Absolute Music - The Spiritualist Debate

The Spiritualist Debate

A group of early Romantics consisting of Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Jean Paul Richter and E.T.A. Hoffmann gave rise to the idea of what can be labeled as "spiritual absolutism". In this respect, instrumental music transcends other arts and languages to become the discourse of a ‘higher realm’ — propagated greatly in Hoffmann’s famous review of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, published in 1810. These protagonists believed that music could be more emotionally powerful and stimulating without words. According to Richter, music would eventually ‘outlast’ the word.

“Music is the echo from a transcendent harmonious world; it is the sigh of the angel within us. When the word is silent… and when our mute hearts lie only behind the ribcage of our chest, then it is only through music that men call to each other in their dungeons, and write their distant sighs in their wilderness.” — Jean Paul Richter

As most religions prepare mankind for a Heaven or after-life of some description, instrumental music — according to the early Romantics — alludes to a similar state of spirituality, often referred to as ‘Utopia’.