The Idea of Progress in Music
BY
W. J. TURNER
An excerpt from
ORPHEUS, OR THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE
1926
Introduction
"Orpheus, or the Music of the Future" is a thought-provoking book written by Richard Wagner, one of the most influential composers of the 19th century. Originally published in 1851, the book is a collection of essays that explore the role of music in society and its potential to inspire a new era of human consciousness. Drawing on his own experiences as a composer and conductor, Wagner argues that music has the power to transcend language and cultural barriers and to express universal emotions and ideas. He also explores the relationship between music and other forms of art, such as poetry and drama, and the importance of creating a complete artistic experience for the audience. "Orpheus, or the Music of the Future" is a seminal work that continues to influence music theorists and enthusiasts alike, and offers a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the greatest composers of all time.
The Idea of Progress in Music
In the history of the world as we know it we discover that not all forms of death are immortal. There are animals which are extinct, there are plants which have disappeared, there are flowers which bloom no more. In vain has life fixed their images in that immortality of automatic repetition which we call death. Even death, we seem to find, is occasionally an illusion and its sleep is not more eternal than a man’s dream. It is probable that all things as things are perishable; and we have no reason to believe that even the music of Beethoven will last for ever, or even for as long as man lasts. But there is the problem why some things last longer than others, and this perhaps raises the question of value, of goodness. Here is a new element in the idea of progress. Is it possible to discover any principle in the history of music which explains why, already, Bach has outlasted Frohberger?
If we say that Frohberger is superfluous because Bach is the same as Frohberger, only better, we are saying something very difficult to understand, for how would it be possible to prove that two things can be the same and yet different, one of them being better—except by making goodness depend on quantity? But, obviously, to think that Bach is three Frohbergers is not the same as thinking he is three times as good as Frohberger. As the ordinary man speaks this is not at all what he means. We definitely do think Bach is better than Frohberger, not that he is Frohberger plus a Frohberger fraction. I submit that we think so because we find all Frohberger in Bach plus something more which is not Frohberger. But this has a tremendous consequence for, if true, it means that Frohberger is not unique. He is included in Bach. And may we not think that the music which vanishes from human consciousness is the music which is not unique and that so long as a composer is unique his music will be heard? I believe so. It is reasonable to think that every act, everything created has value. Our minds cannot imagine a Universe in which that would not be true; but we can imagine complex organizations incorporating simpler organizations, which then cease to have a separate existence. Therefore it is possible that nothing goes out of the Universe, and the idea that a thing may be lost seems illusion. Our minds find it difficult to imagine an exit from the Universe. Where? But the incorporation of the lesser within the greater remains, as stated, a mechanical idea. We can find no satisfaction in a mere increasing complexity of structure. “If that is all that makes Bach better than Frohberger”—we can imagine someone saying—“I never want to listen to music again.” The process, we feel, must have a purpose or a meaning. Well, we have forgotten one vital element. Delight. The Universe is the imagination of its delight. If the purpose of the Universe were merely to attain to an ever higher degree of complexity for its own sake it would not be littered with these innumerable shapes of death—the violet, the lily, the rose, the cedar, the oak, the pine, the butterfly, the tiger, the elephant, and all other lovely and curious structures. Even man has not supplanted the ape, nor has the fugue of Bach annihilated the song of the shepherd boy. We may think all these things are unique and that is why they still persist. But what about Frohberger, was he not unique? Why has Frohberger vanished? For if Frohberger was not unique how did he come to appear? Not to be unique is not to exist. Yes, but his uniqueness may not have been in his music. Here at last we have it. And his music does not exist since there is no music which can be said to be his. This is a different kind of non-existence to that of the Dinosaur, the Dodo, the Great Auk. Although their death-shapes no longer repeat themselves upon the earth they have not completely vanished. Their images live in the imagination of man, vivid, individual, unique. We have no such image of Frohberger’s music. It is a shrivelled, meaningless ghost, a letter in the alphabet of music, which has in itself no life. Frohberger’s music is not like the Great Auk, an isolated death-shape of the physical world, nor like the Centaur, an isolated death-shape of the intellectual world, its position in music is that of one of those intermediates which, like the “missing link,” can never be found because the mind works per saltum. Frohberger and the “missing link” are for ever lost in the gaps. All that is without residuary value, all that has been completely incorporated in a new structure disappears thus because it slips through the mesh of the mind—not because the mind is not fine enough to retain the most minute differences, but because it chooses not to perceive. This reconciles the pre-Bach existence of Frohberger’s music with its present non-existence and delivers us from the apparent contradiction; for it allows us to make what is, philosophically, a necessary assumption, namely, that no two things are ever exactly the same, and consequently that Bach’s music does not contain Frohberger’s music absolutely. Therefore the equation is not:
Bach = B(ach) + F(rohberger)
but
Bach = B + (F-X)
X being that unknown quantity which is Frohberger’s uniqueness and which we to-day cannot perceive.
But although art feeds on knowledge as life feeds on death at the same time creating more knowledge, as life creates more death—Ecstasy clothing Himself in Forms—yet there remains much that is mysterious. Why there are different forms of art is a question which insistently recurs. A comparison of music with the other arts in order to discover a value specific and exclusive to music is not likely to enlighten us. Painters talk of “pictorial construction” as the specifically painter’s element which in all good graphic art is wedded to the illustration, psychology, representation or whatever other content a picture may yield, be it ancient or modern. They point out that the spectator is not emotionally moved by the representation of tears but by the rhythm of lines and the recession of planes. The good writer knows that a description of a sad event is not in itself saddening, it may even be comic; but unlike the painter he has no technical term for this essential quality without which literature is mere verbiage—unless, indeed, we apply the word “poetic” to this quality, as we have every right to do. Painting which is without this vital element—call it “pictorial representation,” “significant form,” or what you will—is not art but knowledge or science.1 Literature which is without this “poetic” quality is, again, mere knowledge, mere fiction. We have no need to seek for examples. A dozen famous names leap to our minds. Rather have we to seek for that literature which is poetic. Similarly in music there is a specific, purely musical quality without which music also is mere science. This quality I will call melodic imagination.
And here an interesting fact emerges. In all three arts the valuable element, the element of life is linked with the imagination. In painting pictorial imagination, in literature verbal imagination, in music melodic imagination—imagination always is the magical essence, the power referred to in the lines:
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
And we may be sure that there can be no art unless the word is made flesh—in the forms of painting, literature, or music—and dwells among us. But when we ask ourselves why it should take the form of painting or of words, or of music, it is impossible to give an answer. We can only echo: Why the lily, the rose, the violet? Why the tiger, the elephant, the antelope? Why the Moon, Venus, and the Stars? Ecstasy clothing Himself in Forms.
And still we have failed to discover in music any principle of progress other than increasing complexity of organization and a multiplication of lovely deaths. A principle which does not as yet satisfy our instincts since it seems quantitative rather than qualitative. But perhaps we are on the verge of a discovery.