Music

All that is musical and that comes to us as tone, comes forth from the spirit world, and the music of the spheres express themselves physically in musical tones.

When a Man listens to music he has an experience through the senses and the astral body, and the stronger the astral body resounds, the more strongly do its tones echo in the etheric body and overcome the etheric body's own natural rhythms. The rhythms flow into and lay hold of the etheric body and causing it to vibrate in tune with them, and this harmonious response of the ether-body gives pleasure when listening to music.

The experience of music elevates the soul, and Man is living in touch with the true home of his spirit and feels the echo of the inmost life of things, a life related to his own.

Aspects

• All that is musical and that comes to us as tone, comes forth from the spirit world. The tones of the weaving and waves in the spirit world, express themselves in music, in physical tone. These tones work on the human etheric body, in truth actually on Man's higher bodily members (as the transformed etheric body is life-spirit or buddhi). (1908-10-26-GA244 - Q&A 172.2)
• the seven members of the human astral body are interrelated as are the tones of the scale, the various tones of the melody are experienced inwardly in the corresponding member of the astral body. (1914-12-29-GA275)
  • The interval of a third is experienced in the part of the astral body which corresponds to the astral body itself; an interval of a third can correspond either to the astral body or to the sentient soul: in the one case we have the major third and in the other the minor third.
  • A fourth is experienced in the part of the astral body which corresponds to the intellectual soul
  • A fifth is experienced in the part of the astral body which corresponds to the consciousness soul
• minor and major keys:
  • If the tones set up in the sentient astral body are so strong that they master the tones of the ether-body, the result is cheerful music in a major key. A minor key indicates that the ether-body has prevailed over the sentient body; and the painful feeling that ensues gives rise to the most serious melodies. (1906-12-03-GA283)
• music imprints itself upon the human astral body and remains there and vibrates for about thirty years after death (1920-09-16-GA302A)
• musical 'scales': pentatonic, diatonic, chromatic.
  • The pentatonic scale only has whole steps and minor thirds between each note, so it has five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations and are still used in various musical styles to this day. There are two types of pentatonic scales: those with semitones (hemitonic) and those without (anhemitonic).
  • The diatonic scale has half steps and whole steps between each note. These half steps add tension and a different color.
  • The chromatic scale has twelve pitches, each a semitone above or below its adjacent pitches.The chromatic scale is a set of twelve pitches used in tonal music, with notes separated by the interval of a semitone
  • Note: Indian music uses other concepts such shruti (smallest interval of pitch that the human ear can detect and a singer or musical instrument can produce) and svara (or swara-graam, concept of Indian music comprising seven + five= twelve most useful musical pitches.

Musical arts

• Music is one of the seven liberal arts, and one of the four in the Quadrivium (going back to ancient Greece) as subjects related to 'number' (arithmethic, geometry (number in space), 'harmony' or music (number in time), and astronomy (number in space and time).
• Schopenhauer assigned music a central place among the arts, stating the composer discerns with his spiritual ear the pulse-beat of the Will. (1906-12-03-GA283)
• composers of classical music: Mozart, Bach, Richard Wagner, Brucker

Evolutionary

• fifth epoch:
  • In the third cultural age of the sentient soul, the teachers of humanity such as Skythianos and Orpheus taught through music. Music engenders forces which set free in the sentient soul something, which, when it rises into the consciousness and has been worked upon by the spiritual soul, becomes logical thinking. (1909-10-25-GA116)
  • future of fifth epoch: the most significant impulse by initiates will be given solely in the sphere of music .. for the fifth epoch music will be not merely art, but the means of expression for quite other things than the purely artistic .. not an astral influx but a force called kundalini fire in the sphere of the mental life (1904-10-28-GA092)
• evolving consciousness and the spectrum of elements and ethers
  • experience of the seventh (Atlantean epoch) –> fifth (Postatlantean epoch) -> third (recent in Postatlantean epoch)-> full octave single note (1923-05-23-GA224)

Various

• Christ in music (1924-08-22-GA243)
• music therapy
  • anthroposophic therapeutic singing was first developed by Valborg Werbeck-Svãrdström in collaboration with Rudolf Steiner over 12 years from 1912-1924, further developed by Mrs. Werbeck and shared with Jürgen Schriefer, who furthered the work with o.a. Thomas Adam. Training courses began in the late 1990’s on three continents - see more in 'Further reading' section below
• other related
  • for the etheric formative forces of music, see eg Theroux's book under 'Further reading', and Cymatics (see placeholder: Hints of future etheric force technology#Note 2 - Cymatics, Chladni patters and Visual audio)

Inspirational quotes

attributed to Plato, but no record of this exact phrasing in his works .. seems to be a paraphrase of Plato’s broad philosophy on music as he wrote extensively about music and its influence on the soul a.o. in 'The Republic' where he discusses the moral and educational value of music and emphasizes that music plays a key role in shaping the character and moral virtue of individuals; and that music can harmonize the soul and align individuals with the virtues of justice and goodness.

Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good and just and beautiful.

Novalis

Every disease is a musical problem; every cure is a musical solution.

1906-07-29-GA097

Wagner's music holds within it all the truths that are contained in the Parsifal story. His music is of such a unique character that those who listen to it receive in their ether body quite special vibrations. Therein lies the secret of Wagner's music. One does not need to understand it - not in the least. One receives in one's ether body the benign and healthful effect of the music. And Man's ether body is intimately connected with all the movements and throbbings of the blood

1920-04-21-GA301

The musical part of life is the best evidence ... of the particular relationship of feeling to the rhythmic life of the organism. The imaginative, thinking life connected with the nerve-sense organism perceives the rhythmic life connected with feeling. When we hear something musical, when we give ourselves over to a picture presented in tones, we quite obviously perceive through our senses.

... our breathing inwardly participates in the musical picture ... When we hear a series of tones, we encounter them as breathing human beings. The cerebrospinal fluid is continuously moving up and down.

When we listen to music, the inner rhythm of the liquid moving up and down encounters what occurs within our hearing organs as a result of the tones. Thus there is a continuous clash of the inner vibrating music of our breathing with what happens in the ear when listening to music. Our experience of music exists in the balance between our hearing and our rhythmic breathing.

Beinsa Douno

The new epoch of Love that is coming [editor: Sixth epoch] will give a new impulse to music.

Consider a person who is inclined to do something wrong. And yet, by listening to this new music, this inclination is relinquished.

Music awakens the Divine within people, and they will heed its call.

1904-10-28-GA092

For the fifth epoch music will be not merely art, but the means of expression for quite other things than the purely artistic ...

The most significant impulse by those directly initiated in the fifth epoch will, to begin with, be given solely in the sphere of music.

What has to flow in is not astral, but it is something of great significance in the sphere of the mental life of the fifth epoch ... something which has been called the kundalini fire. It is a force which today still slumbers in Man, but which will gradually gain more and more importance. Today it already has a great importance upon what we perceive through the sense of hearing.

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

The main volume is: GA283 - The Inner Nature of Music and the Experience of Tone, with seven lectures of

• 1906-11-12-GA283, 1906-11-26-GA283, 1906-12-03-GA283
• 1922-12-02-GA283
• 1923-03-07-GA283, 1923-03-08-GA283, 1923-03-16-GA283

Source extracts

1904-10-28-GA092

see also: Sixth epoch#1904-10-28-GA092 and Kundalini#1904-10-28-GA092

At the beginning of the sixth epoch [root-race] an influence will have developed, not in higher spheres, but in the sphere of the present-day conscious mind; in the fifth epoch this influence is still in its infancy, but it is nevertheless already developing. It is something which emanates from the musical element. For the fifth epoch music will be not merely art, but the means of expression for quite other things than the purely artistic. Here is something that points to the influence of a specific principle on the physical plane.

The most significant impulse by those directly initiated in the fifth epoch will, to begin with, be given solely in the sphere of music.

What has to flow in is not astral, but it is something of great significance in the sphere of the mental life of the fifth epoch. It is something that the human intelligence will come to recognise as important, something which has been called the Kundalini fire. It is a force which today still slumbers in Man, but which will gradually gain more and more importance. Today it already has a great importance upon what we perceive through the sense of hearing.

1906-07-29-GA097

see: Richard Wagner#1906-07-29-GA097

1906-11-26-GA283

1906-12-03-GA283

titled: 'The Occult Basis of Music'

When a Man listens to music, the clairvoyant can observe how the rhythms and colours flow into and lay hold of the firmer substance of the ether-body, causing it to vibrate in tune with them, and from the harmonious response of the ether-body comes the pleasure that is felt.

The more strongly the astral body resounds, the more strongly do its tones echo in the ether-body, overcoming the ether-body's own natural rhythms, and this gives feelings of pleasure both to a listener and to a composer.

In certain cases the harmonies of the astral body penetrate to some extent into the sentient body, and a conflict then arises between the sentient body and the ether-body. If the tones set up in the sentient body are so strong that they master the tones of the ether-body, the result is cheerful music in a major key.

A minor key indicates that the ether-body has prevailed over the sentient body; and the painful feeling that ensues gives rise to the most serious melodies.

So, when someone lives in the experience of music, he is living in the image of his spiritual home. It naturally elevates the soul to feel this intimate relationship to its primal ground, and that is why the simplest souls are so receptive to music. A Man then feels himself truly at home, and whenever he is lifted up through music he says to himself: “Yes, you come from other worlds, and in music you can experience your native place.”

It was an intuitive knowledge of this that led Schopenhauer to assign to music a central place among the arts, and to say that the composer discerns with his spiritual ear the pulse-beat of the Will.

In music, Man feels the echo of the inmost life of things, a life related to his own. Because feelings are the most inward part of the soul, and because they are related to the spiritual world and are indwelt by musical sound—that is why man, when he listens to music, lives in the pleasure of feeling himself in harmony with its tones, and in touch with the true home of his spirit.

1906-11-12-GA283

1906-11-26-GA283

1908-10-26-GA244 - Q&A 172.2

All that is musical and that comes to us as tone, comes forth from the spirit world.

When Man in sleep is enthralled in the spirit world, he lives in the world of tone. These tones he forgets in his normal condition [of waking consciousness]. The musician remembers these, however not consciously.

The tones of the weaving and waves in the spirit world, express themselves in music, in physical tone. These tones work on the etheric body, in truth actually on Man's higher bodily members (as the transformed etheric body is life-spirit or buddhi).

1909-10-25-GA116

quote A - about affecting and teaching through the sentient soul

see full quote on: Orpheus#1909-10-25-GA116

To stimulate the sentient soul and instill into it, so to speak, the power of thought, this Individuality had to work in a very special way. He had to give his instruction, not in conceptions — but through music! Music engenders forces which set free in the sentient soul something, which, when it rises into the consciousness and has been worked upon by the spiritual soul, becomes logical thinking.

1914-12-29-GA275

see full lecture including drawings

For when we know that the astral body is sevenfold in its nature and that it is an organism of inner living impulses, then we shall say to ourselves: Within this astral body, with its sevenfold organisation, individual activities must surely take place between the various members. The part of the astral body that corresponds to the physical body must have a certain interplay with the part that corresponds to the etheric body and with the part that corresponds to the astral body itself, and so on.

These are no mere abstract suppositions; it is quite possible in the human organism for a man to feel inwardly—though more subconsciously than consciously—a movement of that part of the astral body which corresponds to the physical body. And then something may produce another movement which will have to start in that member of the astral body that corresponds to the astral body itself, and so on. This is not a mere theory; it really happens.

Now imagine the seven members of the astral body to be interrelated as are the tones of the scale: tonic, second, third, fourth, etc. If you allow the effect of a melody to work upon you, you will find that your human organisation permits this to occur because the various tones of the melody are experienced inwardly in the corresponding member of the astral body.

• The interval of a third is experienced in the part of the astral body which corresponds to the astral body itself.
• A fourth is experienced in the part of the astral body which—well, let us now be more specific—corresponds to the intellectual or mind soul.
• A fifth is experienced in the part of the astral body which corresponds to the consciousness or spiritual soul.

And remembering that when we divide the human organism more exactly we find it contains nine members, we must, accordingly, structure the astral body in the same way. Instead of saying “the member of the astral body which corresponds to the physical body” when enumerating the various members, I could now say “the member experienced in the tonic”. Instead of “the member of the astral body which corresponds to the etheric body”, I could say “the member experienced in the second”. And instead of saying “the member of the astral body which corresponds to the astral body itself” I could say “the member experienced in the third”.

You can now also see that the existence of the major third and the minor third really corresponds to the incorporation of the astral body in our whole human organisation. If you look up the relevant passage in my book Theosophy you will see that there is an overlapping of what we call the sentient soul on the other. Therefore what I described as an interval of a third can correspond either to the astral body or to the sentient soul: in the one case we have the major third and in the other the minor third.

It is a fact that our ability to experience a musical work of art depends upon this inner musical activity of the astral body: only while we listen to the music with our I we immediately sink the experience into our astral body, into certain realms which are subconscious.

This leads us to a very important fact. Let us look at ourselves as astral beings, as possessors of an astral body: what is our nature in this respect? As astral beings we have been created out of the cosmos according to musical laws. Inasmuch as we are astral beings we are musically connected with the cosmos. We are ourselves an instrument.

1919-12-31-GA320

So you can calculate how quickly the sound advances in air — how far it goes, say, in a second — and you get something like a “velocity of propagation of sound”. This was one of the earliest things to which men became attentive in this domain.

They also became attentive to the so-called phenomena of resonance — sympathetic vibration. Leonardo da Vinci was among the first. If for example you twang a violin-string or the like, and another string attuned to it — or even quite a different object that happens to be so attuned — is there in the same room, the other will begin vibrating too. The Jesuits especially took up the study of these things.

In the 17th century much was done for the science of sound or tone by the Jesuit Mersenne, who made important researches on what is called the ‘pitch’ of a musical note. A note contains three elements. It has first a certain intensity; secondly a certain pitch; thirdly a certain quality or colouring of sound. The problem is to ascertain what corresponds to the pitch, — to ascertain this from the point of view which, as I said, has gradually been adopted in modern time, — adopted most of all, perhaps, in this branch of science. I have already drawn your attention to the fact which can indeed easily be ascertained.

Whenever we perceive a sound or a musical note, there is always some oscillatory phenomenon that underlies it — or, shall we rather say, accompanies, runs parallel to it. The usual experiments can easily be reproduced, to demonstrate this oscillatory character of air or other bodies. Here is a tuning-fork with a point attached, which as it moves can make a mark in the layer of soot, deposited on this glass plate. We need not actually do all these experiments, but if we did strike the tuning-fork to begin with, the picture on the glass plate would reveal that this tuning-fork is executing regular movements. These forms of movement are naturally conveyed to the air and we may therefore say that when we hear any sounding body the air between it and us is in movement. Indeed we bring the air itself directly into movement in the instruments called pipes.

...

One of the main things we now have to discover is what happens when we perceive notes of different pitch.

How do the external phenomena of vibration, which accompany the note, differ with respect to notes of different pitch?

The answer can be shewn by such experiments as we are now about to demonstrate. You see this disc with its rows of holes. We can rotate it rapidly. Herr Stockmeyer will be so kind as to direct a stream of air on to the moving disc. (He did.) You can at once distinguish the different pitch of the two notes. How then did it arise? Nearer the centre of the disc are fewer holes, — 40 in fact. When Herr Stockmeyer blew the stream of air on to here, every time it came upon a hole it went through, then in the intervening space it could not get through, then again it could, and so on. Again and again, by the quick motion of the disc, the next hole came where the last had been, and there arose as many beats as there were holes arriving at the place where the stream of air was going. Thus on the inner circle we got 40 beats, but on the outer we got 80 in the same period of time. The beats bring about the wave, the oscillations or vibrations. Thus in the same period of time we have 80 beats, 80 air-waves in the one case and 40 in the other. The note that arises when we have 80 oscillations is twice as high as the note that arises when we have 40. Sundry experiments of this kind shew how the pitch of the note is connected with the number of vibrations arising in the medium in which the sound is propagated.

Please take together what I have just been saying and what was said once before; it will then lead you to the following reflection. A single oscillation of condensation and attenuation gives, as regards the distance it has gone through, what we call the wave-length. If n such waves arise in a second and the length of each wave is s, the whole wave-movement must be advancing n times s in a second. The path, the distance therefore, through which the whole wave-movement advances in a second, is n times s. Now please recall what I said in an earlier lecture. I said that we must carefully distinguish all that is “phoronomical” on the one hand, and on the other hand all that which we do not merely think out in our own inner life of thought but which consists of outer realities.

In effect, I said, outward realities can never be merely spatial, or arithmetical (able to be numbered and calculated), nor can they be mere displacements. Velocities on the other hand are outward realities, they always are. And of course this remains so when we come to sound or tone. Neither the s nor the n can be experienced as an external reality, for the s is merely spatial while the n is a mere number. What is real is inherent in the velocity. The velocity contains the real being, the real entity which we are here describing as ‘sound’ or ‘tone’.

If I now divide the velocity into two abstractions, in these abstractions I have no realities; I only have what is abstracted, separated out and divided from it. Such are the wave-lengths — the spatial magnitudes — and also the number n.

If on the other hand I want to look at the reality of the sound — at what is real in the world outside myself, — then I must concentrate upon the inner faculty of the sound to have velocity. This then will lead me to a qualitative study of the sound, whereas the way of studying it which we have grown accustomed to in modern physics is merely quantitative.

In the theory of sound, in acoustics especially, we see how modern physics is always prone to insert what can be stated and recorded in these extraneous, quantitative, spatial and temporal, kinematical and arithmetical forms, in place of the qualitative reality which finds expression simply and solely in a certain faculty of speed, or of velocity.

Today however, people no longer even notice how they sail off into materialistic channels even in the theory of sound. It is so evident, they may well argue, that the sound as such is not there outside us; outside us are only the oscillations. Could anything be clearer? — so they may well contend. There are the waves of condensation and attenuation. Then, when my ear is in the act of “hearing”, what is really there outside me are these condensations and attenuations; that unknown something within me (which the physicist of course need not go into, — it is not his department) therefore transforms the waves into subjective experiences, — transforms the vibrations of the vibrating bodies into the quality that is the ‘sound’ or ‘tone’. In all manner of variations you will find ever the same proposition. Outside us are the vibrations; in us are the effects of the vibrations — effects that are merely subjective. In course of time it has become part of their very flesh and bone, till such results emerge as you find quoted from Robert Hamerling for instance in my Riddles of Philosophy. Having absorbed and accepted the teachings of physics, Hamerling says at the very outset: What we experience as the report of a gun, is, in the world outside us, no more nor less than a certain violent disturbance of the air. And from this premise Hamerling continues: Whoever does not believe that the sensory impression he experiences is only there in himself while in the world outside him is simply vibrating air or vibrating ether, — let him put down the book which Hamerling is writing; such books are not for him. Robert Hamerling even goes on to say: Whoever thinks that the picture which he obtains of a horse corresponds to an outward reality, understands nothing at all and had better close the book.

Such things, dear Friends, for once deserve to be followed to their logical conclusion. What would become of it if I treated you, who are now sitting here, according to this way of thinking (I do not say method, but way-of-thinking) which physicists have grown accustomed to apply to the phenomena of sound and light? This surely would be the outcome: You, all of you, now sitting here before me, — I only have you here before me through my own impressions, which (if this way of thought be true) are altogether subjective, since my sensations of light and sound are so. None of you are there outside me in the way I see you. Only the oscillations in the air, between you and me, lead me to the oscillations that are there in you, and I am led to the conclusion that all your inner being and life of soul — which, within you and for yourselves, is surely not to be denied — is not there at all. For me, this inner soul of everyone of you who are here seated is only the effect on my own psyche, while for the rest, all that is really there, seated on these benches, are so many heaps of vibrations. If you deny to light and sound the inner life and being which you experience in a seemingly subjective way, it is precisely as it would be if, having you here before me, I looked on all that is before me as merely part of my subjective life, and thus denied to you the experience of inner life and being.

What I have now been saying is indeed so obvious, so trite, that physicists and physiologists will naturally not presume that they could ever fall into such obvious mistakes. And yet they do. The whole distinction that is usually made of the subjective impression (or whatsoever is alleged to be subjective) from the objective process, amounts to this and nothing else.

It is of course open to the physicist to be quite candid and to say: I, as physicist, am not proposing to investigate the sound or tone at all; I do not enter into what is qualitative. All I am out to investigate are the external, spatial processes (he will not have to call them “objective processes” for that again would beg the question). All I am out to investigate are the outwardly spatial processes, which of course also go on into my own body. These are the subject-matter of my researches. These I abstract from the totality; what is qualitative is no concern of mine. A man who speaks like this is at least candid and straightforward, only he must not then go on to say that the one is “objective” and the other “subjective”, or that the one is the “effect” of the other. What you experience in your soul, — when I experience it with you it is not the effect upon me of the vibrations of your brain. To see through a thing like that is of untold significance; nothing could be of greater importance for the requirements of the new age, not only in science but in the life of humanity at large.

We ought not to be too reluctant to go into deeper questions when dealing with these matters. How easily it can be argued that the uniquely oscillatory character of sound or tone is evident if only from the fact that if I twang a violin-string a second string in the same room, attuned to the same note, will resound too, this being due to the fact that the intervening medium propagates the accompanying oscillations. Yet we do not understand what is happening in such a case unless we bring it into connection with a more widespread phenomenon. I mean the following for instance, — it has in fact been observed.

1920-04-21-GA301

also on Human breath

To clarify this, we can look at some part of life, say, music. The musical part of life is the best evidence (but only one among many we will encounter) of the particular relationship of feeling to the rhythmic life of the organism. The imaginative, thinking life connected with the nerve-sense organism perceives the rhythmic life connected with feeling. When we hear something musical, when we give ourselves over to a picture presented in tones, we quite obviously perceive through our senses. Those physiologists, however, who can observe in more subtle ways, notice that our breathing inwardly participates in the musical picture; how much our breathing has to do with what we experience; and how that musical picture appears as something to be aesthetically judged, something placed in the realm of art.

We need to be clear about the complicated process continuously going on within us. Let us look at our own organism.

The nerve-sense organism is centralized in the human brain in such a way that the brain is in a firm state only to a small extent. The whole brain swims in cerebrospinal fluid. We can clearly understand what occurs by noticing that if our brain did not swim in cerebrospinal fluid, it would rest upon the blood vessels at the base of our skull and continuously exert pressure upon them. Because our brain does swim in cerebrospinal fluid, it is subject to continuous upward pressure — we know this from Archimedes’ principle — so that of the 1300–1500-gram weight of the brain, only about 20 grams press upon the base of the skull. The brain is subject to a significant pressure from below, so that it presses only a little upon the base of the skull.

This cerebrospinal fluid participates in the entirety of our human experience no less than the firm part of the brain.

The cerebrospinal fluid continually moves up and down. The fluid moves up and down rhythmically from the brain through the spinal column. Then it radiates out into the abdominal cavity, where inhalation forces it back into the cerebral cavity, from whence it flows back out with exhaling. Our cerebrospinal fluid moves up and down in a continuous process that extends throughout the remainder of the organism; a continuous vibrating movement essentially fills the whole human being and is connected with breathing.

[experience of music]

When we hear a series of tones, we encounter them as breathing human beings. The cerebrospinal fluid is continuously moving up and down.

When we listen to music, the inner rhythm of the liquid moving up and down encounters what occurs within our hearing organs as a result of the tones.

Thus there is a continuous clash of the inner vibrating music of our breathing with what happens in the ear when listening to music.

Our experience of music exists in the balance between our hearing and our rhythmic breathing.

Someone who tries to connect our nerve processes directly with what occurs in our musical perception, which is filled with feeling, is on the wrong path. The nerve processes exist in musical perception only to connect it with what takes place deeper in our I, so that we can actually perceive the music and transform it into imagination.

1920-09-16-GA302A

The point is that music imprints itself upon the astral body, it remains there, it still vibrates; it remains for about thirty years after death. What comes from music continues to vibrate much longer than what comes from speech: we lose the latter as such comparatively quickly after death, and there remains only its spiritual extract.

1923-03-08-GA283

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.

[fifth]

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.

[third]

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.

[transition]

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.

[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.

[evolution of experience]

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].¹ 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, I had to speak of a ninefold nature, further dividing the three individual members. I arrived at a sevenfold from a ninefold organization.

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.

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.

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

1923-05-23-GA224

The entire musical experience of the ancient Atlantean would necessarily appear very curious, even grotesque, to a man of the present time, if he could hear it—which, of course, he cannot do. For what the ancient Atlanteans were in quest of in music was, for example, the chords of the seventh.

These chords of the seventh had the peculiarity of affecting the souls of these ancient people—in whose bodies we were all ensheathed, for in repeated earth lives we passed through that time also—in such a way that they were immediately transported out of their bodies when they lived in their music, this music which took into special consideration the chords of the seventh.

They knew no other frame of mind in music than a state of rapture, of enthusiasm, a state in which they were permeated by the God; and, when their extraordinarily simple instruments sounded—instruments intended only for accompaniment to singing—then such an Atlantean immediately felt himself to be actually weaving and living in the outer spiritual world.

Then came the Atlantean catastrophe.

Among all post-Atlanteans there was next developed a preference for a sequence of fifths. You probably know that for a long time thereafter fifths played a most comprehensive role in musical development; for example, in ancient Greece, fifths played a quite extensive role. And this preference for a sequence of fifths had the peculiarity of affecting people in such a way that, when they experienced music, they now no longer felt drawn out of their bodies, to be sure, but they felt themselves to be soul and spirit within their bodies.

During the musical experience they completely forgot physical experience; they felt that they were inside their skin, so to speak, but their skin was entirely filled with soul and spirit.

That was the effect of the music, and very few people will believe that almost up to the tenth and eleventh Christian century the natural music was as I have described it. For not until then did the aptitude for thirds appear, the aptitude for the major and the minor third, and everything of the nature of major and minor. That came relatively late. But with this late development there was evolved at the same time the inner experience of music. Man now remained within himself in musical experience. Just as the rest of the culture at this time tended downward from the spiritual to the material, so in the musical sphere the tendency was downward, from the experience of the spiritual into which he passed in ancient times when he experienced music at all, to the experience of music within himself—no longer as far outward as to the skin, but entirely within himself. In this way there first appeared also at that time the major and minor moods, which are actually possible only when music is inwardly experienced.

Thus, it can be seen how in every domain Man has descended from the spiritual into the material, but also into himself. Therefore, we should not always merely say, in a narrow-minded fashion, that the material is something of minor value, and we must escape from it. The human being would not have become truly human at all, if he had not descended and laid hold upon the material life. Precisely because he apprehended the spiritual in the material, did the human being become a self-conscious, independent I-being. And today, with the help of Anthroposophical spiritual science, we must again find the way back into the spiritual world—in all realms we must find the way.

1924-08-22-GA243

synopsis

The revelation of the Divine through Art. Art preserves a dim memory of the spiritual world. The plastic Arts are now assuming more and more a musical form. The Art of the near future will be music. The coming of the living Christ will have to be portrayed through music. In Parsifal the “wooing” of the Christ Impulse into the phenomenal world was expressed through symbols only (e.g. the Dove and the Communion). Wagner failed to portray the essence of the Christ Impulse in the Cosmos and the Earth. Music is able to portray the Christ Impulse in tones that are inwardly permeated with soul and spirit. If music is inspired by Spiritual Science it will find means to achieve this. The Mystery of the Incarnation of Christ can be evoked in music. Bruckner was unable to achieve this because of his limitations.

quote A

[Wagner failed – Christ Impulse in music <-> major third & fifth]

The urge to give a musical expression of the Christ Impulse already existed. It was anticipated in Richard Wagner and was ultimately responsible for the creation of Parsifal. But in Parsifal the introduction of the Christ Impulse into the phenomenal world where it seeks to give expression to the purest Christian spirit, has been given a mere symbolic indication, such as the appearance of the Dove and so on. The Communion has also been portrayed symbolically. The music of Parsifal fails to portray the real significance of the Christ Impulse in the Cosmos and the Earth.

[Christ Impulse in Music]

Music is able to portray this Christ Impulse musically, in tones that are inwardly permeated with spirit. If music allows itself to be inspired by spiritual science, it will find ways of expressing the Christ Impulse, for it will reveal purely artistically and intuitively how the Christ Impulse in the cosmos and the Earth can be awakened symphonically in tones.

To this end we only need to be able to deepen our experience of the sphere of the major third by an inner enrichment of musical experience that penetrates into the hidden depths of feeling.

• If we experience the sphere of the major third as something wholly enclosed within the inner being of man
• and if we then feel the sphere of the major fifth to have the characteristic of “enveloping,” so that, as we grow into the configuration of the fifth, we reach the boundary of the human and the cosmic, where the cosmic resounds into the sphere of the human and the human, consumed with longing, yearns to rush forth into the Cosmos,
• then, in the mystery enacted between the spheres of the major third and major fifth, we can experience musically something of the inner being of man that reaches out into the Cosmos.

And

• if we then succeed in setting free the dissonances of the seventh to echo cosmic life, where the dissonances express man's sentient experiences in the Cosmos as he journeys towards the various spiritual realms;
• and if we succeed in allowing the dissonances of the seventh to die away, so that through their dying fall they acquire a certain definition, then in their dying strains they are ultimately resolved in something which, to the musical ear, resembles a musical firmament.

...

• If, then, having already given a subtle indication of the experience of the ‘minor’ with the ‘major,’
• if, in the dying strains of the dissonances of the seventh, in this spontaneous re-creation of the dissonances into a totality,
  • we find here a means of passing in an intensely minor mood
    • from the dissonances of the seventh, from the near consonance of these diminishing dissonances
    • to the sphere of the fifth in a minor mood,
  • and from that point blend the sphere of the fifth with that of the minor third,

• then we shall have evoked in this way the musical experience of the Incarnation, and what is more, of the Incarnation of the Christ.

In feeling our way outwards into the sphere of the seventh, which to cosmic feeling is only apparently dissonant and that we fashion into a ‘firmament,’ in that it is seemingly supported by the octave, if we have grasped this with our feelings and retrace our steps in the manner already indicated and find how, in the embryonic form of the consonances of the minor third, there is a possibility of giving a musical representation of the Incarnation, then, when we retrace our steps to the major third in this sphere, the “Hallelujah” of the Christ can ring out from this musical configuration as pure music.

Then, within the configuration of the tones man will be able to conjure forth an immediate realization of the super-sensible and express it musically.

The Christ Impulse can be found in music.

[Bruckner also failed]

And the dissolution of the symphonic into near dissonance, as in Beethoven, can be redeemed by a return to the dominion of the cosmic in music. Bruckner attempted this within the narrow limits of a traditional framework. But his posthumous symphony shows that he could not escape these limitations. On one hand we admire its greatness, but on the other hand we find a hesitant approach to the true elements of music, and a failure to achieve a full realization of these elements which can only be experienced in the way I have described, i.e. when we have made strides in the realm of pure music and discover therein the essence, the fundamental spirit which can conjure forth a world through tones.

Without doubt the musical development I have described will one day be achieved through anthroposophical inspiration if mankind does not sink into decadence; and ultimately — and this will depend entirely upon mankind — the true nature of the Christ Impulse will be revealed externally.

I wish to draw your attention to this because you will then realize that Anthroposophy seeks to permeate all aspects of life. This can be accomplished if man, for his part, finds the true path to anthroposophical experience and investigation. It will even come to pass that one day the realm of music shall echo the teachings of Anthroposophy and the Christian enigma shall be solved through music.

1925-GA028

Frequent music festivals brought the representative artists of the time and their works to Weimar. One saw there, for example, Mahler as director at a music festival when he was just getting his start. Ineradicable was the impression of the way in which he used the baton – not aiding music in the flood of forms, but as the experience of a supersensible hidden something visibly pointing amid the forms.

Discussion

Note 1 - A selection of music

Introduction

This section is a placeholder as a tentative attempt to gather some pointers to music that could be argued to be suitable and appropriate as part of a curriculum of spiritual science as a journey for the soul, not just for the intellect. It therefore complements written information and visual illustrations on this site.

Each piece of music below ranks in the gallery we can call 'eternal music' that had so much importance for humanity, because it provided meaning and inspiration to generators of souls through the centuries.

Listing

The below is a preliminary initialization of this new section. For exploring, start for example with the piece by Tallis and Wagner's Parsifal and/or Lohengrin ouvertures.

Note: to be able to reference the music samples (MS) and the information and commentary about them, we'll use a simple FMC reference number as a pointer for each Music Sample (MS)

FMC-MS0001

• Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)
  • Spem in alium (1570)
    • versions:
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw4ezCfyeS0
        • Huelgas Ensemble with Paul Van Nevel (1995) .. so 425 years later
    • commentary:
      • Tallis is remembered as a composer of sacred vocal music, and mostly with his Spem in alium is a unique motet written for eight choirs of five-voice.
      • this music is unique in its kind, if one were to choose music to express the Cosmos fractal and the dynamic interplay of the spiritual hierarchies. It is like an organic ocean-of-voices. A homogeneous flow of water is created as blending of the various voices of the choirs combined .. the flow is sometimes more integrated, sometimes certain voices come to expression more, but although the voices and their changing tones and nuances are individually different they blend into group effects and are still all very much together and sound as one creation.

Others still without reference

• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
  • Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243 (1723-1733)
    • version:
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52UIMSMWFVE
        • Collegium Vocale Gent, La Chapelle Royale Orchestra w/ Philippe Herreweghe (2007)
    • commentary:
      • triomphant energy for an uplifting flow pushing towards ecstatic clarity as one's head through the clouds
      • the first line 'Magnificat anima mea Dominum' could be translated as 'My soul magnifies the Lord' .. and may remind one of the esoteric line from the ancient Mysteries 'My Lord, how you have glorified me', see Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani - EELS
• Pergolesi (1710-1736, born Giovanni Battista Draghi)
  • Stabat matter (1736)
• Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
  • see: Richard Wagner#Note 1 - Introductory music fragments
• Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
  • Third movement from Fourth Symphony (1901)
    • versions:
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEez1Xj6dW4
        • WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne under Gary Bertini
    • commentary
      • the first minutes of this movement are of an incredible beauty, Mahler spoke of the perfect blue sky on a beautiful summer day ..
      • personal note: this piece meant much to me in my twenties
  • Adagio from Third Symphony
    • versions:
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXiibYIoHbA
        • New York Philharmonic w/ Leonard Bernstein (1988/1989)
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJw0slhUWek
        • live version Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra w/ Leonard Bernstein
    • commentary
      • 'about love'
      • personal note: this piece has meant much to me in my twenties, I had so many versions on CD, liked the Bertini which was my first
  • Adagio from Night Symphony
    • versions
• Alexander Scriabin (1875-1915)
  • Mysterium Prefatory - Universe - Mvmt 8.
    • version:
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWKUUmm6vg0
    • commentary
      • in a category 'special' .. this is not the usual normal music of this world, it has something other-worldly, transcendent .. one can hardly try to imagine what the state of the composer must have been while trying to put his mental-emotional soul-state to paper with mere music notes. It's as if he has 'seen' something .. as if his antenna picked up something from another realm that he was trying to convey here. For listening in the darkness of the night with headphones, an arc of 6' .. and note the different passages such as 1'45-2'00 or from 4'30 to 6'
• Györgi Ligeti (1923-2006)
  • several pieces were used in the soundtrack of the movie '2001 A Space Odyssey' by Stanley Kubrick in 1968, ao for the stargate sequence
    • Atmosphères (1961)
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6JNQwPWE0
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW_o-T1CVrY
• Arvo Pärt (1935-)
  • Spiegel im Spiegel (1978)
    • versions:
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXcVUGeF8Wk
        • Hélène Grimaud and Lisa Batiashvili (2011)
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ6Mzvh3XCc
        • Jürgen Kruse and Benjamin Hudson
    • commentary
      • this music can bring hope and consolation, when the soul needs to be alone in sorrow, desperation, not knowing. This music is not about melody, but it is soothing and brings comfort and calmness.

Links on the site

• Christ Module 8 - Resurrection#Music
• Cross at Golgotha#Music
• Lord's Prayer#Music

Related pages

• Art
• Worldview Spiritual Science
• Eurythmy
• Richard Wagner
• Speech

References and further reading

Some well-known individuals who have written about music from an anthroposophical perspective are a.o. Heiner Ruland, Hermann Pfrogner, Friedrich Oberkogler, Michael Kurtz

• Antoine Fabre d'Olivet (1767-1825): 'Music Explained as Science and as Art and Considered in its Analog Relationship with Religious Mysteries, Ancient Mythology and the History of the Earth',
• Hermann Beckh
  • Das geistige Wesen der Tonarten. Versuch einer neuen Betrachtung musikalischer Probleme im Lichte der Geisteswissenschaft (The Spiritual Character of Musical Keys: an attempt at a new view of musical problems in the context of the humanities) (1923)
  • Die Sprache der Tonart in der Musik von Bach bis Bruckner, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Wagnerschen Musikdramas (The Language of the Art of Keys in Music from Bach to Bruckner, with special consideration of Wagnerian musical drama) (1937)
  • The Essence of Tonality: An attempt to view musical subjects in the light of spiritual science
  • The language of tonality in the music of Bach to Bruckner
  • The Mystery of Musical Creativity: The Human Being and Music (2020)

• Hans Erhard Lauer: 'Die Entwicklung der Musik im Wandel der Tonsysteme' (1935,1977)
• Hans-Georg Burghardt (1909-1993)
  • 'Das Dur-Moll-Problem' (essay 1946)
  • see also:
    • Hartmut Haupt: 'The systems of seconds of Hans-Georg Burghardt'
    • Nicola Kämpken: Hans Georg Burghardt, Leben und Werk, ein Sonderweg in der modernen Musik (2000)
• Sigismund von Gleich: 'Über die Wirkung der Tonarten in der Musik' (in EN as 'About the Effect of Tonalities in Music', in NL as 'De toonsoorten : Hun gevoelswaarden en kosmische achtergronden volgens goetheanistische en geesteswetenschappelijke inzichten geschetst' (1984)
• Heiner Ruland:
  • 'Die Neugeburt der Musik aus dem Wesen des Menschen. Künstlerische und therapeutische Aufgaben einer erneuerten Musikkultur' (1987)
  • Expanding Tonal Awareness: A Musical Exploration of the Evolution of Consciousness Guided by the Monochord (1992)

• Hermann Pfrogner
  • Die Zwölfordnung der Töne (1953)
  • Musik. Geschichte ihrer Deutung (1954)
  • Lebendige Tonwelt. Zum Phänomen Musik (1987, 2010)
  • Die sieben Lebensprozesse. Eine musiktherapeutische Anregung (1978)
  • Die drei Lebensaspekte in der Musik (1989)

• Ernst Hagemann: 'Vom Wesen des Musikalischen' (1974)
• Juanita Wescott: Magic and music - The language of the Gods revealed (1982)
• Friedrich Oberkogler (1918-2000)
  • Tierkreis und Planetenkräfte in der Musik, Schaffhausen 1988)
  • books about various composers (Brucker, Wagner, Beethoven, Bach, Schubert)

• Dr. Armin J. Husemann
  • The harmony of the human body: musical principles in human physiology (1994)
  • Human hearing and the reality of music (2013)

• Graham H. Jackson: 'The Spiritual Basis of Musical Harmony' (2006)
• Wilhelm Dörfler (1899-1980): 'Das Lebensgefüge der Musik. Eine Gesamterkenntnis ihrer Wirkungskräfte'
• Norbert Visser:
  • Das Tongeheimnis der materie : über Form und Materialität beim Musikinstrumentenbau : der Choroi-Impuls (1984)
  • Het mysterie van de toon in mens, ruimte en materie (1997)
• Maria Renold (1917-2003): 'Intervals, Scales, Tones And the Concert Pitch c = 128 Hz' (2015)
• Michael Kurtz
  • Rudolf Steiner und die Musik (2015)
  • Musik der Mitte - Das Ringen um eine Erweiterung des Tonsystems im Briefwechsel zwischen Heiner Ruland und Hermann Pfrogner (2021)
• Reinhild Brass, Stefan Hasler: “Das Tonerlebnis im Menschen” von Rudolf Steiner (2019)
  • compilation of commentaries on Steiner's lectures of 2023
• Danaë Killian-O’Callaghan: 'Unveiling the melodic interval. A phenomenology of the musical element in human consciousness'
• John Stuart Reid: 'The Curious Concert Pitch Conflict'
• Joscelyn Godwin: 'Musical Alchemy: the Work of Composer and Listener'
• Joscelyn Godwin (editor): 'Cosmic Music: Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality' (1989)
  • essays by Marius Schneider, Rudolf Haase, and Hans Erhard Lauer

Music and the formative forces

• Michael Theroux: 'Rhythmic formative forces of music' (1995) - freely downloadeable in PDF

Music therapy

see also: Medicine#Sound and music

• Bernard Lievegoed: 'Beat, Rhythm and Melody: The Therapeutic Use of Musical Elements' (2014 in EN, medical doctorate in NL 1939)
• Karl König: 'Music Therapy - Research and Insights' (2024)
• Hermann Pfrogner: 'Die sieben Lebensprozesse. Eine musiktherapeutische Anregung' (1978)
• Hilda Deighton and Gina Palermo (editors): 'Singing and the etheric tone: Gracia Ricardo's approach to singing based on her work with Rudolf Steiner' (1991)
• Dr Hans Heinrich Engel: 'Musical Anthropology: Ideas for the Study of an anthroposophical Music Therapy' (2014)
  • series of lectures given in the late sixties and early seventies. The lectures were part of a research into Music therapy based on Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy and were given in the context of the work with children with complex needs and learning disabilities in a number of residential communities in Northern Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Engel's approach to therapy was unique and intuitive, but at the same time based on his knowledge of and experience with anthroposophical medicine. The lectures give a fascinating description of the human organs and of the life processes, especially breathing. This book may stimulate those who wish to work therapeutically with the medium of music and are at the same time interested in the spiritual background of the human being as a basis for a deeper understanding of the effect of the elements of music
• for an introduction see also:
  • www.icaat-medsektion.net/en/anthroposophic-arts-therapies/music-therapy/music-therapy
  • aamta.wildapricot.org/Anthroposophic-Singing-Therapy
  • Anthroposophical Therapeutic Singing Association of North America: atsana-singingtherapy.com/

Werbeck singing

• Valborg Werbeck-Svardstrom:
  • 'Uncovering the Voice The Cleansing Power of Song' (1938, 1980, republished 2008)
  • in NL: 'Zin in zingen; een loutering in de zangkunst'
• Sabine Wahlers: 'Exercises from the School of Uncovering the Voice: by Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström' (2019)
• see also oa: orpheus.hr/en/ or www.werbecksinging.org/