Bach = B(ach) + F(rohberger)
but
Bach = B + (F-X)
X being that unknown quantity which is Frohberger’s uniqueness and which we to-day cannot perceive.
But although art feeds on knowledge as life feeds on death at the same time creating more knowledge, as life creates more death—Ecstasy clothing Himself in Forms—yet there remains much that is mysterious. Why there are different forms of art is a question which insistently recurs. A comparison of music with the other arts in order to discover a value specific and exclusive to music is not likely to enlighten us. Painters talk of “pictorial construction” as the specifically painter’s element which in all good graphic art is wedded to the illustration, psychology, representation or whatever other content a picture may yield, be it ancient or modern. They point out that the spectator is not emotionally moved by the representation of tears but by the rhythm of lines and the recession of planes. The good writer knows that a description of a sad event is not in itself saddening, it may even be comic; but unlike the painter he has no technical term for this essential quality without which literature is mere verbiage—unless, indeed, we apply the word “poetic” to this quality, as we have every right to do. Painting which is without this vital element—call it “pictorial representation,” “significant form,” or what you will—is not art but knowledge or science.[3] Literature which is without this “poetic” quality is, again, mere knowledge, mere fiction. We have no need to seek for examples. A dozen famous names leap to our minds. Rather have we to seek for that literature which is poetic. Similarly in music there is a specific, purely musical quality without which music also is mere science. This quality I will call melodic imagination.
And here an interesting fact emerges. In all three arts the valuable element, the element of life is linked with the imagination. In painting pictorial imagination, in literature verbal imagination, in music melodic imagination—imagination always is the magical essence, the power referred to in the lines:
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
And we may be sure that there can be no art unless the word is made flesh—in the forms of painting, literature, or music—and dwells among us. But when we ask ourselves why it should take the form of painting or of words, or of music, it is impossible to give an answer. We can only echo: Why the lily, the rose, the violet? Why the tiger, the elephant, the antelope? Why the Moon, Venus, and the Stars? Ecstasy clothing Himself in Forms.
And still we have failed to discover in music any principle of progress other than increasing complexity of organization and a multiplication of lovely deaths. A principle which does not as yet satisfy our instincts since it seems quantitative rather than qualitative. But perhaps we are on the verge of a discovery.