion outside his physical organization. He paces the seven
scales in twelve steps, as it were. He is therefore in motion outside
his physical organization through the experience of the fifth.
Returning
to the experience of the third — in both the major and minor
third — we arrive at an inner motion of the human being. The
“I” is, so to speak, within the confines of the human
organism; man experiences the interval of the third inwardly. In the
transition from a third to a fifth — though there is much in
between with which we are not concerned here — man in fact
experiences the transition from inner to outer experience. One
therefore can say that in the case of the experience of the third the
mood is one of consolidation of the inner being, of man's
becoming aware of the human being within himself. The experience of
the fifth brings awareness of man within the divine world order. The
experience of the fifth is, as it were, an expansion into the vast
universe, while the experience of the third is a return of the human
being into the structure of his own organization. In between lies the
experience of the fourth.
The
experience of the fourth is perhaps one of the most interesting for
one who wishes to penetrate the secrets of the musical element. This
is not because the experience of the fourth in itself is the most
interesting but because it arises at the dividing line between the
experience of the fifth of the outer world and the experience of the
third in man's inner being. The experience of the fourth lies
right at the border, as it were, of the human organism. The human
being, however, senses not the outer world but the spiritual world in
the fourth. He beholds himself from outside, as it were (to borrow an
expression referring to vision for an experience that has to do with
hearing). Though man is not conscious of it, the sensation he
experiences with the fourth is based on feeling that man himself is
among the gods. While he has forgotten his own self in the experience
of the fifth in order to be among the gods, in the experience of the
fourth he need not forget his own being in order to be among the
gods. With the experience of the fourth, man moves about, as it were,
in the divine world; he stands precisely at the border of his
humanness, retaining it, yet viewing it from the other side.
The
experience of the fifth as spiritual experience was the first to be
lost to humanity. Modern man does not have the experience of the
fifth that still existed, let us say, four to five hundred years
before our era. At that time the human being truly felt in the
experience of the fifth, “I stand within the spiritual world.”
He required no instrument in order to produce outwardly the interval
of a fifth. Because he still possessed imaginative consciousness, he
felt that the fifth, which he himself had produced, took its course
in the divine realm. Man still had imaginations, still had
imaginations in the musical element. There was still an objectivity,
a musical objectivity, in the experience of the fifth. Man lost this
earlier than the objective experience of the fourth. The experience
of the fourth, much later on, was such that during this experience
man believed that he lived and wove in something etheric. With the
experience of the fourth he felt — if I may say so — the
holy wind that had placed him into the physical world. Based on what
they said, it is possible that Ambrose and Augustine still felt this.
Then this experience of the fourth was also lost. One required an
outer instrument in order to be objectively certain of the fourth.
We
thus have pointed out at the same time what the musical experience
was like in very ancient ages of human evolution. Man did not yet
know the third; he descended only to the fourth. He did not
distinguish between, “I sing,” and “there is
singing.” These two were one for him. He was outside
himself when he sang, and at the same time he had an outer
instrument. He had an impression, an imagination, as it were, of a
wind instrument, or of a string instrument. Musical instruments
appeared to man at first as imaginations. Musical instruments were
not invented through experimentation; with the experimentation of the
piano they have been derived from the spiritual world.
With
this, we have described the origin of song as well. It is hard today
to give an idea of what song itself was like in the age when the
experience of the fifth was still pure. Song was indeed something
akin to an expression of the word. One sang, but this was at the same
time a speaking of the spiritual world. One was conscious that if one
spoke of cherries and grapes one used earthly words; if one spoke of
the gods, one had to sing.
Then
came the time when man no longer had imaginations. He still retained
the remnants of imaginations, however, though one does not recognize
them as such today — they are the words of language. The
spiritual element incarnated into the tones of song, which in turn
incarnated into the elements of words. This was a step into the
physical world. The inner emancipation of the song element into arias
and the like took place after that; this was a later development.
If
we return to the primeval song of humanity, we find that it was a
speaking of the gods and of the proceedings of the gods. As I
mentioned earlier, the fact of the twelve fifths in the seven scales
is evidence that the possibility of motion outside the human realm
existed in music in the interval of the fifth. Only with the fourth
does man really approach himself with the musical element.
Yesterday,
someone said quite rightly that man senses an emptiness in the
interval of the fifth. Naturally, he must experience something empty
in the fifth, since he no longer has imaginations, and the fifth
corresponds to an imagination while the third corresponds to a
perception within man's being. Today, therefore, man feels an
emptiness in the fifth and must fill it with the substantiality of
the instrument. This is the transition of the musical element from
the more spiritual age to the later materialistic age.
For
earlier ages, the relationship of musical man to his instrument must
be pictured as the greatest possible unity. A Greek actor even felt
the need of amplifying his voice with an instrument. The process of
drawing the musical experience inward came later. Formerly, man felt
that in relation to music he carried a certain circle of tones within
himself that reached downward, excluding the realm of tones below the
contra-c. Upward, it did not reach the tones beyond c but was a
closed circle. Man then had the consciousness, “I have been
given a narrow circle of the musical element. Out there in the cosmos
the musical element continues in both directions. I need the
instruments in order to reach this cosmic musical element.”
Now
we must take the other aspects of music into consideration if we wish
to become acquainted with this whole matter. The center of music
today is harmony. I am referring to the sum total of music, not song
or instrumental music. The element of harmony takes hold directly of
human feeling. What is expressed in harmonies is experienced by human
feeling. Now, feeling passes into thinking [Vorstellen].
[In the following passages, Vorstellen, the forming
of mental images, or the lower aspect of thinking, has been translated
thinking, in its relationship to feeling and willing.]
In looking at the human being, we can say that we have feeling in the
middle; on the one hand we have the feeling that passes into
thinking, on the other hand we have the feeling that passes into
willing. Harmony directly addresses itself to feeling and is
experienced in it. The whole emotional nature of man, however, is
actually twofold. We have a feeling that is more inclined to thinking
— when we feel our thoughts, for instance — and we have a
feeling more inclined to willing. When we engage in an action, we
feel whether it pleases or displeases us; in the same way, we feel
pleasure or displeasure with an idea. Feeling is actually divided
into these two realms.
The
peculiar thing about the musical element is that neither must it
penetrate completely into thinking — because it would cease to
be something musical the moment it was taken hold of by the brain's
conceptual faculty — nor should it sink down completely into
the sphere of willing. We cannot imagine, for example, that the
musical element itself could become a direct will impulse without
being an abstract sign. When you hear the ringing of the dinner bell,
you will go because it announced that it is time to go for dinner,
but you will not take the bell's musical element as the impulse
for the will. This illustrates that music should not reach into the
realm of willing any more than into that of thinking. In both
directions it must be contained. The musical experiences must take
place within the realm situated between thinking and willing. It must
unfold in that part of the human being that does not belong at all
to ordinary day-consciousness but that has something to do with that
which comes down from spiritual worlds, incarnates, and then passes
again through death. It is present in the subconscious, however. For
this reason, music has no direct equivalent in outer nature. In
adapting himself to the earth, man finds his way into what can be
grasped conceptually and what he wills to do. Music, however, does
not extend this far into thinking and willing; yet, the element of
harmony has a tendency to stream, as it were, toward thinking. It
must not penetrate thinking, but it streams toward it. This streaming
into the region of our spirit, where we otherwise think [vorstellen],
is brought about by the harmony out of the melody.
The
element of melody guides the musical element from the realm of
feeling up to that of thinking. You do not find what is contained in
thinking in the thematic melody, but the theme does contain the
element that reaches up into the same realm where mental images are
otherwise formed. Melody contains something akin to mental images,
but it is not a mental image; it clearly takes its course in the life
of feeling. It tends upward, however, so that the feeling is
experienced in the human head. The significance of the element of
melody in human nature is that it makes the head of the human being
accessible to feelings. Otherwise, the head is only open to the
concept. Through melody the head becomes open to feeling, to actual
feeling. It is as if you brought the heart into the head through
melody. In the melody you become free, as you normally are in
thinking; feeling becomes serene and purified. All outer aspects are
eliminated from it, but at the same time it remains feeling through
and through.
Just
as harmony can tend upward toward thinking, so it can tend downward
toward willing. It must not penetrate the realm of willing, however;
it must restrain itself, as it were, and this is accomplished through
the rhythm. Melody thus carries harmony upward; rhythm carries
harmony in the direction of willing. This is restricted willing, a
measured will that runs its course in time; it does not proceed
outward but remains bound to man himself. It is genuine feeling that
extends into the realm of willing.
Now
it becomes understandable that when a child first enters school, it
comprehends melodies more readily than harmonies. Of course, one must
not take this pedantically; pedantry must never play a role in the
artistic. It goes without saying that one can introduce the child to
all sorts of things. Just as the child should comprehend only fifths
during the first year of school — at most also fourths, but not
thirds; it begins to grasp thirds inwardly only from age nine onward
— one can also say that the child easily understands the
element of melody, but it begins to understand the element of harmony
only when it reaches the age of nine or ten. Naturally, the child
already understands the tone, but the actual element of harmony can
be cultivated in the child only after the above age has been reached.
The rhythmic element, on the other hand, assumes the greatest variety
of forms. The child will comprehend a certain inner rhythm while it
is still very young. Aside from this instinctively experienced
rhythm, however, the child should not be troubled until after it is
nine years old with the rhythm that is experienced, for example, in
the elements of instrumental music. Only then should the child's
attention be called to these things. In the sphere of music, too, the
age levels can indicate what needs to be done. These age levels are
approximately the same as those found elsewhere in Waldorf education.
Taking
a closer look at rhythm, we see that since the rhythmic element is
related to the nature of will — man must inwardly activate his
will when he wishes to experience music — it is the rhythmic
element that kindles music in the first place. Regardless of man's
relationship to rhythm, all rhythm is based on the mysterious
connection between pulse and breath, the ratio of eighteen breaths
per minute to an average of seventy-two pulse beats per minute. This
ratio of 1:4 naturally can be modified in any number of ways; it can
also be individualized. Each person has his own experience regarding
rhythm; since these experiences are approximately the same, however,
people understand each other in reference to rhythm. All rhythmic
experience bases itself on the mysterious relationship between
breathing and the heartbeat, the circulation of the blood. One thus
can say that while the melody is carried from the heart to the head
on the stream of breath — and therefore in an outer slackening
and inner creation of quality — the rhythm is carried on the
waves of the blood circulation from the heart to the limbs, and in
the limbs it is arrested as willing. From this you can see how the
musical element really pervades the whole human being.
Picture
the whole human being who experiences the musical element as a human
spirit: the ability to experience the element of melody gives you the
head of this spirit. The ability to experience the element of harmony
gives you the chest, the central organ of the spirit; and the ability
to experience rhythm gives you the limbs of the spirit. What have I
described for you here? I have described the human etheric body. If
only you depict the whole musical experience, and if you do this
correctly, you actually have before you the human etheric body. It is
just that instead of “head” was say, “melody”;
instead of “rhythmic man” — because it is lifted
upward — we say, “harmony”; and instead of “limb
man” — we cannot say here, “metabolic man” —
we say, “rhythm.” We have the entire human being
etherically before us. The musical experience is nothing else than
this. The human being really experiences himself as etheric body in
the experience of the fourth, but a kind of summation forms within
him. The experience of the fourth contains a touch of melody, a touch
of harmony, a touch of rhythm, but all interwoven in such a way that
they are no longer distinguishable. The entire human being is
experienced spiritually at the threshold in the experience of the
fourth: one experiences the etheric human being.
If
today's music were not a part of the materialistic age, if all
that man experiences today did not contaminate the musical element,
then, based on what man possesses today in the musical element —
which in itself has attained world-historical heights — he
could not but be an anthroposophist. If you wish to experience the
musical element consciously, you cannot but experience it
anthroposophically.
If
you take these things as they are, you can ponder, for example, over
the following point: everywhere in ancient traditions concerning
spiritual life, mention is made of man's sevenfold nature. The
theosophical movement also adopted this view of the sevenfold nature
of the human being. When I wrote my
Theosophy,
[Rudolf Steiner,
Theosophy,
Anthroposophic Press, Spring Valley, N.Y., 1971.]
I had to speak of a ninefold nature, further dividing the three
individual members. I arrived at a sevenfold from a ninefold
organization.
| Diagram 7 Click image for large view | |
Since
three and four overlap, as do six and seven, I too, arrived at the
sevenfold human being in
Theosophy.
This book, however, never
could have been written in the age dominated by the experience of
the fifth. The reason is that in that age all spiritual experience
resulted from the awareness that the number of planets was contained
in the seven scales, and the number of signs in the Zodiac was
contained in the twelve fifths within the seven scales. The great
mystery of man was revealed in the circle of fifths, and in that
period you could not write about theosophy in any way but by arriving
at the sevenfold human being. My
Theosophy
was written in an
age during which predominantly the third is experienced by human
beings, in other words, in the age of introversion. One must seek the
spiritual in a similar way, descending from the interval of the fifth
by division to the interval of the third. I therefore also had to
divide the individual members of man. You can say that those other
books that speak of the sevenfold human being stem from the tradition
of the age of fifths, from the tradition of the circle of fifths. My
Theosophy
is from the age in which the third plays the
dominant musical role and in which, because of this, the complication
arises that the more inward element tends toward the minor side, the
more outward element toward the major side. This causes the
indistinct overlapping between the sentient body and sentient soul.
The sentient soul relates to the minor third, the sentient body to
the major third. The facts of human evolution are expressed in
musical development more clearly than anywhere else. As I already
told you yesterday, however, one must forego concepts; abstract
conceptualizing will get you nowhere here.
When
it comes to acoustics, or tone physiology, there is nothing to be
gained. Acoustics has no significance, except for physics. A tone
physiology that would have significance for music itself does not
exist. If one wishes to comprehend the musical element, one must
enter into the spiritual.
You
see how the interval of the fourth is situated between the fifth and
the third. Man feels transported in the fifth. In the third he feels
himself within himself; in the fourth he is on the border between
himself and the world. Yesterday I told you that the seventh was the
dominant interval for the Atlanteans. They had only intervals of the
seventh, though they did not have the same feeling as we have today.
When they made music they were transported completely beyond
themselves; they were within the great, all-pervading spirituality of
the universe in an absolute motion. They were being moved. This
motion was still contained in the experience of the fifth as well.
Again, the sixth is in between. From this we realize that man
experiences these three steps, the seventh, the sixth, and the fifth,
in a transported condition; he enters into his own being in the
fourth; he dwells within himself in the third. Only in the future
will man experience the octave's full musical significance. A
bold experience of the second has not yet been attained by him today;
these are matters that lie in the future. When man's inner life
intensifies, he will experience the second, and finally he will be
sensitive to the single tone.
If
you focus on what is said here, you will grasp better the forms that
appear in our tone eurythmy. You will also grasp something else. You
will, for example, grasp the reason that out of instinct the feeling
will arise to interpret the lower segments of the octave — the
prime, second and third — by backward movements and in the case
of the upper tones — the fifth, sixth, and seventh — by
forward movements.
| Diagram 8 Click image for large view | |
These
are more or less the forms that can be used as stereotypical forms,
as typical forms. In the case of the forms that have been developed
for individual musical compositions, you will be able to sense that
these forms express the experience of the fourth or the fifth.
| Diagram 9 Click image for large view | |
In
eurythmy it is necessary that this part here — the descent of
harmony through rhythm into willing — finds emphatic expression
in form. The individual intervals thus are contained in the forms as
such, executed by the eurthymist. Then, however, that which passes
from the intervals into rhythm must be experienced fully by the
performer in these forms; and quite by itself the instinct will arise
to make as small a movement as possible without standing still in the
case of the fourth. You see, the fourth is in fact a real perceiving,
but a perceiving from the other side. It would be as if the eye, in
perceiving itself, would have to look back upon itself; this, then,
is the experience of the fourth gained from the soul.
The
interval of the fifth is a real experience of imagination. He who can
experience fifths correctly is actually in a position to know on the
subjective level what imagination is like. One who experiences sixths
knows what inspiration is. Finally, one who fully experiences
sevenths — if he survives this experience — knows what
intuition is. What I mean is that in the experience of the seventh
the form of the soul's composition is the same as clairvoyantly
with intuition. The form of the soul's composition during the
experience of the sixth is that of inspiration with clairvoyance. The
experience of the fifth is a real imaginative experience. The same
composition of soul need only be filled with vision. Such a
composition of soul is definitely present in the case of music.
This
is why you hear everywhere that in the older mystery schools and
remaining mystery traditions clairvoyant cognition is also called
musical cognition, a spiritual-musical cognition. Though people today
no longer know why, the mysteries refer to the existence of two kinds
of cognition, ordinary bodily, intellectual cognition and spiritual
cognition, which is in fact a musical cognition, a cognition living
in the musical element. It would not actually be so difficult to
popularize the understanding of the threefold human being if only
people today were conscious of their musical experiences. Certainly
to some extent people do have sensitivity for the experience of the
musical element. They actually stand alongside it. The experience of
the musical element is as yet quite limited. If it were really to
become alive in man, he would feel: my etheric head is in the element
of melody, and the physical has fallen away. Here, I have one aspect
of the human organization. The element of harmony contains the center
of my etheric system; again, the physical has fallen away. Then we
reach the next octave; again in the limb system — it is obvious
and goes without saying — I find the element that appears as
the rhythmic element of music.
How,
indeed, does the musical evolution of man proceed? It begins with the
experience of the spiritual, the actual presence of the spiritual in
tone, in the musical tone structure. The spiritual fades away; man
retains the tone structure. Later, he links it with the word, which
is a remnant of the spiritual; and what he had earlier as
imaginations, namely the instruments, he fashions here in the
physical, out of physical substance, as his musical instruments. To
the extent that they arouse the musical instruments, man simply
filled the empty spaces that remained after he no longer beheld the
spiritual. Into those spaces he put the physical instruments.
It
is correct to say that in music more than anywhere else one can see
how the transition to the materialistic age proceeds. In the place
where musical instruments resound today, spiritual entities stood
formerly. They are gone, they have disappeared from the ancient
clairvoyance. If man wishes to take objective hold of the musical
element, however, he needs something that does not exist in outer
nature. Outer nature offers him no equivalent to the musical element;
therefore, he requires musical instruments.
The
musical instruments basically are a clear reflection of the fact that
music is experienced by the whole human being. The wind instruments
prove that the head of man experiences music. The string instruments
are living proof that music is experience in the chest, primarily
expressed in the arms. All percussion instruments — or those in
between string and percussion instruments — are evidence of how
the musical element is expressed in the third part of man's
nature, the limb system. Also, however, everything connected with the
wind instruments has a more intimate relation to the melody than that
which is connected with string instruments which have a relation to
the element of harmony. That which is connected with percussion
possesses more inner rhythm and relates to the rhythmic element. An
orchestra is an image of man; it must not include a piano, however.
Why is that? The musical instruments are derived from the spiritual
world; the piano, however, in which the tones are abstractly lined up
next to each other, is created only in the physical world by man. All
instruments like the flute or violin originate musically from the
higher world. A piano is like the Philistine who no longer contains
within him the higher human being.
The piano is the Philistine
instrument. It is fortunate that there is such an instrument, or else
the Philistine would have no music at all. The piano arises out of a
materialistic experience of music. It is therefore the instrument
that can be used most conveniently to evoke the musical element
within the material realm. Pure matter was put to use so that the
piano could become an expression of the musical element. Naturally,
the piano is a beneficial instrument — otherwise, we would have
to rely from the beginning on the spiritual in musical instruction in
our materialistic age — but it is the one instrument that
actually, in a musical sense, must be overcome. Man must get away
from the impressions of the piano if he wishes to experience the
actual musical element.
It
is therefore always a great experience when a composition by an
artist who basically lives completely in the element of music, such
as Bruckner, is played on the piano. In Bruckner's
compositions, the piano seems to disappear in the room! One forgets
the piano and thinks that one is hearing other instruments; this is
indeed so in Bruckner's case. It proves that something of the
essentially spiritual, which lies at the basis of all music, still
lived in Bruckner, though in a very instinctive way.
These
are the things that I wished to tell you today, though in a
fragmentary, informal way. I believe we will soon have an opportunity
to continue with these matters. Then, I shall go into more detail
concerning this or that aspect.
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