It is only by virtue of this personal relation in respect to the active effect of the musical work of art that the significance of the subjective aspect of music is substantiated, which, however, too, it is possible in this direction to carry to the extreme length of isolation in the case, that is, where the personal virtuosity of the reproduction as such is made the exclusive focus and content of the enjoyment to be derived.
With the above observations I will now close what I have to say with regard to the general character of music.
2. THE PARTICULAR DEFINITION OF THE MEANS OF EXPRESSION IN MUSIC
We have hitherto contemplated music purely under the aspect, that its function is to embody and give life to tone as the musical expression of the personal life of soul; we have now to ask ourselves the further question, by reason of what it is both possible and necessary that tones are no purely natural outcry of emotion but the articulate artistic expression of the same. For feeling as such possesses a content; tone regarded as mere tone is without such. It must consequently first be rendered capable by means of an artistic treatment of essentially assimilating the expression of an ideal life. Speaking generally, we may establish the following conclusions on this head.
Every tone is a substantive, essentially accepted real thing, which, however, is neither articulated nor consciously apprehended in a living unity, as is the case with the animal or human form, nor from the further point of view demonstrates in itself, as a particular member of the bodily organism, or any isolated trait of the animated body, whether in its spiritual or physical aspect, that this individualization can only exist in vital association with the other limbs and traits, and secure thus its meaning, significance, and expression. Viewed according to external material, a picture no doubt consists in single strokes and colours, which can also independently exist, but the real material on the other hand, which first creates a work of art from such strokes and colours, the lines and surfaces that is to say of the form, have only a meaning when viewed as a concrete totality. The separate tone, on the contrary, is independently substantive and can also be animated up to a certain degree by means of emotion and receive a definite expression.
Conversely, however, inasmuch as tone is no purely indefinite rustle and sound, but only possesses in general musical validity by virtue of its clear definition and pure tonality, it stands immediately, by reason of this definite articulation, not merely according to its actual sound, but also its temporal duration, in a relation to other tones; nay, this relation is that which first contributes to it its real and actual definition and along with this its difference and contrast as opposed to other tones or its unity with such.
In presence of the more relative self-subsistency this relation, however, remains as something external to the tones, so that the relations into which they are brought do not appertain to the single tones under the mode of their notion, as we find such in the members of the animal and human organism, or also in the forms of natural landscape. The coalescence of different tones in different relations is consequently something which albeit not contradictory to the essence of tone, is, however, in the first instance artificial, and not otherwise presented in Nature. Such a relation proceeds to that extent from a third party and only exists for such, namely, for the person who apprehends[426] it.
On account of this externality of the relation the definition of tones and their co-ordination subsist in the relation of quantity, in relations of number, which of course have their foundation in the nature of tone itself, yet are employed by music in a system which is, in the first instance, discovered by Art and modified[427] in the most varied manner.
From this point of view it is not essential vitality, regarded as organic unity, which constitutes the foundation of music, but equality, inequality, etc., and generally the form of the understanding[428], as it is asserted in quantitative relations. If we consequently speak definitely of musical tones we indicate the same purely by numerical relations as also by letters selected at will by virtue of which we are accustomed to indicate the tones according to such relations.