BACH AS THE MIND BEHIND THE WILL

Schopenhauer’s philosophical interpretation of music as direct objectification of the will, developed further in his discussion of the meaningfulness of the bass notes, up to the highest notes,--- brings to mind, of all the composers who ever lived, the music of Bach, which becomes the subject of this entry. There is a colossal power in Bach’s music, at first suggesting that there is indeed a giant Schopenhauerian Wille at work here. But then it becomes exceedingly obvious that there is a giant mind behind that Wille, and it is that mind that controls Bach’s music, even at the heights of his expressions of feeling, such as in several emotionally-rich parts of his St. Matthew’s Passion, and in numerous similar examples of exquisite complex emotions, which are like beautiful horses harnessed to carry forth a Divine carriage, guided by Bach’s masterful, mathematical mind.

Indeed, his harmonies are mathematically perfect, his musical logic is unshakable, his polyphonies belong to the eerily esoteric, yet glaringly tangible world of geometrical Pythagorean mysteries. And of course, the world of Bach is all as profoundly original as his patently unprecedented Wohltemperierte Klavier… Only Wagner, after him, could create a world as wholesome, as original, and as unprecedented as Bach’s…

To make it perfectly clear still further, there is a Divine science revealing itself in Bach’s music; but Bach is not a scientist in the ordinary human sense, which I have hopefully conveyed throughout the section on The Genius And The Scholar. Bach is a colossal thinker, a philosopher of musical expression, and his system of thought parallels in music those of the world’s greatest philosophers, be it Plato, Aristotle, Kant, or Hegel. But his unquestionable advantage over all the philosophers is that he can never be perceived as intruding into the sphere where others dwell and work. Whereas we can argue with any philosophical system on the grounds that there is always something that we disagree with there, there is no disagreement inside Bach’s domain, where he rules supreme as its inspired creator, mighty commander, and wise legislator.