Qualities of Absolute Music
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Absolute Music is the antithesis of programmatic music. It is meant to express what words cannot through music. Absolute music is believed to be like an art form in itself, not just a tool to supplement lyrics or images. "If we now ask what is to be expressed with this tone-material, then the answer is: musical ideas. A musical idea brought to its appearance is already autonomous beauty; it is already an end in itself and in no way primarily a medium or material for the representation of feelings and thoughts, even if it is capable of possessing, at the same time, a high degree of symbolic significance in its reflection of the great laws of the world, which is something we find in all artistic beauty. Sounding forms in motion are the sole and exclusive content and object of music."(Music as thought, Bonds, 110) Absolute music is not considered the reflection of the mystical elements in the universe like abstract art and other forms of expression. (Stokes, 43) To those that believe in absolute music, it is the manifestation of our mortal pocket in reality. Pythagoras' interpretation of cosmic movement into sound, Kepler's improvement on it, and Descartes and Newton's analogy of music with color- all of these things helped to perfect the idea of an expressive sovereignty within music alone. Most ideal examples of absolute music are symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, trios and quintets. In classical times, these were works that were nameless - only distinguished by the key signature or opus numbers. Arthur Schopenhauer, a idealist philosopher and embellisher of absolute music, accepted the Kantian belief that there is a world behind appearances that cannot be known to the subjective self. In other words, whatever it is that makes us us is the very thing that holds us back from the inner ethereality under the "real" surface of things. He claimed that there existed a universal "will" that is the cause of our suffering, by which we are enslaved. Schopenhauer believed that the way to closer examine (and thereby further our emancipation from this "will") the universal will was through music, particularly instrumental music. He believed that it was in instrumental music that we could separate our own individual strivings from this universal will. These both being entities of their own, music found itself between the lines. Remember this as we move to the next section on the history of absolute, and subsequently programmatic music. Take this quote by Schopenhauer into consideration, "Music never expresses appearance, but only the inner nature, the of-itself of all appearance, the will itself...this is why our fantasy is so easily stimulated by it and thus attempts to form that spirit world that speaks to us so immediately, invisible and yet so vivid, and then tries to cloak it in flesh and bone, that is, to embody it in an analogous example. This is the origin of texted song and, ultimately, of opera-whose text, just for this reason should never depart from this subordinate role and elevate itself to the forefront, making the music a mere means of expression; this is a great blunder and dire perversion."(Dahlhaus, 32) All other art forms were thought of as just reflections of the mind and "the will." Schopenhauer found that absolute music was the purest and most divine of art and music, to actually embody something beyond human. (Pole, 97)
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