NATURE 



97 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1888. 



HAUPTMANN ON HARMONY AND METRE. 



The Nature of Hannofiy and Metre. By Moritz Haupt- 

 mann. Translated and Edited by W. E. Healhcote, 

 M.A. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1888.) 



THE author of this singular book was a noted man in 

 the German musical world. He was not only an 

 eminent violinist (pupil and intimate friend of Spohr), 

 but a composer of merit, and, what is more to our pur- 

 pose here, a great authority on the theory of music and 

 the laws of composition. In 1842 he was appointed, 

 on Mendelssohn's recommendation. Cantor and Musik- 

 Director of the celebrated Thomas- Schule at Leipzig, 

 and Professor of Counterpoint and Composition at the 

 new Conservatorium in that city, filling these posts till 

 his death in 1868. He was undoubtedly the foremost 

 teacher in Europe, and his legion of pupils comprised 

 many who afterwards became musicians of great emin- 

 ence, including F. David, Curschmann, Burgmiiller, the 

 Baches, Joachim, von Biilow, Mr, Cowen, and Sir Arthur 

 Sullivan. He was, moreover, a highly educated man 

 and a Doctor of Philosophy. Hence any writings on 

 music by him could not fail to command attention. His 

 best-known work is a series of letters to his intimate 

 friend, Hauser, the Director of the Conservatoire at 

 Munich, full of spirit, admirable criticism, and deep 

 musical knowledge. 



Hauptmann's scientific turn of mind led him to study 

 earnestly the problem which has occupied so many 

 thinkers ever since music has had any consistent form — 

 namely, to discover how the structure which, for some 

 reason or other, seemed most appropriate for it, could be 

 accounted for and explained on philosophical principles. 

 The Greeks talked vaguely of the music of the spheres, 

 and learned men of later days referred it to arith- 

 metical proportions ; both with as much reason as modern 

 English musicians join in the igtiis-fatuus hunt after 

 "natural systems of harmony." Hauptmann sought the 

 explanation in the depths of German metaphysics, and 

 having satisfied his own mind on the matter, he brought out, 

 in 1853, an elaborate volume which he called •' Die Natur 

 der Harmonik und der Metrik, zur Theorie der Musik," 

 of which the book now before us is an English version. 

 It appears by a part of the original preface (omitted by 

 the present translator) that he had already introduced 

 the system into his " musikalisch-theoretischen Cursus,'' 

 and there is no doubt it attracted considerable attention 

 in Germany. A second edition of the book was published 

 in 1873- 



But in the meantime the matter had assumed a new 

 shape, through the labours of another German philo- 

 sopher, Helmholtz. He had the advantage over Haupt- 

 mann of a large practice in experimental physics ; hence 

 it occurred to him to attack the problem on the physical 

 side, and the result was the well-known epoch-making 

 work, published in 1863, " Die Lehre von den Tonemp- 

 findungen als physiologische Grundlage fur die Theorie 

 der Musik." He investigated, far more thoroughly than 

 anyone had done before, the physical properties of musical 

 sounds, and their physiological effects on the ear. He 

 Vol. XXXIX.— No. 996. 



showed, with the aid of the facts thus obtained, that the 

 structure of music generally in use was due partly to the 

 nature of the sounds of which it was composed, and 

 partly to artificial considerations which had presented 

 themselves to musical composers on aesthetic and artistic 

 grounds. This swept away the necessity for any abstruse 

 metaphysical speculations ; and we strongly suspect that 

 if Hauptmann had waited till Helmholtz's discoveries had 

 been made known, the present treatise would never have 

 appeared. 



It is a question, under these circumstances, how far it 

 was worth while to reproduce the book in English ; how- 

 ever, here it is ; and anyone interested in musical meta- 

 physics, or metaphysical music, and who is unable to 

 read the original, may puzzle over it to his heart's content. 

 It is a handsome volume, and the translation is (so far as 

 we have been able to compare it) carefully and intelli- 

 gently done. Some of the language may seem uncouth, 

 and much of it obscure, but this is inevitable from the 

 nature of the original, the rendering of which must often 

 have been a tough job. The translator has prefixed an 

 introductory essay, and there is an appendix, entitled " A 

 Short Analysis of Hauptmann's Treatise," which, as we 

 do not find it in the original, we presume is the 

 translator's also, though he does not say so. 



The main feature of the work is the application, to 

 musical structure, of the philosophy of Hegel. It would 

 be useless here to attempt to discuss this elaborate 

 subject, or even to describe it. All we can do is to insert 

 a few extracts to give an idea of what sort of thing a 

 person must expect who would take up the work. 



As a general point of departure, the translator tells us 

 that— 



" The fundamental idea of the philosophy is that every 

 notion — as key, scale, seventh chord, resolution, and so 

 on — is made up after this fashion, i.e. that it possesses 

 three elements, involving an antithesis and a reconcile- 

 ment, and that one of the three elements is the root from 

 which the other two, and so the whole construction, 

 spring. This, Hauptmann regards as self-evident, and 

 it is the basis of Hegehan metaphysics." 



The author then says : — 



" For the first step it will only be requisite to acquire 

 an inward conception of the notion of the formative process 

 in its wholeness, in the unity of its three elements with 

 which we become acquainted in their first utterance, as 

 the intervals of the octave, fifth, and third. This notion 

 is and remains everywhere the same, in every formation 

 and transformation. It is the notion that something, 

 which at first subsists for intuition in immediate totality 

 (octave), parts from itself into its own opposite (fifth), 

 and that then this opposite is in its turn abolished 

 to let the whole be produced again as one with its 

 opposite (triad), as a whole correlated in itself Going 

 in the universal sense of this notion, we shall soon be 

 obliged to grant that it no less than comprehends in itself 

 the elements of all knowing, and that anything further 

 for knowledge is not conceivable {dass ein Wciteres fiir 

 die Erkenntniss nicht mehr denkbar ist)" 



Sound is defined as 



" the coming to be of the being which subsists abso- 

 lutely during rest, and which is alternately abolished and 

 restored. Not being in self, or dead persistence in rest, 

 nor yet being out of self {ausser-sich-seyn) in the motion, 

 is sounding, but coming to self {zu-sich-kommen)." 



