<\/p>
I believe I first ran across Victor Zuckerkandl\u2019s name in some of Colin Gunton\u2019s work, and Jeremy Begbie makes significant use of Zuckerkandl in his book on theology and music. I\u2019ve posted on Zuckerkandl before, but having now had a chance to read more of his book, Sound and Symbol <\/i> , I\u2019m all the more impressed with what he is doing. Essentially, he is challenging a host of basic modern philosophical and theological notions through a close analysis of the phenomenon of music. If we pay close attention to how music actually works, for example, we cannot be empiricists or materialists. The modern separation of reality into inner \u201cpsychological\u201d and outer \u201cmaterial-physical\u201d realities cannot make sense of the objective (outer) but non-material phenomenon of music. Toward the end of the book, Zuckerkandl summarizes his thesis as follows: \u201cIt has been the intention of this study to outline what may be called a musical concept of the external world. The attempt seemed worth while for its own sake as well as for the sake of a possible contribution to one of those permanent discussions that mark our intellectual history: that in which the concept of reality is at issue.\u201d He insists that music is not a reality from \u201canother world\u201d but instead reveals the structures of THIS world: \u201cThe momen music becomes the voice of the \u2018other\u2019 world musical experiences can no longer challenge our concept of reality: where there is no connection, there can be no conflict. Hence the first and most important thing to do is to bring about the clash. Only when it can be demonstrated that musical expxeriences are NOT experiences of \u2018another\u2019 world, of an \u2018unknown ideal life\u2019; that the audible and visible belong to the SAMT reality; that motion of tones and motion of things take place on the SAME stage; that ONE space, ONE time embrace the world of visible event and the world of audible event \u2013 only then is a critique of our concept of reality from the point of view of music possible.\u201d <\/p>\n
One intriguing example of his approach is his treatment of the problem of motion which, quoting Spengler, he says brought the Athenian \u201cenlightenment\u201d up short because the problem was never solved. He begins by asking what it means for tones to \u201cmove,\u201d and then begins to explore the problems of motion more broadly. He radicalizes the famous paradoxes of motion first articulated by Zeno, and then suggests that far from be an exception to the normal course of motion, which is conceived as purely corporal, music provides the key instance of what motion in fact is. All motion, he concludes, is tonal motion. <\/p>\n
Repeating all the stages of this argument would take a while, but here are some quotations from key stages of that argument. <\/p>\n
He says that the error of Zeno was to conceive of the \u201cbetween\u201d of motion ?Ewhat lay between the initial location of an object and its later location ?Eas an \u201cinterspace\u201d: \u201cThey assumed that the process of motion could be entirely comprehended in spacial data; in Bergson\u2019s language, they failed to maintain the distinction between motion and its spatial track, the PATH traveled. The contradictions and paradoxes thus arrived at . . . merely show that motion CANNOT be entirely comprehended in spatial-local data. It is precisely the essential element of motion which slips through the net of spatial relations \u2014 and the more surely, the tighter the net is drawn . . . . Rightly understood, what Zeno\u2019s paradoxes teach is that the stage on which motion is enacted cannot be ?Eor cannot be only ?Ethe space of places. Motion must be something else than things changing place; it must also occur ?Eand perhaps occur essentially \u2014 where no more things change their places.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is precisely what motion means in music: \u201cTo hear a tone as a dynamic quality, as a direction, a pointing, means hearing at the same time beyond it, beyond it in the direction of its will, and going toward the expected next tone. Listening to music, then, we are not first IN one tone, the in the next and so forth. We are, rather, always BETWEEN tones, ON THE WAY from tone to tone; our hearing does not remain with the tone, it reaches through it and beyond it . . . . It is a process on two levels, on one of which, the \u2018lower,\u2019 there is nothing but the pillars, tones of definite pitch [which, Zuckerkandl points out are static]; on the other, the \u2018higher\u2019 nothing but the transition, the passing over. And the motion we hear is not at all the \u2018tone|tone\u2019 of the lower level; it is the \u2018between\u2019 of the upper level, pure betweenness, pure passing over . . . . the investigation of seen motion and the investigation of heard motion coincide in their end result . . . . The only difference lies in the fact that, in the motion of things, the core of pure dynamism is well concealed and had to be isolated artificially, whereas in tonal motion barely anything is perceived but the purely dynamic . . . . Not unjustifiably may we say that musical motion is at the core of every motion; that every experience of motion is, finally, a musical experience.\u201d <\/p>\n
Music is a phenomenon of the outer, external world, but it makes it obvious that the outer world cannot be comprehensively explained in terms of matter in motion: \u201cMusic makes us aware, unmistakably and inescapably, that \u2018beyond the world of things and places\u2019 is NOT, as common belief has it, identical with the world of the psyche; nor is \u2018beyond the world of the psyche\u2019 identical with the world of things and places. A third stage must exist which is netierh the world of the psyche nor the world of bodies nor yet a mixture of both, and which stands to the two others in the relation of the general to the particular, of the primary to the derivative. . . . if it is true that . . . at the core of every motion, even the motion of bodies, music lies hidden, then every motion, including the motion of bodies, belongs to the \u2018third stage\u2019 perforce of its inmost essence.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is one of the most rewarding and stimulating books I\u2019ve read in a long time. I hope these quotations are appetite-whetters. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I believe I first ran across Victor Zuckerkandl\u2019s name in some of Colin Gunton\u2019s work, and Jeremy Begbie makes significant use of Zuckerkandl in his book on theology and music. I\u2019ve posted on Zuckerkandl before, but having now had a chance to read more of his book, Sound and Symbol , I\u2019m all the more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"yoast_head":"\n