The Rudolf Steiner Archive

• Words to the Spirit and Love from the “Gate of Initiation” by R. Steiner with musical accompaniment by Ludwig van der Pals
• Saying from the soul calendar of Rudolf Steiner “My Goddess” by J. W. v. Goethe “Song Souls” by C. F. Meyer
• Planetentanz by Rudolf Steiner with musical accompaniment by Ludwig van der Pals
• “Morgenlied” by C. F. Meyer
• The Fairy Tale of Imagination from “The Guardian of the Threshold” by R. Steiner
• “Prayer” by Friedrich Hebbel
• Satirical prelude with music by Leopold van der Pals From the “Gallows Songs” by Christian Morgenstern “What art thou, Wind?” by C. F. Meyer
• “Mailied” by J. W. v. Goethe
• Opening “Look around you, look within you”
• “To the Moon” by J. W. v. Goethe
• “Stormy Night” by C. F. Meyer
• Opening “Fateful Question”
• “The Ghostly Steed” by C. F. Meyer

Note: The shorthand for this address was sometimes difficult to decipher and incomplete; the following text bears the traces of this.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Allow me to say a few words about our performance of eurythmic art. This is all the more necessary because this demonstration is not just about something that is already complete in itself today, but rather it is just a rehearsal, or perhaps I could say it is an attempt at a rehearsal. It might be tempting to compare what is on offer today with all kinds of neighboring arts. We are fully aware that we must not compete with such neighboring arts. From their point of view, such neighboring arts have already reached a certain level of perfection today. We do not want to place something alongside it that is meant to compete with it, but rather something that is quite different, that also needs quite different artistic foundations and also /illegible word/ a different artistic ethos.

If I may express in a few words what the eurythmy art seeks to achieve in its efforts to take its place in contemporary cultural life, I would say: Goethe's artistic attitude and that which we believe to be his artistic conviction must live and breathe in it. Goethe, after all, spoke beautifully of all things artistic: “When nature begins to reveal her secrets to someone, they feel the most ardent longing for her most worthy interpreter, art.” And it was only from his great, comprehensive worldview that he was able to develop such an artistic conviction.

What Goethe's all-embracing mind has actually achieved for humanity in a single area of life and world view is still not sufficiently appreciated, and is far from being fully developed in the development of culture. One need only look at one thing, my dear ladies and gentlemen, in Goethe's work, at what is said with the words: The whole plant is nothing more than a more complicated plant leaf, and the plant leaf is nothing more than a simplified plant. And what Goethe says about plants from his comprehensive and penetrating world view can be applied to all living things, not only for spiritual insight (gap in text), but also, in particular, to everything artistic and intuitive up to the human being.

From this basis, what eurythmy art wants to be emerges. It is meant to reveal a secret, the great secret, ladies and gentlemen, that remains hidden in ordinary life - like all artistic secrets - and that takes place between the humanly spoken words, the sung sounds, the musically played tone and the listening. In the prose of everyday life, the listener must suppress much of what lives in him. There is a mysterious resonance in the hearing person's speech organs when the spoken, sung or played tone sounds to them. But it is not just a reverberation and resonance – mysterious next to the human organism of the larynx and its neighboring organs – but [a reverberation and resonance] of the whole human being. Looking at these secrets [between the listener and the speaker, the singer and that which reveals itself in music], he recognizes what lies in the movements of the whole human being, when they can be grasped from the whole being of the human being: a larynx that has completely merged with the whole human being and his movement. The whole human being can become a larynx; by becoming it, it expresses what is suppressed in the prose of life.

That which vibrates and weaves within him, that which is suppressed there, is to be brought to [representation] through the art of eurythmy. On the stage, the whole human being should become a larynx. But that which resonates through the artistically designed language, the musically artistically designed sound as a human soul mood, as rhythm, alliteration, rhyme, assonance, as soul feeling and soul life, that is to come to revelation in the group eurythmy movements, in the movements in space, which are performed by a number of performers. In this way something can be achieved that, like music, has its own inner laws.

In this eurythmic art nothing is an expression of a mere momentary inner soul stirring, nothing is mere gesture, nothing is mere pantomime; if you see something like that, it is only because it has not yet been fully developed. What follows on from each other in the individual movements is absolutely rooted in the laws of these successive movements themselves – as in the art of music. /[Unintelligible passage, see notes.] When two eurythmic performers [illegible word] or [two eurythmic] groups present an [identical] poem or piece of music, the difference is no greater than there is [between two performances] of Beethoven's music.

Of course, this also sets an important task for the accompanying recitation and music. This task is still difficult to grasp today, since the [recitation today] has, by law, been reduced to a mere [rendition of what is] prosaically in the poetry, which [...] is illegible words]. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of something [...] /illegible words] a poet like Schiller. Schiller always felt an indeterminate melody in his soul before [he created a] poem, and the transformation of this [melody], the transformation of this movement, that, [what] passes into that, what he then rhyming and the overall form of the poem, is what recitation will bring out again, for example, if it draws on our spatial movement art, our eurythmy.

This is what must have a fertilizing effect, derived from human words and music to the movement of the human body, but in turn must have an effect from the movement of the human [body] into the artistically spoken words and music. For basically, just as a single leaf only lives in the whole plant, in the same way, that which an individual human being brings to artistic recitation or artistic speech, is part of the whole.

But all that I have been able to explain in these few intimate words as the essence of this eurythmic art, I ask you to consider it in such a way that we really are at the very beginning of this art today. We are aware of all the imperfections and mistakes we ourselves have made, and we can be criticized for them. We are most certainly the strictest critics of what is offered here. But we also hope that what is only meant to be a beginning, a /illegible words/, so that from this collaboration of the artistically intended and the public, that which, if it satisfies us, /illegible] perhaps [...] /illegible words] will arise from this collaboration between the artistically intended and the public, where a perfection of a human art of movement will arise that is not a dance art but something that is intended to inspire what a person is able to reveal through the external movement of his body.

Then this art will also [...] /illegible words] be able to have an extraordinarily healing effect on [the] social] conditions. People [...] /illegible words] can be inspired when eurythmy enters them [in this way] as it [already] lay in the primal movements of primeval man, when these [...] / unreadable; gap?] are started again /unreadable word] in our developed culture, then many things that today live uninspired in life will be inspired, and this will have a social effect. In this sense, I ask that what we can offer now not be seen as complete, but rather as a sample, yes, I say it openly, initially as an attempt at a sample, from which we hope, however, that it could flourish into ever greater perfection.

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On January 16, 1921, a performance of eurythmy with children from the Waldorf School took place in the domed hall of the art building in Stuttgart, which Rudolf Steiner introduced with a speech for which no transcript is available.

After performances in Cologne (March 6) and Freiburg (March 15), at which Leopold van der Pals gave the speeches, a eurythmy performance took place in the Stuttgart Landestheater on the afternoon of March 19, 1921, at which Rudolf Steiner gave a speech. There are no records of this, but newspaper reports were published.

Newspaper report in the Schwäbische Tagwacht about the speech Stuttgart, March 19, 1921

Mr. Rudolf Steiner began by explaining what eurythmy is. [...] The aim is to create a visible language because the human body reveals all the characteristics of each of its limbs, including, for example, the speech organs. One can therefore - says Steiner - represent the movement intentions of the larynx as it speaks a Goethe poem, for example. In doing so, the substantive value of poetry must be dismissed as a prejudice. The “literal”, the sense, is rejected with contempt: the formal, the rhythmic, the indeterminate musical - therein lies the true value of a poem.

What we can discuss in these two days will naturally be fragmentary, and I shall address myself chiefly to the needs of teachers. My subject will neither deal with the aesthetics of music nor is it intended for those who wish their enjoyment of art impaired by being told something that is supposed to add to a comprehension of this enjoyment. I would have to speak differently concerning both the aesthetics of music—as conceived from today's standpoint—and the mere enjoyment of it. Now I wish to create a general foundation, and tomorrow I shall go into a few things that can be of significance in preparing such a general foundation in musical instruction. We can go into more detail another time.

It must be pointed out that all the concepts used in other areas of life fail the moment one is obliged to speak about the musical element. It is hardly possible to discuss the musical element in the concepts to which one is accustomed in ordinary life. The reason is simply that the musical element really does not exist in the physical world. It must first be created in the given physical world. This caused people like Goethe to consider the musical element as a kind of ideal of all forms of art. Hence, Goethe said that music is entirely form and substance and requires no other content save that within its own element. This is also why, in the age when intellectualism valiantly struggled for an understanding of music, the strange distinction was made between the content of music and the subject of an art form. Hanslick in particular made this distinction in his book, The Beautiful in Music, which emerged out of the above struggle.¹ Naturally, Hanslick ascribes a content to music, though in a one-sided manner, but he denies music a subject. Indeed, music does not have a subject that exists in the outer physical world such as is the case with painting. Even in our age, in which intellectualism wishes to tackle everything, there is a feeling that intellectualism cannot reach the musical element, because it can deal only with something for which there are outer subjects. This explains the strange fact that nowhere in the well-meant instruction of music appreciation does tone physiology (acoustics) have anything to say about the musical element. It is widely admitted that there is a tone physiology only for sounds; there is none for tones. With the means customary today one cannot grasp the element of music. If one does begin to speak about the musical element, it is thus necessary to avoid the ordinary concepts that otherwise we use to grasp our world.

Perhaps the best way to approach what we wish to arrive at in these lectures would be to take present history as our starting point. If we compare our age with former times, we find our age characterized in a specific way in relation to the musical element. One can say that our age occupies a position between two musical feelings [Empfindungen]; one such feeling it already has, the other not yet. The feeling that our age has attained, at least to a considerable degree, is the feeling for the interval of the third. In history we can easily trace how the transition from the feeling for the fifth to the third came about in the world of musical feeling. The feeling for the third is something new. The other feeling that will come about but as yet does not exist in our age is the feeling for the octave. A true feeling for the octave actually has not yet developed in humanity. You will experience the difference that exists in comparison to feelings for tone up to the seventh. While the seventh is still felt in relation to the prime, an entirely different experience arises as soon as the octave appears. One cannot actually distinguish it any longer from the prime; it merges with the prime. In any case, the difference that exists for a fifth or a third is absent for an octave. Of course, we do have a feeling for the octave, but this is not yet the feeling that will be developed in time; in the future the feeling for the octave will be something completely different and will one day be able to deepen the musical experience tremendously. Every time the octave appears in a musical composition, man will have a feeling that I can only describe with the words, “I have found my ‘I’ anew; I am uplifted in my humanity by the feeling for the octave.” The particular words I use here are not important; what is important is the feeling that is evoked.

These things can be understood, understood with feeling, only if one becomes clear that the musical experience at first does not have the relationship to the ear that is normally assumed. The musical experience involves the whole human being, and the ear's function in musical experience is completely different from what is normally assumed. Nothing is more incorrect than the simple statement, “I hear the tone or I hear a melody with my ear.” That is completely wrong ” a tone, a melody, or a harmony actually is experienced with the whole human being. This experience reaches our consciousness through the ear in quite a strange way. As you know, the tones we ordinarily take into consideration have as their medium the air. Even if an instrument other than a wind instrument is used, the element in which tone lives is still in the air. What we experience in tone, however, no longer has anything to do with the air. The ear is the organ that first separates the air element from tone before our experience of tone. In experiencing tone as such, we thus actually feel a resonance, a reflection. The ear really hurls the airborne tone back into the inner being of man in such a way that it separates out the air element; then, in that we hear it, the tone lives in the ether element. It is the ear's task—if I may express it in this way—actually to overcome the tone's resounding in the air and to hurl the pure etheric experience of tone back into our inner being. The ear is a reflecting apparatus for the sensation of tone.

Now we must understand the entire tone experience in man more deeply. I must repeat that all concepts come into confusion in encountering the tone experience. We say so lightly that man is a threefold being: nerve-sense man, rhythmic man, and metabolic-limb man. For all other conditions, this is as true as can be. For the tone experience, however, for the musical experience, it is not quite correct. Musical experience does not actually exist in the same sense as sense experience does for the other senses. The sense experience in relation to musical experience is essentially much more introspective than other experiences, because for musical experience the ear is only a reflecting organ; the ear does not actually bring man into connection with the outer world in the same way as does the eye, for example. The eye brings man into connection with all visible forms of the outer world, even artistic forms. The eye is important to a painter, not merely to someone who looks at nature. The ear is important to the musician only in so far as it is in the position of experiencing, without having a relationship to the outer world such as the eye has, for instance. For the musical element, the ear is of importance merely as a reflecting apparatus. We must actually say that regarding the musical experience, we must view the human being first of all as nerve man, because the ear is not important as a direct sense organ but instead as transmitter to man's inner being. The ear is not a link to the outer world—the perception of instrumental music is a quite complicated process about which we shall speak later—and is of no immediate importance as a sense organ but only as a reflecting organ.

Contributing further, what is important in the musical experience is that which is related to man's limb system, through which the element of music can pass into that of dance. Man's metabolic system, however, is not as important here as it is otherwise. In speaking of the musical experience, therefore, we discover a shifting of man's three-fold organization and find that we must say: nerve man, rhythmic man, limb man (not metabolic-limb man). Some perceptions are ruled out as accompanying factors. They are there because man is a sense being, and his ear also has significance as a sense organ, but not the significance we must ascribe to it in other conditions of the world. The metabolism is also an accompanying factor and does not exist in the same way as elsewhere. Metabolic phenomena appear, but they have no significance. Everything that lives in the limbs as potential for movement, however, has tremendous significance for the musical experience, since dance movements are linked with the musical experience. A great portion of the musical experience consists of one's having to restrain oneself from making movements along with the music. This points out to us that the musical experience is really an experience of the whole human being.

Why is it that man today has an experience of the third? Why is he only on the way to acquiring an experience of the octave? The reason is that in human evolution all musical experience first leads back to the ancient Atlantean time—unless we wish to go back further, which serves no purpose here. The experience of the seventh was the essential musical experience of the ancient Atlantean age. If you could go back into the Atlantean age, you would find that the music of that time, which had little similarity to today's music, was arranged according to continuing sevenths; even the fifth was unknown. This musical experience, which was based on an experience of the seventh through the full range of octaves, always consisted of man feeling completely transported [entrückt]. He felt free of his earthbound existence and transported into another world in this experience of the seventh. At that time he could just as well have said, “I experience music,” as “I feel myself in the spiritual world.” This was the predominant experience of the seventh. Up into the post-Atlantean age, this continued to play a great role, until it began to have an unpleasant effect. As the human being wished to incarnate more deeply into this physical body and take possession of it, the experience of the seventh became faintly painful. Man began to find the experience of the fifth more pleasant, and for a long time a scale composed according to our standards would have consisted of d, e, g, a, b, and again d, and e. There was no f and no c. For the early post-Atlantean epochs, the feeling for f and c is missing; instead, the fifths throughout the tonal range of different octaves were experienced.

In the course of time, the fifths began to be the pleasurable experience. All musical forms, however, in which the third and what we call c today are excluded, were permeated with a measure of this transporting quality. Such music made a person feel as if he were carried into a different element. In the music of the fifths [Quintenmusik], a human being felt lifted out of himself. The transition to the experience of the third actually can be traced back into the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, in which experiences of the fifth still predominated. (To this day, experiences of the fifth are contained in native Chinese music.) This transition to the experience of the third signifies at the same time that man feels music in relation to his own physical organization. For the first time, man feels that he is an earthly being when he plays music. Formerly, when he experienced fifths, he would have been inclined to say, “The angel in my being is beginning to play music. The muse in me speaks.” “I sing” was not the appropriate expression. It became possible to say this only when the experience of the third emerged, making the whole musical feeling an inward experience; the human being then felt that he himself was singing.

In the age when the fifths predominated, it was impossible to color music in a subjective direction. Subjectivity only came into play in that the subjective felt transported, lifted into objectivity. Not until man could experience the third did the subjective element feel that it rested within itself. Man began to relate the feeling for his destiny and ordinary life to the musical element.

Something now began to have meaning that would have had none in the ages of the experience of the fifth, namely major and minor keys. One could not even have spoken then of a major key. Major and minor keys, this strange bond between music and human subjectivity, the actual inner life of feeling—in so far as this life of feeling is bound to the earthly corporeality—come into being only in the course of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch and are related to the experience of the third. The difference between major and minor keys appears; the subjective soul element relates itself to the musical element. Man can color the musical element in various ways. He is in himself, then outside himself; his soul swings back and forth between self-awareness and self-surrender. Only now is the musical element drawn into the human being in a corresponding way. One thus can say that the experience of the third begins during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch and with it the ability to express major and minor moods in music. Basically, we ourselves are still involved in this process. Only an understanding of the whole human being—one that must reach beyond ordinary concepts—can illustrate how we are involved in this process.

One naturally gets into the habit of speaking in general concepts even in anthroposophy. One thus says that man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and “I.” One has to put it like that to begin with in order to describe the human being in stages, but actually the matter is more complicated than one thinks. When we look at the embryonic development of earthly man, we find that, preceding this descent from the spiritual world to the physical world, the human “I” descends spiritually to the astral and etheric. In penetrating the astral and etheric, the “I” is then able to take hold of the physical embryo, giving rise to the forces of growth and so on. Though physical forces take hold of the human embryo, they in turn have been affected by the descent of the “I” through the astral and etheric into the physical. In the fully developed human being living in the physical world, the “I” works spiritually, through the eye, for example, directly upon the physical, at first bypassing the astral and etheric. Later, from within the human organism, the “I” connects itself again with the astral and etheric. We bring into ourselves the etheric and astral only from within out. We thus can say that the “I” lives in us in a twofold way. First, inasmuch as we have become human beings on earth, the “I” lives in us by having descended into the physical world in the first place. The “I” then builds up from the physical with the inclusion of the astral and etheric. Secondly, when we are adults, the “I” dwells in us by virtue of gaining influence over us through the senses or by taking hold of our astral nature. There it gains influence over our breath to the exclusion of the actual “I” sphere of the head, where the physical body becomes the organ of the “I.” Only in the movements of our limbs—if we move our limbs today—do we still have in us the same activity of nature or the world that we had within us as embryos. Everything else is added. The same activity that worked in you when you were an embryo is active today when you walk or dance. All other activities, especially the activity of the head, came about later as the downward streams of development were eliminated.

Now the musical experience actually penetrates the whole human being. The cause for this is the spiritual element that descended the farthest and took hold of the as yet formless earthly being in, I would like to say, an other-than-human manner. It then laid the foundation for embryonic development and today expresses itself in our movements and gestures. This element that dwells thus in man is at the same time the basis of the lower tones of an octave, namely c, c-sharp, d and d-sharp. Now, disorder comes in—as you can see on the piano—because the matter reaches the etheric. Everything in man's limb system—in other words, his most physical component—is engaged with the lowest tones of each and every octave. Beginning with e, the vibrating of the etheric body plays an essential role. This continues to f, f-sharp, and g. Beyond this point, the vibrations of the astral body enter in. Now we reach a climactic stage. Beginning with c and c-sharp, when we reach the seventh we come to a region where we actually must stand still. The experience comes to a half, and we need a completely new element.

By the beginning form the first tone of the octave, we have begun from the inner “I,” the physical, living, inner “I”—if I may express it in this way—and we have ascended through the etheric and astral bodies to the seventh. We must now pass over to the directly experienced “I,” in that we arrive at the next higher octave. We must say, as it were: man actually lives in us in all seven tones, but we do not know it. He pushes against us in c and c-sharp. Pushing upward from there, in f and f-sharp, he shakes up our etheric and astral bodies. The etheric body vibrates and pushes up to the astral body—the origin of the vibration being below in the etheric body—and we arrive at the astral experience in the tones up to the seventh. We do not know it fully, however, we know it only through feeling. Finally, the feeling for the octave brings us to find our own self on a higher level. The third guides us to our inner being; the octave leads us to have, to feel, our own self once more. You must take all these concepts that I use only as substitutes and in each case resort to feelings. Then you will be able to see how the musical experience really strives to lead man back to what he lost in primeval times. In primeval times, when the experience of the seventh existed—and therefore, in fact, the experience of the entire scale—man felt that he was a unified being standing on earth; at that time when he heard the seventh, he also experienced himself outside his body. He therefore felt himself in the world. Music was for him the possibility of feeling himself in the world. The human being could receive religious instruction by being taught the music of that time. He could readily understand that through music man is not only an earthly being but also a transported being. In the course of time, this experience increasingly intensified. The experience of the fifth arose, and during this time man still felt united with what lived in his breath. He said to himself—though he did not say it, he felt it; in order to express it, we must word it like that—“I breath in, I breath out. During a nightmare I am especially aware of the experience of breath due to the change in my breathing. The musical element, however, does not live in me at all; it lives in inhalation and exhalation.” Man felt always as if he were leaving and returning to himself in the musical experience. The fifth comprised both inhalation and exhalation; the seventh comprised only exhalation. The third enabled man to experience the continuation of the breathing process within. Based on all this, you find a specific explanation for the advancement from the pure singing-with-accompaniment that existed in ancient times of human evolution to independent singing. Originally, singing was always produced along with some outer tone, an outer tone structure. [Tongebilde]. Emancipated singing actually came about later; emancipated instrumental music is connected with that. One can now say that in the musical experience man experienced himself as being at one with the world. He experienced himself neither within nor outside himself. He would have been incapable of hearing an instrument alone; in the very earliest time he could not have heard one isolated tone. It would have appeared to him like a lone ghost wandering around. He could only experience a tone composed of outer, objective elements and inner, subjective ones. Hence, the musical experience was divided into these two, the objective and the subjective.

This whole experience naturally penetrates today into everything musical. On the one hand, music occupies a special position in the world, because, as yet, man cannot find the link to the world in the musical experience. This link to the world will be discovered one day when the experience of the octave comes into being in the manner previously outlined. Then, the musical experience will become for man proof of the existence of god, because he will experience the “I” twice: once as physical, inner “I,” the second time as spiritual, outer “I.” When octaves are employed in the same manner as seventh, fifths, and thirds—today's use of octaves does not approach this yet—it will become a new form of proving the existence of God. That is what the experience of the octave will be. People will say to themselves, “When I first experience my ‘I’ as it is on earth, in the prime, and then experience it a second time the way it is in spirit, then this is inner proof of God's existence.” This is a different kind of proof, however, from that of the ancient Atlantean, which he gained through his experience with the seventh. Then, all music was evidence of God's existence, but it was in no way proof of man's existence. The great spirit took hold of the human being and filled him inwardly the moment he participated in music. The great progress made by humanity in the musical element is that the human being is not just possessed by God but takes hold of his own self as well, that man feels the musical scale as himself, but himself as existing in both worlds. You can imagine the tremendous profundity of which the musical element will be capable in the future. Not only will it offer man what he can experience in our ordinary musical compositions today, which have come a long way indeed, but man will be able to experience how, while listening to a musical composition, he becomes a totally different person. He will feel changed, and yet again he will feel returned to himself. The further cultivation of the musical element consists of this feeling of a widely diverse human potential. We thus can say that f has already joined the five old tones, d, e, g, a, and b, to the greatest possible extent, but not yet the actual c. This must still be explored in its entire significance for human feeling.

All this is extraordinarily important when one is faced with the task of guiding the evolution of the human being regarding the musical element. You see, up to about the age of nine, the child does not yet possess a proper grasp of major and minor moods, though one can approach the child with them. When entering school, the child can experience major and minor moods in preparation for what is to come later, but the child has neither one nor the other. Though it is not readily admitted, the child essentially dwells in moods of fifths. Naturally, one can resort in school to examples already containing thirds, but if one really wishes to reach the child, musical appreciation must be based on the appreciation of the fifths; this is what is important. One does the child a great kindness if one confronts it with major and minor musical moods as well as an appreciation for the whole third-complex sometime after the age of nine, when the child asks important questions of us. One of the most significant questions concerns the urge for living together with the major and minor third. This is something that appears between ages nine and ten and that should be specifically cultivated. As far as is possible within present-day limits of music, it is also necessary to try to promote appreciation of the octave at around age twelve. What must be offered the child in the way of music thus will be adapted once again to the various ages.

It is tremendously important to be clear that music fundamentally lives only inwardly in man, namely, in the etheric body; regarding the lowest tones of the scale, the physical body is naturally taken along too. The physical body, however, must push upward into the etheric body, which in turn pushes upon the astral body. The “I,” finally, can barely be touched.

While we always dwell within our brains with our crude and clumsy concepts regarding the rest of the world, we leave the musical element the instant we develop concepts about it. This is because the unfolding of concepts takes place on a level above that of the musical realm. We must leave music behind when we think, because tone begins to develop shades within itself—prosaic science would say that it exhibits a particular number of vibrations—and is no longer experienced as tone. When tone begins to develop shades within itself, the concept arises that becomes objectified in sound [im laut]. In the sound of speech, the concept really cancels out the tone, in so far as tone is sound, though not in so far as tone harmonizes with the sound, of course. Then, the actual musical experience reaches down only to the etheric body, and there it struggles. Certainly, the physical pushes upward into the lower tones. If, however, we were to go all the way down into the physical, the metabolism would be included in the musical experience, which would then cease to be a pure musical experience. In fact, this is attained in the contra-tones so as to make the musical experience somewhat more piquant, as it were. Music is driven slightly out of its own element in the contra-tones.²

The actual musical experience that takes its course completely within—neither in the “I” nor in the physical body but in etheric and astral man—the inward-etheric body, i.e. down to the tones of the great octave.³ The contra-tones below only serve the purpose of allowing the outer world to beat, as it were, upon the musical element. The contra-tones appear when man strikes outward with the musical element and the outer world rejects it. This is where the musical element leaves the soul element and enters that of matter. When we descend to the contra-tones, our soul reaches down into the element of matter, and we experience how matter strives to become musically ensouled. This is what the position of contra-tones in music basically signifies.

All this leads us to say that only a truly irrational understanding—an understanding of the human being beyond the rational—will permit us to grasp the musical element in a feeling way and to acquaint the human being with it.

We shall continue in more detail tomorrow.

• 1. Edward von Hanslick (1825–1904), music critic and author in Vienna. His book, The Beautiful in Music (trans. Gustav Cohen, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1957), first appeared in 1954.
• 2. Contra-tones are the tones below contra-c: (see diagram)
• 3. The great octave refers to the tones between c³ and c² below middle c.

Though they are quite fragmentary and incomplete and must be elaborated further at the next opportunity, I wish to emphasize again that yesterday's lecture and today's are intended to give teachers in school what they need as background for their instruction.

Yesterday, I spoke on the one hand of the role that the interval of the fifth plays in musical experience and on the other hand of the roles played by the third and the seventh. You have been able to gather from this description that music progressing in fifths is still connected with a musical experience in which the human being is actually brought out of himself; with the feeling for the fifth, man actually feels transported. This becomes more obvious if we take the scales through the range of seven octaves—from the contra-tones up to the tones above c—and consider that it is possible for the fifth to occur twelve times within these seven scales. In the sequence of the seven musical scales, we discover hidden, as it were, an additional twelve-part scale with the interval of the fifth.

What does this really mean in relation to the whole musical experience? It means that within the experience of the fifth, man with his “I” is in motion outside his physical organization. He paces the seven scales in twelve steps, as it were. He is therefore in motion outside his physical organization through the experience of the fifth.

Returning to the experience of the third—in both the major and minor third—we arrive at an inner motion of the human being. The “I” is, so to speak, within the confines of the human organism; man experiences the interval of the third inwardly. In the transition from a third to a fifth—though there is much in between with which we are not concerned here—man in fact experiences the transition from inner to outer experience. One therefore can say that in the case of the experience of the third the mood is one of consolidation of the inner being, of man's becoming aware of the human being within himself. The experience of the fifth brings awareness of man within the divine world order. The experience of the fifth is, as it were, an expansion into the vast universe, while the experience of the third is a return of the human being into the structure of his own organization. In between lies the experience of the fourth.

The experience of the fourth is perhaps one of the most interesting for one who wishes to penetrate the secrets of the musical element. This is not because the experience of the fourth in itself is the most interesting but because it arises at the dividing line between the experience of the fifth of the outer world and the experience of the third in man's inner being. The experience of the fourth lies right at the border, as it were, of the human organism. The human being, however, senses not the outer world but the spiritual world in the fourth. He beholds himself from outside, as it were (to borrow an expression referring to vision for an experience that has to do with hearing). Though man is not conscious of it, the sensation he experiences with the fourth is based on feeling that man himself is among the gods. While he has forgotten his own self in the experience of the fifth in order to be among the gods, in the experience of the fourth he need not forget his own being in order to be among the gods. With the experience of the fourth, man moves about, as it were, in the divine world; he stands precisely at the border of his humanness, retaining it, yet viewing it from the other side.

The experience of the fifth as spiritual experience was the first to be lost to humanity. Modern man does not have the experience of the fifth that still existed, let us say, four to five hundred years before our era. At that time the human being truly felt in the experience of the fifth, “I stand within the spiritual world.” He required no instrument in order to produce outwardly the interval of a fifth. Because he still possessed imaginative consciousness, he felt that the fifth, which he himself had produced, took its course in the divine realm. Man still had imaginations, still had imaginations in the musical element. There was still an objectivity, a musical objectivity, in the experience of the fifth. Man lost this earlier than the objective experience of the fourth. The experience of the fourth, much later on, was such that during this experience man believed that he lived and wove in something etheric. With the experience of the fourth he felt—if I may say so—the holy wind that had placed him into the physical world. Based on what they said, it is possible that Ambrose and Augustine still felt this. Then this experience of the fourth was also lost. One required an outer instrument in order to be objectively certain of the fourth.

We thus have pointed out at the same time what the musical experience was like in very ancient ages of human evolution. Man did not yet know the third; he descended only to the fourth. He did not distinguish between, “I sing,” and “there is singing.” These two were one for him. He was outside himself when he sang, and at the same time he had an outer instrument. He had an impression, an imagination, as it were, of a wind instrument, or of a string instrument. Musical instruments appeared to man at first as imaginations. Musical instruments were not invented through experimentation; with the experimentation of the piano they have been derived from the spiritual world.

With this, we have described the origin of song as well. It is hard today to give an idea of what song itself was like in the age when the experience of the fifth was still pure. Song was indeed something akin to an expression of the word. One sang, but this was at the same time a speaking of the spiritual world. One was conscious that if one spoke of cherries and grapes one used earthly words; if one spoke of the gods, one had to sing.

Then came the time when man no longer had imaginations. He still retained the remnants of imaginations, however, though one does not recognize them as such today—they are the words of language. The spiritual element incarnated into the tones of song, which in turn incarnated into the elements of words. This was a step into the physical world. The inner emancipation of the song element into arias and the like took place after that; this was a later development.

If we return to the primeval song of humanity, we find that it was a speaking of the gods and of the proceedings of the gods. As I mentioned earlier, the fact of the twelve fifths in the seven scales is evidence that the possibility of motion outside the human realm existed in music in the interval of the fifth. Only with the fourth does man really approach himself with the musical element.

Yesterday, someone said quite rightly that man senses an emptiness in the interval of the fifth. Naturally, he must experience something empty in the fifth, since he no longer has imaginations, and the fifth corresponds to an imagination while the third corresponds to a perception within man's being. Today, therefore, man feels an emptiness in the fifth and must fill it with the substantiality of the instrument. This is the transition of the musical element from the more spiritual age to the later materialistic age.

For earlier ages, the relationship of musical man to his instrument must be pictured as the greatest possible unity. A Greek actor even felt the need of amplifying his voice with an instrument. The process of drawing the musical experience inward came later. Formerly, man felt that in relation to music he carried a certain circle of tones within himself that reached downward, excluding the realm of tones below the contra-c. Upward, it did not reach the tones beyond c but was a closed circle. Man then had the consciousness, “I have been given a narrow circle of the musical element. Out there in the cosmos the musical element continues in both directions. I need the instruments in order to reach this cosmic musical element.”

Now we must take the other aspects of music into consideration if we wish to become acquainted with this whole matter. The center of music today is harmony. I am referring to the sum total of music, not song or instrumental music. The element of harmony takes hold directly of human feeling. What is expressed in harmonies is experienced by human feeling. Now, feeling passes into thinking [Vorstellen].¹ In looking at the human being, we can say that we have feeling in the middle; on the one hand we have the feeling that passes into thinking, on the other hand we have the feeling that passes into willing. Harmony directly addresses itself to feeling and is experienced in it. The whole emotional nature of man, however, is actually twofold. We have a feeling that is more inclined to thinking—when we feel our thoughts, for instance—and we have a feeling more inclined to willing. When we engage in an action, we feel whether it pleases or displeases us; in the same way, we feel pleasure or displeasure with an idea. Feeling is actually divided into these two realms.

The peculiar thing about the musical element is that neither must it penetrate completely into thinking—because it would cease to be something musical the moment it was taken hold of by the brain's conceptual faculty—nor should it sink down completely into the sphere of willing. We cannot imagine, for example, that the musical element itself could become a direct will impulse without being an abstract sign. When you hear the ringing of the dinner bell, you will go because it announced that it is time to go for dinner, but you will not take the bell's musical element as the impulse for the will. This illustrates that music should not reach into the realm of willing any more than into that of thinking. In both directions it must be contained. The musical experiences must take place within the realm situated between thinking and willing. It must unfold in that part of the human being that does not belong at all to ordinary day-consciousness but that has something to do with that which comes down from spiritual worlds, incarnates, and then passes again through death. It is present in the subconscious, however. For this reason, music has no direct equivalent in outer nature. In adapting himself to the earth, man finds his way into what can be grasped conceptually and what he wills to do. Music, however, does not extend this far into thinking and willing; yet, the element of harmony has a tendency to stream, as it were, toward thinking. It must not penetrate thinking, but it streams toward it. This streaming into the region of our spirit, where we otherwise think [vorstellen], is brought about by the harmony out of the melody.

The element of melody guides the musical element from the realm of feeling up to that of thinking. You do not find what is contained in thinking in the thematic melody, but the theme does contain the element that reaches up into the same realm where mental images are otherwise formed. Melody contains something akin to mental images, but it is not a mental image; it clearly takes its course in the life of feeling. It tends upward, however, so that the feeling is experienced in the human head. The significance of the element of melody in human nature is that it makes the head of the human being accessible to feelings. Otherwise, the head is only open to the concept. Through melody the head becomes open to feeling, to actual feeling. It is as if you brought the heart into the head through melody. In the melody you become free, as you normally are in thinking; feeling becomes serene and purified. All outer aspects are eliminated from it, but at the same time it remains feeling through and through.

Just as harmony can tend upward toward thinking, so it can tend downward toward willing. It must not penetrate the realm of willing, however; it must restrain itself, as it were, and this is accomplished through the rhythm. Melody thus carries harmony upward; rhythm carries harmony in the direction of willing. This is restricted willing, a measured will that runs its course in time; it does not proceed outward but remains bound to man himself. It is genuine feeling that extends into the realm of willing.

Now it becomes understandable that when a child first enters school, it comprehends melodies more readily than harmonies. Of course, one must not take this pedantically; pedantry must never play a role in the artistic. It goes without saying that one can introduce the child to all sorts of things. Just as the child should comprehend only fifths during the first year of school—at most also fourths, but not thirds; it begins to grasp thirds inwardly only from age nine onward—one can also say that the child easily understands the element of melody, but it begins to understand the element of harmony only when it reaches the age of nine or ten. Naturally, the child already understands the tone, but the actual element of harmony can be cultivated in the child only after the above age has been reached. The rhythmic element, on the other hand, assumes the greatest variety of forms. The child will comprehend a certain inner rhythm while it is still very young. Aside from this instinctively experienced rhythm, however, the child should not be troubled until after it is nine years old with the rhythm that is experienced, for example, in the elements of instrumental music. Only then should the child's attention be called to these things. In the sphere of music, too, the age levels can indicate what needs to be done. These age levels are approximately the same as those found elsewhere in Waldorf education.

Taking a closer look at rhythm, we see that since the rhythmic element is related to the nature of will—man must inwardly activate his will when he wishes to experience music—it is the rhythmic element that kindles music in the first place. Regardless of man's relationship to rhythm, all rhythm is based on the mysterious connection between pulse and breath, the ratio of eighteen breaths per minute to an average of seventy-two pulse beats per minute. This ratio of 1:4 naturally can be modified in any number of ways; it can also be individualized. Each person has his own experience regarding rhythm; since these experiences are approximately the same, however, people understand each other in reference to rhythm. All rhythmic experience bases itself on the mysterious relationship between breathing and the heartbeat, the circulation of the blood. One thus can say that while the melody is carried from the heart to the head on the stream of breath—and therefore in an outer slackening and inner creation of quality—the rhythm is carried on the waves of the blood circulation from the heart to the limbs, and in the limbs it is arrested as willing. From this you can see how the musical element really pervades the whole human being.

Picture the whole human being who experiences the musical element as a human spirit: the ability to experience the element of melody gives you the head of this spirit. The ability to experience the element of harmony gives you the chest, the central organ of the spirit; and the ability to experience rhythm gives you the limbs of the spirit. What have I described for you here? I have described the human etheric body. If only you depict the whole musical experience, and if you do this correctly, you actually have before you the human etheric body. It is just that instead of “head” was say, “melody”; instead of “rhythmic man”—because it is lifted upward—we say, “harmony”; and instead of “limb man”—we cannot say here, “metabolic man”—we say, “rhythm.” We have the entire human being etherically before us. The musical experience is nothing else than this. The human being really experiences himself as etheric body in the experience of the fourth, but a kind of summation forms within him. The experience of the fourth contains a touch of melody, a touch of harmony, a touch of rhythm, but all interwoven in such a way that they are no longer distinguishable. The entire human being is experienced spiritually at the threshold in the experience of the fourth: one experiences the etheric human being.

If today's music were not a part of the materialistic age, if all that man experiences today did not contaminate the musical element, then, based on what man possesses today in the musical element—which in itself has attained world-historical heights—he could not but be an anthroposophist. If you wish to experience the musical element consciously, you cannot but experience it anthroposophically.

If you take these things as they are, you can ponder, for example, over the following point: everywhere in ancient traditions concerning spiritual life, mention is made of man's sevenfold nature. The theosophical movement also adopted this view of the sevenfold nature of the human being. When I wrote my Theosophy, I had to speak of a ninefold nature, further dividing the three individual members. I arrived at a sevenfold from a ninefold organization.

Since three and four overlap, as do six and seven, I too, arrived at the sevenfold human being in Theosophy. This book, however, never could have been written in the age dominated by the experience of the fifth. The reason is that in that age all spiritual experience resulted from the awareness that the number of planets was contained in the seven scales, and the number of signs in the Zodiac was contained in the twelve fifths within the seven scales. The great mystery of man was revealed in the circle of fifths, and in that period you could not write about theosophy in any way but by arriving at the sevenfold human being. My Theosophy was written in an age during which predominantly the third is experienced by human beings, in other words, in the age of introversion. One must seek the spiritual in a similar way, descending from the interval of the fifth by division to the interval of the third. I therefore also had to divide the individual members of man. You can say that those other books that speak of the sevenfold human being stem from the tradition of the age of fifths, from the tradition of the circle of fifths. My Theosophy is from the age in which the third plays the dominant musical role and in which, because of this, the complication arises that the more inward element tends toward the minor side, the more outward element toward the major side. This causes the indistinct overlapping between the sentient body and sentient soul. The sentient soul relates to the minor third, the sentient body to the major third. The facts of human evolution are expressed in musical development more clearly than anywhere else. As I already told you yesterday, however, one must forego concepts; abstract conceptualizing will get you nowhere here.

When it comes to acoustics, or tone physiology, there is nothing to be gained. Acoustics has no significance, except for physics. A tone physiology that would have significance for music itself does not exist. If one wishes to comprehend the musical element, one must enter into the spiritual.

You see how the interval of the fourth is situated between the fifth and the third. Man feels transported in the fifth. In the third he feels himself within himself; in the fourth he is on the border between himself and the world. Yesterday I told you that the seventh was the dominant interval for the Atlanteans. They had only intervals of the seventh, though they did not have the same feeling as we have today. When they made music they were transported completely beyond themselves; they were within the great, all-pervading spirituality of the universe in an absolute motion. They were being moved. This motion was still contained in the experience of the fifth as well. Again, the sixth is in between. From this we realize that man experiences these three steps, the seventh, the sixth, and the fifth, in a transported condition; he enters into his own being in the fourth; he dwells within himself in the third. Only in the future will man experience the octave's full musical significance. A bold experience of the second has not yet been attained by him today; these are matters that lie in the future. When man's inner life intensifies, he will experience the second, and finally he will be sensitive to the single tone.

If you focus on what is said here, you will grasp better the forms that appear in our tone eurythmy. You will also grasp something else. You will, for example, grasp the reason that out of instinct the feeling will arise to interpret the lower segments of the octave—the prime, second and third—by backward movements and in the case of the upper tones—the fifth, sixth, and seventh—by forward movements.

These are more or less the forms that can be used as stereotypical forms, as typical forms. In the case of the forms that have been developed for individual musical compositions, you will be able to sense that these forms express the experience of the fourth or the fifth.

In eurythmy it is necessary that this part here—the descent of harmony through rhythm into willing—finds emphatic expression in form. The individual intervals thus are contained in the forms as such, executed by the eurthymist. Then, however, that which passes from the intervals into rhythm must be experienced fully by the performer in these forms; and quite by itself the instinct will arise to make as small a movement as possible without standing still in the case of the fourth. You see, the fourth is in fact a real perceiving, but a perceiving from the other side. It would be as if the eye, in perceiving itself, would have to look back upon itself; this, then, is the experience of the fourth gained from the soul.

The interval of the fifth is a real experience of imagination. He who can experience fifths correctly is actually in a position to know on the subjective level what imagination is like. One who experiences sixths knows what inspiration is. Finally, one who fully experiences sevenths—if he survives this experience—knows what intuition is. What I mean is that in the experience of the seventh the form of the soul's composition is the same as clairvoyantly with intuition. The form of the soul's composition during the experience of the sixth is that of inspiration with clairvoyance. The experience of the fifth is a real imaginative experience. The same composition of soul need only be filled with vision. Such a composition of soul is definitely present in the case of music.

This is why you hear everywhere that in the older mystery schools and remaining mystery traditions clairvoyant cognition is also called musical cognition, a spiritual-musical cognition. Though people today no longer know why, the mysteries refer to the existence of two kinds of cognition, ordinary bodily, intellectual cognition and spiritual cognition, which is in fact a musical cognition, a cognition living in the musical element. It would not actually be so difficult to popularize the understanding of the threefold human being if only people today were conscious of their musical experiences. Certainly to some extent people do have sensitivity for the experience of the musical element. They actually stand alongside it. The experience of the musical element is as yet quite limited. If it were really to become alive in man, he would feel: my etheric head is in the element of melody, and the physical has fallen away. Here, I have one aspect of the human organization. The element of harmony contains the center of my etheric system; again, the physical has fallen away. Then we reach the next octave; again in the limb system—it is obvious and goes without saying—I find the element that appears as the rhythmic element of music.

How, indeed, does the musical evolution of man proceed? It begins with the experience of the spiritual, the actual presence of the spiritual in tone, in the musical tone structure. The spiritual fades away; man retains the tone structure. Later, he links it with the word, which is a remnant of the spiritual; and what he had earlier as imaginations, namely the instruments, he fashions here in the physical, out of physical substance, as his musical instruments. To the extent that they arouse the musical instruments, man simply filled the empty spaces that remained after he no longer beheld the spiritual. Into those spaces he put the physical instruments.

It is correct to say that in music more than anywhere else one can see how the transition to the materialistic age proceeds. In the place where musical instruments resound today, spiritual entities stood formerly. They are gone, they have disappeared from the ancient clairvoyance. If man wishes to take objective hold of the musical element, however, he needs something that does not exist in outer nature. Outer nature offers him no equivalent to the musical element; therefore, he requires musical instruments.

The musical instruments basically are a clear reflection of the fact that music is experienced by the whole human being. The wind instruments prove that the head of man experiences music. The string instruments are living proof that music is experience in the chest, primarily expressed in the arms. All percussion instruments—or those in between string and percussion instruments—are evidence of how the musical element is expressed in the third part of man's nature, the limb system. Also, however, everything connected with the wind instruments has a more intimate relation to the melody than that which is connected with string instruments which have a relation to the element of harmony. That which is connected with percussion possesses more inner rhythm and relates to the rhythmic element. An orchestra is an image of man; it must not include a piano, however. Why is that? The musical instruments are derived from the spiritual world; the piano, however, in which the tones are abstractly lined up next to each other, is created only in the physical world by man. All instruments like the flute or violin originate musically from the higher world. A piano is like the Philistine who no longer contains within him the higher human being. The piano is the Philistine instrument. It is fortunate that there is such an instrument, or else the Philistine would have no music at all. The piano arises out of a materialistic experience of music. It is therefore the instrument that can be used most conveniently to evoke the musical element within the material realm. Pure matter was put to use so that the piano could become an expression of the musical element. Naturally, the piano is a beneficial instrument—otherwise, we would have to rely from the beginning on the spiritual in musical instruction in our materialistic age—but it is the one instrument that actually, in a musical sense, must be overcome. Man must get away from the impressions of the piano if he wishes to experience the actual musical element.

It is therefore always a great experience when a composition by an artist who basically lives completely in the element of music, such as Bruckner, is played on the piano. In Bruckner's compositions, the piano seems to disappear in the room! One forgets the piano and thinks that one is hearing other instruments; this is indeed so in Bruckner's case. It proves that something of the essentially spiritual, which lies at the basis of all music, still lived in Bruckner, though in a very instinctive way.

These are the things that I wished to tell you today, though in a fragmentary, informal way. I believe we will soon have an opportunity to continue with these matters. Then, I shall go into more detail concerning this or that aspect.

• 1. In the following passages, Vorstellen, the forming of mental images, or the lower aspect of thinking, has been translated thinking, in its relationship to feeling and willing.

The minutes of the “Bauverein des Verbandes Stuttgarter Zweige” (Stuttgart Association of Building Societies) on the laying of the foundation stone on January 3, 1911, read as follows: “Today the foundation stone of our own house was laid. Dr. Steiner gave a long speech to the assembled crowd in the lecture hall of the Bürgermuseum. After that, the document for the laying of the foundation stone was read out and signed by architect Schmid, as well as Heim, Arenson, Unger, Völker, Kieser, del Monte, Molt, Schrack, Benkendörfer, von Sivers and Dr. Steiner. Dr. Steiner, Fräulein von Sivers with Mr. Heim, Schmid, and the board members of the three Stuttgart branches as well as the board members of the building association and Mr. Stockmeyer Jr. as guests then proceeded to the new building, where Dr. Steiner performed the laying of the foundation stone.

Of Rudolf Steiner's “longer speech” mentioned above, only the following passage has survived (see also the notes on page 140):

"We should be clear about one thing: as long as we are forced to meet in such halls, whose forms belong to a declining culture, our work must more or less meet the fate of that which is doomed. The spiritual current will only be able to bring about the new culture that it is called to bring when it will be granted to work right down to the purely physical shaping of even the walls that surround us. And spiritual life will work differently when it flows out of spaces whose dimensions are determined by spiritual science and whose forms arise from spiritual science. And you can be sure that spiritual science would come to nothing if it did not find its way into the hearts of people who are willing to make the sacrifices that a building like the one planned in Munich demands."