Understanding the Musical Relation between Sequence and Harmony
The Function
of the Mother
in Music
The Musical
Presentation of the Familiar Human Life
The Roles of the Family
Members
in Music
The Function
of the Father
in Music
The Custodians
of Law in Music
From
the existence of every one of us we naturally deduce that there is a mother
who has given birth to us. Whenever we see an individual we know he has a
mother, even though we may not see her.
This insight is the expression of a natural principle, and we deal with it
very naturally.
The same applies to the sequence. When the world of musical motifs is explored, one can deduce the existence of the sequence, this mother of the motifs, even if it is not readily visible.
In the same way as motherhood can truly be identified only by the child and the mother themselves, the motherhood of the sequence can only be identified by the motif and the sequence. The listener will only recognize this mother-child relationship of sequence and motif if, on the level of feeling, he succeeds in completely tuning in or concentrating on the motif or the sequence respectively, or on both.
Then he will recognize the mother – the sequence – through the eyes of the motif. He will recognize the sequence by identifying the main force which promotes, protects, and guides the motif on its journey through the melody.
An outer way for intellectually recognizing the sequence by means of the understanding does not exist.
Further we may infer: to perceive the harmony from the point of view of the sequence means the direct knowledge of the principle of fatherhood from the point of view of the mother; and to perceive the harmony from the point of view of the motif would mean the knowledge of the essence of fatherhood, from the point of view of the child.
Only someone who successfully went these paths of knowledge can reach a point where he sees through the eyes of the father and experiences the feeling of life-creating fatherhood in a holistic sense, how through the eyes of the father the mother and the child are enlivened, sustained, and guided out into the enlivened world, and lead back again into the world of life itself.
The sequence also hands the motifs over to the care of another sequence so that the children of the composition may continue to unfold in the next world.
Here, the sequence seems to change its appearance, yet in its essence it remains ever the same: the feminine embodiment of harmony.
The motifs see the new face of the sequence from their own, individual point of view, and by this fresh sight they are inspired to manifold new activity in their new world.
Whenever their individual activities move to much apart towards disharmony and thereby tend to disintegrate, and when the world of the sequence, in which the motifs are now moving about, has lost its natural attraction and also its integrating effect (otherwise the motifs would not predominantely strive apart and tend towards disharmony), then through the power of harmony the sequence radiates a strong influence towards the motifs.
Through this increased radiance the sequence attracts its "children," the motifs, back to itself and guides them to the following new world – to the new sequence: to itself – in its rejuvenated appearance.
This insight, too, only confirms the understanding that classical composition in essence is not at all of pecifically musical nature. Reaching from the deep, inner silence to the outer sound-spaces, it simply represents human life as we know it.
The world of the harmony is happiness resting within itself; all-uniting love is the essence of the sequence. The life-force hidden in the harmony is the enlivening nature in the motifs which permeates the world of music in a manifold creative and all-rejuvenating manner.
The motif-technique, the sequence-technique, and the harmony-technique reside in the world of harmony in the form of abstract principles, and sustain those laws according to which the harmony expresses itself, reaching to the world of sound.
In this context, the motif-technique, the sequence-technique, and the harmony-technique are the integrating elements, the custodians of law: the connecting links of music.
Their different potentials of organizing power brings about the iridescent, colourful splendour of the motifs, melodies and sequences; and from their profound integration they generate the pure form of beauty in music.