Open Access

Herbert Deinert

• Rilke war im gebräuchlichen Sinne des Wortes unmusikalisch. Er hat das selbst wiederholt zugegeben. Er behielt keine Melodie, so einfach sie sein mochte, und so oft man sie ihm auch vorspielte. Auch seine Freunde berichten von diesem Zug. Hinzu kam eine tiefe Skepsis der Musik gegenüber, in der er etwas Verführendes und Berauschendes sah, was ihn zu einer allerdings kurzfristigen völligen Ablehnung dieser Kunstgattung führte.
• [NOTE: This text was retyped, and typographical errors were corrected. Other changes are minor. However the pagination differs from the original. hd] The aim of this dissertation is to show Rilke's concept of music and its development. Rilke had no musical ear nor did he possess any theoretical knowledge of music. Yet, his interest in this subject is evident throughout his works. Rilke's first discussion of music is found in his earliest diary, the Florenzer Tagebuch. Speaking favorably of music, he denounces, however, any connection of music and word except in song. A change occurs in the early poem "Musik", where Rilke treats the word music as a symbol of danger and seduction, as a means of describing the creative activity of the artist before having had any real experience. The associations with the word "music" are negative. This changes during Rilke's second visit to Worpswede and the months immediately following his stay. In diary notes and poems, music is described as an element of order, salvation and inspiration. It also provides a welcome atmosphere of escapism. The attitude towards the latter aspect changes in his monograph Worspwede and becomes totally negative in a letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé, where Rilke denounces music as contrary to art. During the following years Rilke begins to point out more clearly the two main aspects of his concept of music: the danger and seduction on one hand and inspiration, order and transformation of human misery on the other. In the Beethoven-portrait of his Malte it is no longer music which is to blame for the effects described in the letter to Lou, but those who listen to it without the proper attitude and appreciation. Fabre d'Olivet's La Musique confirmed Rilke's own ideas and added to them the concept of the "number" in music. To Rilke music now represents a revelation of cosmic principles otherwise not perceivable. Rilke found similar ideas in Proust's Du Côté de chez Swann and Busoni's Entwurf einer Neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst. Of Magda von Hattingberg, a pianist and student of Busoni's, Rilke expected in vain his final introduction to the world of music, hoping to train his ear to the same perfection that his eyes had already achieved. In Rilke's late poetry music becomes the work of art par excellence. As a human creation a n d a revelation of cosmic principles, music acts as an intermediary between our world and the "other sphere", to which we have no access.