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

cannot achieve his individual goal without the help of Narcisuss and, of course,
Narcissus needs his friend to round out his own life. Each is far from being ideal by
himself (Rose, 99). Although Narzifi and Goldmund have distinct individual
features, each character is almost inconceivable without the presence of the other.52
As seen above (2.2), 'Ein Satz iiber die Kadenz' (SW 10, 573-74) is deliberately
imitative of the musical pattern of the cadenza. The poem Dreistimmige Musik (Musik,
38), on the other hand, is a conspicuous example of Hesse's attempt to reproduce a
form of the Baroque and Classic periods: the fugue. 53
Dreistimmige Musik
Eine Stimme singt in der Nacht,
Nacht, die ihr bange macht,
Singt ihre Angst, ihren Mut
Singen bezwingt die Nacht, Singen ist gut.
Eine zweite hebt an und geht mit,
Halt mit der andern Schritt,
Gibt ihr Antwort und lacht,
Weil zu zwein in der Nacht
Singen ihr Freude macht.
Dritte Stimme fallt ein,
Tanzt und schreitet im Reihn
Mit in der Nacht. Und die drei
Werden zu Sternenschein
Und Zauberei.
Fangen sich, lassen sich,
Meiden sich, fassen sich,
Weil Singen in der Nacht
Liebe weckt, Freude macht,
Zaubern ein Sternenzelt,
52 Similarly, Siddhartha needs the other voices of the narrative polyphony (Govinda, Gothama, and Vasudeva) to
attain significance.
53 The fugue is a 'type of contrapuntal composition for a particular number of parts or "voices" [...] The point of
fugue is that the voices enter successively in imitation of each other, the first voice entering with a short melody
or phrase known as the subject [...] When all the voices have entered, the exposition is over. Then (normally)
there comes an episode or passage of connective tissue [...] leading to another entry or series of entries of the
subject [...] until the end of the piece, entries and episodes alternating [...] In addition to the subject there is
often a counter subject appearing in the exposition and probably later in the fugue' (The Concise Oxford
Dictionary of Music). 'Sometimes after the exposition the composer creates excitement by bringing the entries of
the subject nearer to each other so that they overlap. This device is called "stretto'"(The Oxford Companion to
Music).
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