Music in Science and Philosophy

Music is God's art", says Salieri, because "a note of music is either right or wrong - absolutely". It is the idea of an absolute art issuing from an equally absolute, divine instance. Mozart's passionate speech to the baffled court officials reveals a similar attitude towards music and its origin: "I bet you that's how God hears the world. Millions of sounds ascending at once and mixing in His ear to become an unending music, unimaginable to us! That's our job: (…) to combine the inner minds of him and him and him, and her and her (…) and turn the audience into God."

Musicality has always been a human feature. It is not exactly clear how music and man met, but the singing apes of Sumatra, Boreno and Vietnam suggest that its history started off in a rather early phase of human evolution. Gibbons can produce songs which last between ten or thirty minutes and are organized in stanzas. Some gibbons even perform male and female duets (recorded at www.gibbons.de). Scientists think this may be due to group coherence. If the calling is well oragnized, it may be more impressive to potential enemies than a bunch of single voices. "A song lasts longer than a call and can be heard at greater distance", says Thomas Geissmann, a researcher on gibbons. Besides, it may produce in the individual a feeling of belonging. Instruments made of bones and fur prove that early human cultures also appreciated the magic of sounds and tunes. Today, a two-month old human baby can already discern changes in rhythm. Music touches upon those areas of the brain which are also activated when sadness, joy, and longing are dealt with. It is a gateway to the emotional inner self.

In philosophy, music has often been considered the most outstanding of arts. According to the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), its superior quality arises from the fact that music does not depict persons and things in the way of a picture or a piece of literature. Music provides direct access to the very core of being, which is, he says, the "will". The will is a force operating both in humans and in nature: a self-perpetuating desire that is finally aimless, because once it gets what it wants, it feels bored and a new wish is already calling. It is caught in a vicious circle, moving from longing to boredom and vice versa. The will can merely be felt, not known. Knowledge can only be found outside the self, in the representations of the will. These are the objects of the world. However, as the representations are produced by the will, knowledge still bears the pain of the unsatisfied will. A solution to the problem is the contemplation of art since it reflects the essence of life, the idea, without causing pain. Music, as a non-representational medium, does not copy the ideas in their objectivity but the will itself. By listening or creating music, one can find knowledge of the world without suffering because reality is remote. He who reaches a state of pure perception, who is not a slave to the will anymore, is a genius.