MUSIC AS A WAY OF SELF-REALIZATION:
A DIALOGUE WITH PROFESSOR ALEXANDER KLUJEV
Tayron Achury (T.A.). Dear Professor Klujev, you are a well-known philosopher and musician. Your scientific works have been published not only in Russia, but also in the USA, Italy, Spain, Germany, Romania, Greece, the Czech Republic, Turkey, India, China, Pakistan, the UAE, and many countries of the former USSR. You are the author of an original model of the philosophy of music. In this interview, I would like to discuss with you your model of the philosophy of music, as well as your understanding of the connection between music and pedagogy, the role of music in shaping the human experience.
So, Professor Klujev, the main question is: could you tell us what the essence of your model of the philosophy of music is?
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| Tayron Achury |
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| Alexander Klujev |
Alexander Klujev (A.K.). Dear Dr. Achury, I consider my model, in general, as the result of the development of Russian philosophy of music. Russian philosophy of music originated approximately in the 15th century and has been constantly evolving. What is the specific understanding of music by Russian philosophers? Russian philosophers interpret music (each, of course, in their own way) as the most perfect means of saving a person. I have summarized the ideas of Russian philosophers about music in my three books: “10 Articles on Russian Philosophy of Music” (published in 2023 in St. Petersburg by the F.M. Dostoevsky Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy), “Russian Philosophy of Music: 2010s and 2020s Articles (Transl. from Russ.)” (published in 2023 in the Czech Republic, in Ostrava, in English by Tuculart Edition & European Institute for Innovation Development) and “Russian Philosophy of Music: Articles of the 2010–2020s” (published in 2024 in Moscow by Progress-Tradition). About my model.
I called my model “The New Synergetic Philosophy of Music”. It has two components: theoretical and practical.
In the theoretical part, the model is based on the combination of two principles: classical (old) synergetics, developed by the German physicist Hermann Haken, and hesychasm, the core of the Orthodox doctrine. In the practical part, it demonstrates how this synthesis can be applied in music. Let me explain.
Classical (old) synergetics, which emerged in the 1970s, is an interdisciplinary field of science that studies the self-organization of systems in the world. It has been established that systems evolve from less organized (ordered, stable, and reliable) to more organized (ordered, stable, etc.).
Hesychasm affirms the unity of the energies of the bodily-mental-spiritual man and the energies of God, which appears as the growth of man's energies in the sequence: bodily – mental – spiritual. Such growth is carried out as a result of the reading of the Jesus, or the Smart Prayer, by a person.
And the conjugation of classical (old) synergetics and Hesychasm is connected with the fact that in the process of prayer, the Christian Hesychast carries out (and in our days!) communication with all people, humanity. Such communication contributes to the emergence in every layman of a desire for unity with God in the world. This desire is expressed in the bodily, mental, and spiritual activation of the individual in the world, which leads to the development of the world according to the principle of self-organization of systems. In my opinion, the self-organization of systems is represented by the following sequence: nature, society, culture, art, and music. In my view, music is the highest development of the world, which is influenced by human development, and it is also the embodiment of unity.
In practice, the work I offer is based on the realization that music is a powerful means of uniting a person with the Supreme Being, God. I believe that music therapy is the process of bringing a person closer to the Supreme Being through music. I have developed a music therapy technique that I hope will help people ascend to the Supreme Being (I have conducted music therapy workshops using this technique in Russia, the United States, and Finland for eight years).
The model is presented in detail in my monograph “The Sum of Music” (2021), published in Russia, as well as in separate articles published in Russia and abroad.
T.A. You are a teacher. Tell me, can the musical-pedagogical process become a model of the pedagogical process in general, or is it only a special process? And another question: how can the musical-pedagogical process influence the pedagogical process?
A.K. Let’s first define what a pedagogical process is. In my opinion, a pedagogical process is a person’s introduction to the world. This introduction takes place through three sequential actions: sensory contact, knowledge, and practical mastery, which are derived from the sequential manifestation of the three components of human consciousness: feelings, reason, and will. But here’s what’s interesting: these actions make themselves felt in musical pedagogical work in a very distinct way, acting as a succession of musical upbringing, musical education, and musical training (of course, mostly in theory, not in practice, where they are closely intertwined).
Musical upbringing is the development of the ability to experience music as a prerequisite for a proper response to music.
B.M. Teplov writes extensively about musical experience in his famous book “Psychology of Musical Abilities”. According to Teplov, “the specific feature of musical experience is the experience of the sound fabric as an expression of a certain content. This criterion is the main and primary distinguishing feature between ‘musical experience’ and ‘non-musical’ experience of music”.
Musical education is the expansion of musical ideas, predetermining the awareness of music as an original art form.
B.V. Asafiev made a huge contribution to the improvement of musical education processes. Asafiev proposed a heuristic method in this direction based on the technology of “music observation”. According to the renowned musicologist, “from the analysis of ... the properties of (music. – A.K.) and from the installation of provisions that help to understand its “content”, it was possible to conclude that in order to correctly approach (understanding. – A.K.) music ... it is necessary not so much to teach it or study it as a scientific discipline, how much is the observation (intelligently organized) of the changes and transformations of the material taking place in it”.
Finally, music training is preparation for working with musical material (especially important in a professional environment).
This work requires the manifestation of musical and creative will. The patterns of this manifestation are discussed by the famous German pianist and teacher K.A. Martinsen. Martinsen refers to the musical-creative will as the sound-creative will (schöpferischer Klangwille) and explains that it is composed of six distinct modes: “Pitch-Wille (Tonwille)”; “Sound-Wille (Klangwille)”; “Line-Wille (Linienwille)”; “Rhythm-Wille (Rhytmuswille)”; “Form-Wille (Gestaltwille)”; and “Forming-Wille (Gestaltungswille)”.
Thus, musical upbringing, education, and training appear to be three consecutive stages (stages) of a person’s introduction to music, but given that music is the perfect embodiment of the world (according to the model of the “New Synergetic Philosophy of Music” proposed by me), it is obvious that introduction to music can be considered as a model of introduction to the world, and therefore, as a universal form of pedagogical activity. I have tried to show this pedagogical potential of music in my article “Musical Upbringing, Education, and Training in Phenomenological Understanding”, published in the journal “Philosophical Sciences” in 2019.
T.A. You have noted the phenomenological focus of your article on music pedagogy. Could you please elaborate on the role that phenomenology plays in the understanding of music? Additionally, I would like to ask you about the significance of a music teacher’s subjective experience in their pedagogical work.
A.K. Yes, of course, the phenomenological approach is crucial for comprehending the principles of music. What is phenomenology? Let me start with the term. The term phenomenon (Greek: φαινόμενον, from φαίνεσθαι – to appear, to be visible, also – to seem) in a general sense means a phenomenon given in sensory contemplation. This term is the basis of the concept of phenomenology, which means the study of phenomena. It was first used by the German philosopher Johann Heinrich Lambert in his work “The New Organon” (1764).
According to Lambert, phenomenology is a theory of appearance (Theorie des Scheinens). Phenomenology helps us “break through the appearance (the blindness of appearance) to the true". As Lambert writes, the concept of appearance, both in its literal meaning and in its original source, refers to the impressions that perceived things (Dinge) evoke in our senses. This concept applies to all the senses, and since it applies to all the senses, it is only natural that this concept would be used to describe “the impression that each sense provides us with through the perception of objects, such as when we want to say ‘heat’ or ‘sound’ (and so on)”. In other words, phenomenology is a way to understand the essence of a phenomenon.
In musicology, this involves immersing oneself in the sound layers of music. What are these sound layers?
Many renowned researchers have written about the sound layers of music, including Karl Dalhaus and Nikolai Hartmann in Germany. The Russian-American scientist Genrikh Orlov devoted a section to this topic in his remarkable book “The Tree of Music”. I have proposed my own approach. What is it?
First of all, I have noted that for greater accuracy, when discussing the sound layers of music, we should be talking about the sound layers of an individual piece of music. I distinguish three such layers:
the first layer is defined by rhythm, meter, tempo, timbre, and dynamics;
the second is determined by intonation;
the third is recognized by means of mode (key), melody, and harmony.
Further. I believe that the listed sound layers, in the order of their enumeration, are the successive stages of revealing the center of a musical work. In accordance with this, the elements that fix these layers: rhythm, meter, tempo, timbre, dynamics, intonation, mode (key), melody, and harmony, are the successive elements that reveal this center.
As a result, it is the harmony that illuminates the center of a musical composition. (I believe that this “picture” can be found in any music, as the progression of rhythm, meter, tempo, timbre, dynamics, intonation, mode (key), melody, and harmony has always determined the structure of musical compositions.)
According to my understanding, this center is the Spirit, the Spiritual energy.
Thus, one cannot but agree with the famous Swiss conductor and music phenomenologist Ernest Ansermet that “music was found before the sounds”. And, by the way, Ansermet emphasizes: “the meaning of music… is manifested in every (musical. – A.K.) work”.
I develop my ideas about the sound layers of a musical work in the article: “On the Tetrasphere of the Musical Language”, published in the journal “Bulletin of Musical Science” in 2021.
And about the subjective experience of communicating with music... I am a pianist, graduated from the Leningrad (now it is called St. Petersburg) Conservatory. Gave concerts. I remember at one of my performances, and I played Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, played in some intoxicating me delight: absolutely free – the fingers as if by themselves “flown” over the keyboard (!), I, or rather someone inside me, began to ask questions: what is happening? why are people gathered? where do the sounds fly? and in general: what is music? You see – the living phenomenology of sound…
T.A. Tell me, Professor, does music only represent reality, or does it also shape it? How does music contribute to the construction of human existence?
A.K. Dear Dr. Achury, what is reality? There is an empirical understanding of it, and there is a mystical understanding...
You know, in medieval Europe, there was a debate about whether universals were objective substances or, on the contrary, abstractions formed in the process of human cognition. Essentially, this was a debate about what reality is. There were those who argued that general concepts have a real existence and precede individual things and objects, and they were called realists (John Scotus Eriugena, Thomas Aquinas). There were also those who denied the ontological significance of universals, arguing that general concepts do not exist in reality but only in the mind. These were known as nominalists (Roscelin, Ockham). There were also those who took a middle position in this debate, arguing that there is something common in individual objects that can be expressed by a concept. These people were known as conceptualists (Pierre Abelard and Duns Scotus).
I spent a long time trying to decide which of these three camps I belonged to, but I eventually realized that I was a realist in the medieval sense. The fact is that the realists claimed that general concepts exist in three forms: “before things” in the divine mind, “in things themselves” as their essence or form, and “after things”, that is, in the human mind as a result of abstraction and generalization. For me, general concepts live in things themselves, in individual musical compositions. It is in this sense that I speak of the human discovery of God through music.
Regarding the construction of human existence by music, I will say this. Of course, music builds a blueprint for human existence, moreover, it constantly improves this blueprint, even when a person listens to the same musical creation. This is the movement of man towards God in music. As a person develops, he finds in music an ever–increasing unity with God, which constantly raises him and brings him to a new level - the plane of existence. What does this mean? And this means a change in the temporal parameter of human existence, the movement of a person through time into eternity.
This process has been reflected in the comments of 20th-century music theorists and practitioners. For example, according to the musicologist K. Dalhaus, who devoted the section “On the Temporal Structure of Music” in his book “Music Theory in the 18th and 19th Centuries” to this topic, music exists “in time”, even though time is irreversible. “Irreversible time” is not present in the immediate musical experience. This “constant”, “homogeneous”, “empty”, “quantum” time, or “world time”, is not consciously perceived or experienced during listening; it remains an “external moment of music”. However, “present” time is a “lived” time in which the past and future are synthesized, while measurable time, with its distinct past and future, remains secondary. This effect is also noted by the composer B.A. Zimmerman. He believes that music has an external time, which can change, – the tempo of a piece of music, and an internal time, which is almost constant, – the experience of the person (listener) of the organizational development of a piece of music. The internal time is more important. As Zimmerman explains his position, “time in a piece of music is organized in two ways: on the one hand, by choosing a specific external measure of time (tempo. – A.K.)… on the other hand, by choosing a specific internal measure of time (experience. – A.K.)... “The ‘inner’ as well as the ‘real’ measures are determined by the inner musical consciousness of time, which acquires a regulatory meaning in this sense”.
T.A. Dear Professor, there are two powerful approaches to music that have developed in Germany: Hegel’s and Nietzsche’s. How do you view these approaches, and which one is closer to your model?
A.K. Dear Dr. Achury, in order to understand Hegel’s and Nietzsche’s approaches to music, it is necessary to first understand the essence of Hegel’s and Nietzsche’s teachings. Let me start with Hegel’s teachings.
As is well known, Hegel’s work that most fully expressed the philosophical system of the great German thinker was the book “Phenomenology of Spirit” (1807). In this work, Hegel focuses on the spiritual, leaving the material and non-spiritual aspects outside the realm of the science of the phenomena of the spirit.
In Hegel’s philosophy, the spirit evolves through three stages: subjective, objective, and absolute.
The Subjective spirit is the soul, the consciousness of an individual.
The Objective spirit is the “spirit of society as a whole”.
The Absolute spirit is the highest manifestation of the spirit, the eternally valid truth.
Thus, the subjective spirit precedes the objective spirit, and the objective spirit, in turn, precedes the absolute spirit.
Interestingly, Hegel did not write anything about music. Hegel’s thoughts on music are presented in his lecture notes, which were collected and published by his student, Heinrich Gustav Goto, under the title “Lectures on Aesthetics” (1835-1838), after the philosopher’s death.
From these materials, it is clear that for Hegel, music is a romantic art that expresses the subjective spirit (the soul of an individual). Hegel notes, “music is the spirit, the soul, that sounds directly to itself and feels satisfied in this listening to itself”. It is evident that Hegel, in the context of his philosophical system, did not highly regard music. This is evidenced, in particular, by the following statement by the thinker: “Musical talent is mostly manifested in early youth, when the mind is still empty and the soul has experienced little, and it can even reach a significant level before the artist has gained any spiritual or life experience. For the same reason, we often encounter significant virtuosity in musical composition and performance alongside a lack of spiritual content and character”.
As for Nietzsche, it is considered to be his main work, in which he outlined the essence of his teaching, the text “Thus spoke Zarathustra” (1885). In this essay, Nietzsche presented his main ideas: “God is Dead”, “Superman”, “The Will to Power”, “Eternal Return”, and others. Nietzsche’s ideal is a strong (or rather, unbridled) personality that destroys socially accepted norms of behavior and morality.
Nietzsche wrote a lot about music, which is understandable: Nietzsche was a composer, a pianist, and, most interestingly, he considered himself a composer. Nietzsche’s works on music are well-known, including “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music” (1872, 2nd edition 1886, with the preface “An Attempt at Self-Criticism” and the subtitle “Hellenism and Pessimism”) and “The Wagner Case” (1888). Many vivid opinions about music can be found in Nietzsche's book “The Will to Power” (which is a collection of Nietzsche’s notes, compiled and edited by his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and Peter Gast in 1888).
For Nietzsche, music is a wild element that unleashes the energy of self-destruction and self-renewal. Nietzsche associate’s music with the ancient Greek god Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry. According to Nietzsche, contemporary German music, which he believed had a romantic origin (notably, like Hegel, Nietzsche emphasizes the romantic aspect of music), should become Dionysian. Here is how he writes about this in “The Experience of Self-Criticism”: Romantic music must be overcome by Dionysian music: “What kind of music would it be that would no longer be of romantic origin, like German music, but of Dionysian origin?” I will also quote Nietzsche’s statement about music from his work “The Will to Power”: “We dare to be absurd and childish again... in a word, ‘we are musicians’”.
So, when it comes to music, Hegel emphasizes its spiritual nature (at the level of the subjective spirit), while Nietzsche emphasizes its sensual and bodily nature. You asked which of Hegel’s or Nietzsche’s ideas about music aligns with my philosophy of music.
I answer: Hegel’s.
T.A. What, in your opinion, is the main problem for music in the 21st century, are we in a period of expansion of musical consciousness or in a crisis of musical consumerism?
A.K. In my opinion, music has no problems. Music was, is and will be. Music exists forever, even before sounds (remember the statement by E. Anserme, which I cited). About “eternal music” wrote Ferruccio Busoni, Maurice Ravel, Nikolai Metner... It’s not the music that has problems, it’s the person who has lost touch with music. Let me remind you that in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, there was a philosopher named Diogenes of Sinope in Ancient Greece, who would walk around in broad daylight with a lantern, saying, “I’m looking for a person”. Isn’t it time for someone with a hearing aid to walk around different concert venues, saying, “I’m looking for music”? And you know, it seems to me that to look for music is to look for a person in music, so that the intention of Diogenes was very and very prophetic...
Today, as a rule, there is no human being in music, and moreover, he is deliberately removed from it.
All this began with the work of A. Schoenberg, then it intensified enormously in connection with the organization of the international summer courses of new music in Darmstadt (1946), where many composers began to hone their ways of removing a person from music: P. Boulez, K. Stockhausen, B. Maderna, L. Nono, L. Berio, J. Cage, J. Xenakis, M. Kagel, V. Rome, M. Feldman, B. Fernihow, H. Lahenman, B. Furrer and others.
Today, the method of removing a person from music proposed by H. Lachenman is particularly popular. What does Lachenman do? Here is a description of one of his works, the Concert for Percussion Air (1968-69): “During the play, the soloist uses an incredible number of instruments, from a glass Japanese gong... to regular timpani and other drums (including a string drum, or “lion’s roar”...), as well as... electric guitars and other instruments. Orchestral musicians at various points (use. – A.K.) ... toy frogs, which are played by both brass players and string players in the final bars of the composition. The croaking of the toys at the end may create a nostalgic atmosphere... Whatever the real purpose of these toys, they... provide a wonderful contrast to the other surprising sounds of the final sections of the piece: the brass instruments bubbling with water in their horns, the electric doorbells being operated by a pair of special performers, and so on”.
In modern Russia, there are many composers who have adopted Lachenman’s approach, including A. Manotskov, O. Raeva, A. Filonenko, B. Filanovsky, S. Nevsky, D. Kurlyandsky, and others. Perhaps the most diligent follower of Lachenman’s instructions is D. Kurlyandsky.
Here, for example, is what Kurlyandsky says about his composition Vacuum pack (Vacuum Packaging), 2015, written for voice, trombone, piano, glockenspiel, violin, and electronics: “At some point, I felt that it wasn’t enough for me to compose just combinations of sounds or even just sounds themselves... On the first page, here’s what happens. The vocalist leans her ear against one of the four glasses in front of her and listens. The glasses (make. – A.K.) noise of different heights (the effect of a seashell). She (repeats. – A.K.) the tone she heard and as if she puts it in another glass – she sings into it. From the exhalation, the glass slightly steams – the condensation later in the play becomes an independent material with which the musicians work. ‘Putting’ the sound in the glass, the singer listens again to another glass, picks up a new sound and carries it on. At the same time, each glass is sounded and put on a separate column…”.
I have written about all of this in detail in my article “Game of Music: How Long?”, which was published in the materials of an international scientific conference held at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music in 2020.
As for the second part of your question, how can we describe what is happening in music today: is it an expansion of musical consciousness or a crisis of musical consumerism? I believe that these are two sides of the same process. I would describe this process as the dispersion of musical consciousness.
Walter Benjamin wrote about the lack of concentration, and hence the triumph of mass (effortless) art, in his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility” (1936). More recently, Jean Baudrillard has written extensively about the total commodification of art (and even the racketeering it engages in). In this regard, his collection of articles and interviews, “The Artistic Conspiracy” (1995), has gained significant attention.
T.A. And the last question, dear Professor. Tell me, what do you see as the prospects for the development of music in the coming decades?
A.K. You know, I formulated this question for myself and tried to answer it almost 30 years ago in my article “On the Directions of Music Development in the 21st Century” (1998). Unfortunately, what I came to in this article remains relevant today.
I have identified seven directions for the development of music in the 21st century (just as you have identified seven questions for me).
The first of these, and, as I see it, the most significant, is the emergence of new technical means for creating and performing musical compositions based on the further development of the principles of electronic, in particular computer-based, musical sound.
Indeed, the current 21st century is a century of consistent growth in scientific and technological capabilities, which will undoubtedly affect the technical means of musical art, including, of course, electronic means. As K. Stockhausen explained this process, the use of technology enhances a person’s expansion in the world, “because with the help of glasses, a small tape recorder, and similar items, a person can see and hear better, and they begin to view them as part of their body”.
The second direction of music development is the further movement in the field of interaction of all kinds of musical art.
This conviction is based on the study of contemporary musical works that belong to various musical genres, styles, etc., as well as on the statements of composers about the current trend towards the unification of various manifestations of musical art. For example, Sergei Slonimsky stated: “There is a process of convergence between different movements and musical systems, where the ‘predisposition’ or ‘affiliation’ of a composer to a particular direction is erased”. Or here is the opinion of Krzysztof Penderecki: “Today... the chance to survive has music written in a natural manner, synthesizing everything that has happened over the past few decades”.
The third direction of music evolution must be considered the consistent expansion of the sound range of musical art, in other words, the increasingly active musicalization of the sounds of living and non-living nature included in the fabric of musical compositions.
According to Evgeny Nazaykinsky’s figurative expression, “new questions are being added to the old ones, such as whether musique concrete, which originated in France in the middle of the century, as well as the so-called 'graphic' and 'conceptual' music, and many other branches that grew on the trunk of musical history in the 20th century, are considered music”.
The fourth direction of music’s evolutionary movement is its increasing desire for unity and interconnection with other arts.
As Moses Kagan notes, “the importance of expanding music’s interactions with other arts lies in the fact that synthetic artistic structures meet the need for a multifaceted and holistic representation of human existence”.
The fifth direction of music's development is the complexity of its language.
One example of this complexity is the increased tonal complexity of musical compositions. For example, according to Edison Denisov, “new music has expanded, and the old tonality has entered the modern system as one of the simplest elements”. The use of the so-called mutation technique in music is equally significant. According to K. Stockhausen, “now... for the first time in music... a musical figure gives rise to a new one that is genetically related to it, but this relationship is hidden and not obvious. The process of change (of the musical figure) is constant. This technique of transformation, the technique of mutation, is completely new...”.
The sixth direction of music development is the increasingly active inclusion in musical compositions of what is traditionally the opposite of sound: silence.
As you know, one of the first people to use silence when creating a piece of music was J. Cage. For example, I will cite his well-known piano piece “4'33"”, in which the pianist does not extract a single sound from the instrument. Similar essays are created by a student of J. Cage J. Brecht. Here, for example, is Brecht’s composition “Water Jam”. This work, which resembles a suite, consists of a large number of independent pieces written on separate sheets of cardboard. Some of these pieces have titles such as “String Quartet”, “Flute Solo”, and so on. However, the performance is highly unique, with the musicians not playing but merely shaking their hands in the “String Quartet” and dismantling and reassembling the flute in “Flute Solo”.
Finally, the seventh direction of music evolution is the increasing role of the personality of the composer and performer in the musical creative process.
The last direction is especially important: it is this direction that will allow us to bring the human being back into music. After all, what is a human being? It is not his body, which some philosophers, aesthetes, and cultural scientists are so concerned about today (following Nietzsche, I call them Nietzschebrods, or Nietzscheans in spirit!), but his consciousness, i.e., his personality. In general, the encounter of man with God in music is nothing other than a multidimensional interpersonal process, in which God also acts as a Person – the Person of God (yes, the Orthodox God has a Person, as all Russian philosophers, and especially Lev Karsavin, have argued). This is how I describe (build) this process in my book The Sum of Music: Initially, the Personality of God influences the personality of the composer (contributing to the composer's idea of a musical composition), the personality of the composer influences the personality of the performer (determining the performer's choice of a musical composition for interpretation), and finally, the personality of the performer influences the personality of the listener (engaging the listener in the interpreted musical composition). As a result of this multi-step influence of the Personality of God on the personality of the listener, the listener’s personality ascends in the following sequence: listener’s personality – performer’s personality – composer’s personality – Personality of God.
I believe that this is the process we should keep in mind when we talk about music as a path to self-realization.
T.A. Thank you for the interview, Professor Klujev.
A.K. Thank you, Dr. Achury.
Photo:
Tayron Achury
Alexander Klujev
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