Abstract
Music tries to tell people something that couldn’t be said in any other way (presentation of a musical idea by means of notes). The highest principle in all presentation of an idea is the law of comprehensibility (Fasslichkeit). The musical saying depends wholly on the degree to which the object is understood: for music as a language to say something, it requires a speaker who understands.
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“[Music] tries to tell people something, by means of notes, that couldn’t be said in any other way. In this sense music is a language. As regards the presentation of musical ideas, obviously rules of order soon appeared. Such rules of order have existed since music has existed and since musical ideas have been presented.”Footnote 1 Naturally, new ways of expressing a musical idea continually emerged as music itself as an art form became more complex and richer (though not always…).
Presentation of a musical idea: what is to be understood by this? The presentation of an idea by means of notes. With this object—to try to express an idea—universally valid laws are assumed. Everything that has […] been strived for, aims at fulfilling these laws. Something is expressed in notes—so there is an analogy with language. If I want to communicate something, then I immediately find it necessary to make myself intelligible. But how do I make myself intelligible? By expressing myself as clearly as possible. What I say must be clear. I mustn’t talk vaguely around the point under discussion. We (German speakers—J. R.) have a special word for this: comprehensibility [Fasslichkeit].Footnote 2 The highest principle in all presentation of an idea is the law of comprehensibility. […] What must happen for a musical idea to be comprehensible? Look: everything that has happened in the various epochs serves this sole aim.Footnote 3
The interpreter must, so far as they can, expand their own sphere of interests so as to achieve this aim progressively by their own means.
What is music? Music is language (it is good when speech speaksFootnote 4—J. R.). A human being wants to express ideas in this language, but not ideas that can be translated into concept—musical ideas. Schoenberg went through every dictionary to find a definition of an ‘idea’, but he never found one. What is a musical idea? [whistles ‘Kommt ein Vogel geflogen …’] That’s a musical idea! Indeed, man only exists insofar as he expresses himself. Music does it in musical ideas. I want to say something, and obviously I try to express it so that others understand it. Schoenberg uses the wonderful word ‘comprehensibility’ [Fasslichkeit] […]. Comprehensibility is the highest law [of creation—J. R.] […]. Unity must be there. There must be means of ensuring it.Footnote 5
The unity is the relationship between the meaning and the means of its expression. It is a mutual dependence because there can be no meaning without its perception. For us, something exists to the extent that we understand it. There can be no expression without an object or phenomenon which is expressed or enunciated. The value of the expression—the musical saying—depends wholly on the degree to which the object or phenomenon is understood. For music as a language to say something, it requires a speaker who understands.
Notes
- 1.
Anton Webern, ‘The Path to the New Music’, lecture, 27th February 1933, tr. Leo Black, in The Path to the New Music, ed. Willi Reich (Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser, 1963), 16.
- 2.
The translator into Russian, Alfred Schnittke, noted that this word, derived from the German verb fassen—to catch, grasp, express, understand, survey, was difficult to translate, in Anton Webern, Лекции о музыке. Письмa [Lectures on Music. Letters], Mikhail Druskin and Alfred Schnittke, eds., Alfred Schnittke, tr. (Moscow: Muzyka, 1975).
- 3.
Webern, ‘The Path to the New Music’, 17.
- 4.
In Lithuanian this is a play on words—“kalbà kal˜ba”—meaning “speech speaks.”
- 5.
Anton Webern, ‘The Path to Twelve-Note Composition’, lecture, 15th January 1932, tr. Leo Black, in The Path to the New Music, 42–43.
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Rimas, J., Rimas Jr, J. (2024). Anton Webern on the “Saying” of Music. In: Etudes on the Philosophy of Music. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-63965-4_25
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