Cultural Feedback in Music
The Cultural Evolution in Music
Liberation from the Music Trends of the Masses
The Cultural-Artistic Feedback in Music
Systematic Refinement of Culture
The Personal Life of the
Composer as the Root of his Musical Achievement
In the second case – when the listener lives on the level of complete fulfilment – the musical thought will unfold only very discretely from the harmony into the worlds of the sequences; only very subtly will the motifs and the melodies of this composition unfold into all directions of human evolution; because here the true musical meaning lives freed from time and space – in the primary substance of the unboundedness of space and in the primary substance of the infinity of time.
Such a composition will hardly leave the world of an innermost dialogue – that intimate dialogue which takes place on the level of unity: on that level, where man's innermost feeling and innermost understanding expand inwardly towards infinity. Quotation
The artistic message actually needed by the environment may be very different from the artistic message which the masses call for at the top of their voice.
Every mother knows that her child enjoys eating chocolate and candies more than anything else. Why then does she not always give it sweets to eat? Because she knows that the child's nourishment would be very incomplete, and that it would not receive all the nutrients necessary for growth.
In the same way, the masses only ask for shallow entertainment music, and by consuming it, their discriminative ability to absorb mental nourishment languishes.
The true musician does not lend himself to such an irresponsible (and only materially profitable) support of the masses' fad, but, in a very discrete manner, he lovingly increases the listener's appetite for those multiple nutrients which are absolutely vital for his natural inner growth.
The true musician picks up the present mental-spiritual disposition of his environment and provides the environment with that musical nourishment which can accelerate the listener in the process of his natural human unfoldment, and which simultaneously advances cultural integration in general.
To accomplish this, the artist must first draw upon his own culture, but untiringly he will refine, cultivate, beautify, and perfect this given culture. He may even have to lead it from a state of individual and social disintegration to a harmonious world of cultural unity.
Such an achievement demands specific requirements from the life of the musical artist: within himself he must realize the unity of self-consciousness, feeling and understanding, and in his conscience he must make the firm resolution to realize this personal inner blissful unity in his environment too.
So, he must also realize the substance of music very personally, for only on the basis of this personal realization will he, as a musician, be capable of truly generating life-supporting influence.