Muzyka i epifania. (Fragmenty hermeneutyczne)

Abstract

There are two threads in this article: an objective and a meta-objective thread. The objective thread is the more prominent. This is the music of the highest phase of classicism, Hochklassik. The purpose of this work is to show that the music of this period is used to convey Epiphany, i.e. "the revelation of the sacred through a reality which is different from it or which identifies itself with it". The polyphonic music of the XV-XVIIIth century belongs - in general terms - to this area from which emanates the sacrum. However, the idealistic message of the musical language of Hochklassik is not so obvious. This is not the language of the Renaissance man. This is the language of a man faced with different possibilities. But this man has served his contacts with God. Let us assume the truth of the axiom that underlies all of modern philological hermeneutics, namely, that art is concerned not with appearances but with the truth. Hence the hermeneutical understanding of art is almost like scientific knowledge. Hence musical language can mediate the world. The exposition of this is the task of the musicologist-hermeneutician. At the same time one should not identify musical hermeneutics with the interpretation of single works but should give as broad a meaning to it as possible. In what kind of "reasonable unity" can we place the music of about 1800? The era when the Viennese symphony flourished has as its focus the category of freedom. Classicism's high phase contained in its works something that corresponded with man's most exalted possibilities which in those times were revealed in morality. In the musical composition of about 1800 the general takes precedence over the singular, the particular and the accidental. This is purely instrumental music which constitutes a monolithic blend of various national elements and which is destined for listeners of all social classes. Hence its language is universally intelligible both to the connoisseurs and to the laymen, and both the composers and the thinkers of those times consider it to be "humanity's language", a "universal language". And, what is most important, the Hochklassik music is a reflection or an incarnation in sound of the Kantian state aims and in this sense it acts as a carrier of Epiphany.