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                                 Sketch
                                   of
                        A New Esthetic of Music


                                   by
                            FERRUCCIO BUSONI


                     Translated from the German by
                             Dr. TH. BAKER



                         NEW YORK: G. SCHIRMER
                                  1911




                            Copyright, 1907
                          By FERRUCCIO BUSONI

                            Copyright, 1911
                             By G. SCHIRMER

                                 22375




SKETCH OF A NEW ESTHETIC OF MUSIC

    "What seek you? Say! And what do you expect?"--
    "I know not what; the Unknown I would have!
     What's known to me, is endless; I would go
     Beyond the end: The last word still is wanting."

                         ["_Der mächtige Zauberer._"]


LOOSELY joined together as regards literary form, the following notes
are, in reality, the outcome of convictions long held and slowly
matured.

In them a problem of the first magnitude is formulated with apparent
simplicity, without giving the key to its final solution; for the
problem cannot be solved for generations--if at all.

But it involves an innumerable series of lesser problems, which I
present to the consideration of those whom they may concern. For it is a
long time since any one has devoted himself to earnest musical research.

It is true, that admirable works of genius arise in every period, and I
have always taken my stand in the front rank of those who joyfully
acclaimed the passing standard-bearers; and still it seems to me that of
all these beautiful paths leading so far afield--none lead _upward_.

_The spirit of an art-work, the measure of emotion, of humanity, that is
in it--these remain unchanged in value through changing years; the form
which these three assumed, the manner of their expression, and the
flavor of the epoch which gave them birth, are transient, and age
rapidly._

Spirit and emotion retain their essence, in the art-work as in man
himself; we admire technical achievements, yet they are outstripped, or
cloy the taste and are discarded.

Its ephemeral qualities give a work the stamp of "modernity;" its
unchangeable essence hinders it from becoming "obsolete." Among both
"modern" and "old" works we find good and bad, genuine and spurious.
There is nothing properly modern--only things which have come into being
earlier or later; longer in bloom, or sooner withered. The Modern and
the Old have always been.

Art-forms are the more lasting, the more closely they adhere to the
nature of their individual species of art, the purer they keep their
essential means and ends.

Sculpture relinquishes the expression of the human pupil, and effects of
color; painting degenerates, when it forsakes the flat surface in
depiction and takes on complexity in theatrical decoration or panoramic
portrayal.

Architecture has its fundamental form, growth from below upward,
prescribed by static necessity; window and roof necessarily provide the
intermediate and finishing configuration; these are eternal and
inviolable requirements of the art.

Poetry commands the abstract thought, which it clothes in words. More
independent than the others, it reaches the furthest bounds.

_But all arts, resources and forms ever aim at the one end, namely, the
imitation of nature and the interpretation of human feelings._

                           *       *       *

Architecture, sculpture, poetry and painting are old and mature arts;
their conceptions are established and their objects assured; they have
found the way through uncounted centuries, and, like the planets,
describe their regular orbits.[A]

  [A] None the less, in these arts, taste and individuality can and will
  unceasingly find refreshment and rejuvenation.

Music, compared with them, is a child that has learned to walk, but must
still be led. It is a virgin art, without experience in life and
suffering.

It is all unconscious as yet of what garb is becoming, of its own
advantages, its unawakened capacities. And again, it is a child-marvel
that is already able to dispense much of beauty, that has already
brought joy to many, and whose gifts are commonly held to have attained
full maturity.

                           *       *       *

Music as an art, our so-called occidental music, is hardly four hundred
years old; its state is one of development, perhaps the very first
stage of a development beyond present conception, and we--we talk of
"classics" and "hallowed traditions"! And we have talked of them for a
long time![B]

  [B] Tradition is a plaster mask taken from life, which, in the course
  of many years, and after passing through the hands of innumerable
  artisans, leaves its resemblance to the original largely a matter of
  imagination.

We have formulated rules, stated principles, laid down laws;--we apply
laws made for maturity to a child that knows nothing of responsibility!

                           *       *       *

Young as it is, this child, we already recognize that it possesses one
radiant attribute which signalizes it beyond all its elder sisters. And
the lawgivers will not see this marvelous attribute, lest their laws
should be thrown to the winds. This child--it _floats on air_! It
touches not the earth with its feet. It knows no law of gravitation. It
is wellnigh incorporeal. Its material is transparent. It is sonorous
air. It is almost Nature herself. It is--free.

                           *       *       *

But freedom is something that mankind have never wholly comprehended,
never realized to the full. They can neither recognize nor acknowledge
it.

They disavow the mission of this child; they hang weights upon it. This
buoyant creature must walk decently, like anybody else. It may scarcely
be allowed to leap--when it were its joy to follow the line of the
rainbow, and to break sunbeams with the clouds.

                           *       *       *

Music was born free; and to win freedom is its destiny. It will become
the most complete of all reflexes of Nature by reason of its untrammeled
immateriality. Even the poetic word ranks lower in point of
incorporealness. It can gather together and disperse, can be motionless
repose or wildest tempestuosity; it has the extremest heights
perceptible to man--what other art has these?--and its emotion seizes
the human heart with that intensity which is independent of the "idea."

It realizes a temperament, _without_ describing it, with the mobility of
the soul, with the swiftness of consecutive moments; and this, where
painter or sculptor can represent only one side or one moment, and the
poet tardily _communicates_ a temperament and its manifestations by
words.

Therefore, representation and description are not the nature of music;
herewith we declare the invalidity of program-music, and arrive at the
question: What are the aims of music?

                           *       *       *

ABSOLUTE Music! What the lawgivers mean by this, is perhaps remotest of
all from the Absolute in music. "Absolute music" is a form-play without
poetic program, in which the form is intended to have the leading part.
But Form, in itself, is the opposite pole of absolute music, on which
was bestowed the divine prerogative of buoyancy, of freedom from the
limitations of matter. In a picture, the illustration of a sunset ends
with the frame; the limitless natural phenomenon is enclosed in
quadrilateral bounds; the cloud-form chosen for depiction remains
unchanging for ever. Music can grow brighter or darker, shift hither or
yon, and finally fade away like the sunset glow itself; and instinct
leads the creative musician to employ the tones that press the same key
within the human breast, and awaken the same response, as the processes
in Nature.

Per contra, "absolute music" is something very sober, which reminds one
of music-desks in orderly rows, of the relation of Tonic to Dominant, of
Developments and Codas.

Methinks I hear the second violin struggling, a fourth below, to emulate
the more dexterous first, and contending in needless contest merely to
arrive at the starting-point. This sort of music ought rather to be
called the "architectonic," or "symmetric," or "sectional," and derives
from the circumstance that certain composers poured _their_ spirit and
_their_ emotion into just this mould as lying nearest them or their
time. Our lawgivers have identified the spirit and emotion, the
individuality of these composers and their time, with "symmetric"
music, and finally, being powerless to recreate either the spirit, or
the emotion, or the time, have retained the Form as a symbol, and made
it into a fetish, a religion. The composers sought and found this form
as the aptest vehicle for communicating _their_ ideas; their souls took
flight--and the lawgivers discover and cherish the garments Euphorion
left behind on earth.

    A lucky find! 'Twas now or never;
    The flame is gone, it's true--however,
      No need to pity mankind now.
    Enough is left for many a poet's tiring,
      Or to breed envy high and low;
    And though I have no talents here for hiring,
      I'll hire the robe out, anyhow.

Is it not singular, to demand of a composer originality in all things,
and to forbid it as regards form? No wonder that, once he becomes
original, he is accused of "formlessness." Mozart! the seeker and the
finder, the great man with the childlike heart--it is he we marvel at,
to whom we are devoted; but not his Tonic and Dominant, his Developments
and Codas.

                           *       *       *

Such lust of liberation filled Beethoven, the romantic revolutionary,
that he ascended one short step on the way leading music back to its
loftier self:--a short step in the great task, a wide step in his own
path. He did not quite reach absolute music, but in certain moments he
divined it, as in the introduction to the fugue of the Sonata for
Hammerclavier. Indeed, all composers have drawn nearest the true nature
of music in preparatory and intermediary passages (preludes and
transitions), where they felt at liberty to disregard symmetrical
proportions, and unconsciously drew free breath. Even a Schumann (of so
much lower stature) is seized, in such passages, by some feeling of the
boundlessness of this pan-art (recall the transition to the last
movement of the D-minor Symphony); and the same may be asserted of
Brahms in the introduction to the Finale of