Michael Sharon December 11, 2003

The writings of Heine out of the spirit of music - the two basic modes of intensified meta consciousness

The article in “Literatura”, an Hebrew website for culture

What stands out as the quintessence of the writing of Heinrich Heine (The 19^th century German romantic poet and philosopher of a Jewish origin)? Does he say to us, convey to us some externalized messages, or he entirely speaks himself out? What is the meaning of this never-ending introspection, that evolves and creates highly charming sentences, short and so simple? Is there some form of a world view referring to the infrastructure of things and driving forth reality at large? Or rather, his writing can be regarded as a quiet yet never-ending reaction?

Reaction towards what?

The essence of every day’s life is mostly instrumental, immersed in various calculations. It has but a little materialization of the autonomy of Man. Yet, there is an essence of a second order, not one aware of itself as a stationary object, but one that builds itself up out of the background of things and intensifies them, as a state of consciousness different from that of everyday life. This is the introspection. We can refer to two kinds of essence corresponding to two forms of introspection: One that is projected in time, dripping with a sort of irony bursts of self-awareness. This is the intensification of the word, the conception of reality as a text and words.

And there is the spatial essence, the non verbal one, a consciousness coming into existence out of the spirit of music. The words here are a derived product of a flowing experience and consciousness – a musical one; whereas the verbal introspective essence is a linear reduction of reality, in a kind of staccato, where the element of flow is abolished. Nietzsche referred to consciousness intensification of the second kind, when he spoke of the birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music.

Links: The widely loved poem of Heinrich Heine “Lorelei”

http://ingeb.org/Lieder/ichweiss.html

http://fanzone50.com/Tales/Lorelei.html

I closely examine “Lorelei”: Written in a minor tone, yes, yet all the motifs of early romanticism pop up or are implied here: A fable from old time; Sadness and melancholy; sense of yearning for the far away and the vague longing – those horizons of misty longing that are so greatly intensified in the music of Beethoven (Particularly in the sixth and seventh symphonies); the river that flows calmly; the gleaming crest of the mountain; the maiden that is the most beautiful of all beauties with the wondrous virtues (see Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther; 1774), and the magic in her song, and in general, the magic that captures us; the sailor and the sea; the sea and its waves; the storm and the cliffs.

It should be understood that the sharpness of time, the ravages of time that are so tangible in the first introspective form – the verbal-ironic one, undergoes a transformation under the spatial essence, such that makes time old and a fable, as if we are thrown, regarding existence in time, thrown into an ancient past. This is the sublime liberation from the jaws of time. This notion will at later stage give rise to Nietzsche’s doctrine of “eternal return in time”.

Indeed, the writing and introspective consciousness of Heine is primarily a product of the spirit of music. This is something that cannot be spoken about, but rather, one has to create and restore Heine’s authentic background, the spatial essence out of which his consciousness evolved. There is no way to understand Heine and his writing without listening to the specific music that gave birth to his writing essence.

Therefore, listen. What is referred to here, as a spatio-musical parable, is Schumann’s oratorio “Paradise and the fairy” that contains within a single and a rare momentum of genius, the charm of the entire early romanticism.

Link: Schumann and the living sublime: Das Paradies und die Peri (Hebrew)

Michael Sharon: A composition by Robert Schumann as a demonstration; November 4, 2001

It occurs to me now that a demonstration of an integrative Whole with a gigantic variability (i.e., a diversity of sub-components integrating to form a unity) in an endless momentum of a true genius of spirit – flowingly being carried from one peak to another – is to be found in a composition by Robert Schumann from 1843 – Paradise and the fairy. And, important to emphasize, what should be heard is a performance by Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra – since this is a composition comprising of numerous continuous transitions from one phase to another, thus demanding high virtuosity and a perfect performance capability by an entire orchestra. Due to the difficulty in performing this oratorio it is seldom put on stage.

This fountainhead of boundless genius beyond words may also lead many musicians into embarrassment; and there may be those that although not underestimating its value, will immediately move on to another subject, while dismissing the matter with a brief statement, usually one that makes a reduction of a unique phenomenon of human spirit, into a general genre – early romantic music - while mentioning other composers like Schubert or Berlioz.

But it will not help you, gentlemen, everything is found there: Magical smooth transitions from one phase to another, such that without your sensing it, unnoticeably, you are suddenly at an entirely new plateau, like in the paintings of Escher. And the employment of leitmotifs, usually ascribed to the later Wagner for having discovered them 30 years later. And above all, a magic beyond words, pieces electrifying with their intensity, and those electrifying with their Zen-like minimalism that points toward a latent and wonderful world.

A single creation that is truly divine, intensifying life, and hence may embarrass all those wretched murmurs of dull talents that produce for us pseudo substitutes marked by sensationally imbued marketing – that are nothing but the empty outcry of what counters life.

A single creation that advanced the entire 19^th century music – one cannot, for instance, understand the existence of numerous developments and chords in Richard Wagner’s music (e.g., in Tristan und Isolde) without it.

Listening to this composition with the text in hand, perhaps in addition to the colossal Mass in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, may exemplify the contrast that I draw between art of pale bi-dimensionality and “dead” life-countering products – that need a great deal of hysterical self-inflaming in order to be impressed by them, and the real thing, that although being a human creation, is a whole universe by its own merit.

From “Das Paradies und die Peri”, Robert Schumann, 1843

http://www.michael-sharon.com/r/T1.mp3

http://www.michael-sharon.com/r/T3.mp3

http://www.michael-sharon.com/r/T6.mp3

http://www.michael-sharon.com/r/T7.mp3

http://www.michael-sharon.com/r/T8.mp3

http://www.michael-sharon.com/r/T11.mp3

http://www.michael-sharon.com/r/T16.mp3

http://www.michael-sharon.com/r/T17.mp3

Thus, the writing and philosophy of Heine can be understood as a situation of consciousness that comes into existence by the spirit of music – and which is unique to the romantic music of his time. Heine could have never emerged before. In his last years under agonizing pains, Heine returns to the substance offered by the religious spirit. It should be understood that here also the heart of the matter is a state of intensification of consciousness, and hence it is not the religion in the sense of “the work of God”. It is interesting to note that Professor Leibovitz (The Israeli eminent theologician and philosopher), for whom the quintessence of the Jewish religion is the work of God, well understood both the sole consciousness essence of the religiosity of Heine in his later years and the spatio-musical essence at the core of his creative being, and therefore he denies him totally, even Heine in his later years.