The other arts represent the Ideas in the particular things, the
realities that lie behind the visible world, but music is independent
altogether of the world of concrete things. It ignores completely this
aspect of life. It could to a certain extent exist even if there was
no world at all. Music, then, is not the copy of the Ideas, but the
copy of the Will itself. That is why the effect of music is so much
more powerful and penetrating than that of the other arts, for they
speak only of shadows, but it speaks of the thing itself.
Browning relates music to the will in one of his best-known poems, when
he makes Abt Vogler say:
"But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws, that made them, and lo, they are!
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star."
Schopenhauer, in working out the details of his theory, tries to
establish an analogy between music and {64} the Ideas of the visible
world, connecting the lower tones with the lowest grades of the
objectification of the will, those of inorganic nature, and leading up
gradually through the intermediate grades until the higher tones are
reached, representing the other end of the scale, the highest organic
forms of life. The melody, the high singing part, represents the
intelligent life and effort of man, and progresses with unrestrained
freedom, while it dominates the whole. This represents the unbroken,
significant connection of one continuous thought. The melody,
therefore, has significant intentional connection from beginning to
end. It records the history of the will enlightened by intellect. In
the world of experience the will expresses itself in action. But
melody does more, it expresses the inner side of the action, drawing
out from the deeps its secret history, its motives and efforts, its
passionate yearning and inner excitements, all that which the reason
includes in the concept of feeling. For this reason music has been
called the language of feeling and passion, as words are the language
of the reason. In melody there is a constant deviation from the
keynote in a thousand ways, yet there always follows a constant return
to the keynote. In all these digressions and deviations melody
expresses the manifold efforts of the will. Its satisfaction is also
expressed by the final return to a harmonious interval, and to the
keynote. In melody, therefore, the composer reveals all the deepest
secrets of human willing and feeling.