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

Chapter 3 Music, ethics, and aesthetics
The present chapter is intended as a development of Chapter 2 which focuses on the
bearing music has on Hesse's work on a formal level. This chapter, instead, deals
with what music meant to Hesse, and with the meanings he attributes to music
which, in turn, provides insights into his relationship with temporality. The
trajectory of his musical taste, for instance, reveals elements of Hesse's connection
with his own time, as in the case of his increasingly strong dislike for Wagner's music
on the basis of the favour the composer found during the Nazi regime. Most
importantly, Hesse's polarization of 'echte Musik' and ephemeral tunes is key to
understand his aesthetics and perspective on the eternal, contributing substantially
to our appreciation of the author's whole conception of time. As anticipated at the
outset of Chapter 2,1 shall be tracing the evolution of Hesse's musical taste (3.1) with
a view to providing a basis for discussing the significance of music to Hesse (3.2).
Section 3.3 draws a parallel between the formal aspects of Hesse's Der Steppenwolf
and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde before underlining their irreconcilable distance in
terms of poetic aims. Hesse's views on light music and especially jazz will occupy
section 3.4. The chapter will draw to a close with a discussion on 'whistling' and
'dancing' as secondary aspects of Hesse's relation to music.
3.1 Hesse's musical taste and its evolution
An overview of Hesse's connections to music throughout his life is a necessary first
step in the process of understanding what music meant to him, in the widest sense,
and what he associates it with, in his works. 1 In seeking to trace the changes in his
appreciation of music, our underlying hypothesis is that his works, which
conspicuously draws on his biography (see section 6 in Chapter 1), also reflect the
1 It must be noted from the outset that Hesse's musical taste does not undergo a radical transformation through
his entire life and, with few exceptions, his major interests lie in Western classical music, ranging from roughly
the late 16th century (e.g. Monteverdi) to the early 20 th century (e.g. Berg and Bartok), Mozart and Bach being
the fulcrum of his admiration: 'das Liebste in der Musik ist mir Bach und Mozart' (Letter of 1956; Musik, 206).
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