HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

'Dancing' is a second element which signals an unreflective attitude towards music
in Hesse's work. Haller, who regards all 'Massenvergniigungen' with suspicion,
including dance as a form of entertainment, has to backtrack on his initial views,
especially in the 'Ballnacht' when, through dancing, he is given access to 'das
Erlebnis des Festes, der Rausch der Festgemeinschaft, das Geheimnis vom Untergang
der Person in der Menge, von der Unio mystica der Freude' (Ste, SW 4,159). 100 The
unveiling of the identity of Pablo, a sax player in dancehalls ('Vergniigungslokale'),
and Mozart, the ultimate classical composer, as two sides of the same coin not only
implies the interdependence of 'Unterhaltungs-' and 'klassische Musik' (see previous
section) but does also stress the linkage between music and dance, seen as both
artistic expression and means of entertainment. Although he may not have foreseen
all the consequences descending from the pairing of Mozart and Pablo, Hesse must
have had in mind the common origins and underlying 'unity' of music, dance, and
poetry, that is rhythm ('organised' time), when he devised this turning point in the
novel. 101 As the narrator notes in the preface to Das Glasperlenspiel, music and dance
are made of the same substance: 'Gleich dem Tanz und gleich jeder Kunstiibung
namlich ist die Musik [...] eines alten und legitimen Mittel der Magie' (SW 5, 25).
Nietzsche, whose Zarathustra proclaims that 'man muss noch Chaos in sich haben,
um einen tanzenden Stern gebaren zu konnen' (1885, 5) had laid great emphasis on
dance as an anti-intellectual form of expression, and he certainly was a source for
Hesse's views on dance. 102 The image of the cosmos pervaded by dance (see
'tanzenden Stern' above) is, for instance, an element of Nietzschean heritage which
resonates with Hesse's work. A celestial round dance ('Reigen') is, for Kuhn, the
secret essence of music: 'War nicht Musik das geheime Gesetz der Welt, gingen nicht
100 It takes fifty years for Haller, like his author, to partake of the experience of communion through dance: 'Ein
Erlebnis, das mir [Haller] in funfzig Jahren unbekannt geblieben war' (Ste, SW 4, 159).
101 The use of'foot' as a basic rhythmic unit in prosody dates back to Greek antiquity, when the scanning of a
line was accompanied by the act of beating time with a foot (i.e. an elementary form of dance). The standard
sections of the Suite (originally known as 'Suites de danses'), a musical form Bach mastered and developed
greatly, originated from dances of popular character (allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue). Johann Strauss
(Sohn)'s renown is indissolubly connected to his 'Walzer'. The 'rondeau', a poetic and musical form that stems
from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance was employed in dance movements by composers such as
Lully and Couperin.
102 Boulby notes: The dance is [for Hesse], as it was for Nietzsche's Zarathustra, the supremely unreflective
form of self-expression' (188).
101