Michaelis was one of the first to investigate the application of Kant's aesthetic theories to music. He studied law, philology and philosophy at the University of Leipzig. Among the lectures he attended was Heydenreich's course on aesthetics. Taking his Master's degree in 1790, he then went on to study at Jena in 1792, returning to Leipzig in 1793. After submitting his doctoral thesis in 1794, he began lecturing as a Privatdozent on metaphysics and aesthetics. Never called to the chair an account of his association with the "atheist" philosopher Fichte, he gradually withdrew from university teaching in favour of private tutoring and freelance journalism. A
philosophe in the eighteenth-century sense, Michaelis's attempts to reinterpret Kant's ideas as applied to music are of interest; and his activities extended to other fields of music criticism, such as education, ethics, and certain aspects of musical anthropology. He was also interested in the grammar of the German language, painting and drawing and the art of declamation.His publications, the most important of which in book form was
Ueber den Geist der Tonkunst mit Rücksicht auf Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft (two parts 1795 and 1800) included translations of Minoja's Lettere sopra il Canto (1815), Busby's General History of Music (1821) and Burgh's Anecdotes of Music (1820); but his clearest and most stimulating comments on Kant's ideas are to be found in his numerous magazine articles, all of which were published after and represent further developments of the Geist der Tonkunst.
Sounds originate in vibrations of the air around us, which are transmitted to our ear. So when we hear sounds, we experience something outside ourselves; it is our outer sense that responds first to music. Now it is true that the sounds are given shape in space, since the air that communicates them is extended in space; but we can no more consider sounds as objects extended in space than we can air as a solid object (we actually infer its existence only from certain physical sensations). We cannot accept sounds as constituents of the physical world interpreted by the sense of sight and of touch. Sounds are to a certain extent unphysical, although they originate from bodies in motion; and just as spiritual things are invisible, so too are sounds. Sounds make a physical impact on our external sense of heating, but those that we are consciously aware of are rather different from those that merely stimulate the nerves. Such sounds in fact represent a response, the product of mind, imagination and emotion. Hence the ear is only music's external route to our mind; the mere external organ. Musical sounds are in themselves a spiritual phenomenon. Our soul apprehends the sensations we hear and relates them to one another. Since the sounds communicate no tangible or visible material objects, and since they make us conscious of spatial substance other than ourselves (our immediate awareness of music being in no way dependent on extraneous factors) the sounds themselves constitute influences on our personality. Thus music affects our inner sense by means of our external sense, i.e. it affects our imagination and our inner receptivity through our sense of hearing. It enters, so to speak, the spirit and the heart by way of the ear. The external sensations aroused by music are immediately interiorised. We absorb them, shape them into a pattern, and thus they become within us a means of providing the material music uses as a means of artistic communication.(1)
If the intellect is the source of that cognitive clarity which thinks, differentiates between, integrates and coordinates the multiplicity of our sense-impressions, it is natural that an art that does not express itself through words, which makes use of no code of concepts, and which does not appeal directly to the intellect, will lack a certain clarity if one judges it by purely cognitive standards. Music cannot be grasped or understood in this manner in the way that a poem, a speech or a painting can be, the content and meaning of which can be absorbed and understood both in detail and as a whole. But it is precisely on account of this representational vagueness that music more nearly approaches aesthetic ideas the more it distances itself from intellectual concepts. For aesthetic ideas, products of reason and imagination, transcend all the constraints that bind the intellect to the everyday world. Now if music arouses the imagination by its images, which are wordless and merely internally felt and perceived, it simultaneously arouses reason, with which the imagination is closely connected and whose servant imagination is, hinting at or projecting in shadow outline that very attractive element which is never expressed in full detail and cannot be realised with absolute clarity.(2)
Music's extension is thus movement in time alone; its essence is origin, growth, change, decline and end. Music can express what is constant or by the repetition of what is similar or identical. But unmodified identical continuation of musical sounds or chords, or the uniform repetition of these will, if unduly extended, prove unbearable. The ear seeks variety and change, whereas the eye is apparently able to lose itself in lasting a rapturous contemplation of the same beautiful column or painting without tiring (ermüdet). Thus the maintenance of one fixed unchanging idea, and the holding and piling up of dissonances are techniques that are employed in music solely for two purposes: either to express the sublime or to intensify the music's impact and to give it bite (pikant zu machen); such procedures always cause a certain degree of unrest or pain, which in turn arouses our vital forces and enhances our joy when the unrest is assuaged . . . . Individual sounds in themselves mean nothing; but certain melodic sequences or complete melodies can symbolise certain moods or modes of feeling. Should then the interest, the charm and the magic of music necessarily originate in what the melodies mean rather than in the manner in which they are shaped? I think it is a matter more of musical form rather than of what the music expresses. Whether or not the musician is depicting sadness or joy, our attitude is not conditioned by any sympathetic or other coincidental interest; at least that is not what constitutes aesthetic pleasure. But what delights and enchants us is how the composer uses sound to create melody and harmony, thereby evoking a specific reaction: in other words, it is the form of the music. Pleasure in music does not necessarily derive from the significance of melodies or modulations, which is often indeterminate; we experience such pleasure directly, before we have time to reflect on the possible meaning of the music. It seems to me that we do not contemplate the sounds of music in most cases as symbols, but that we derive pleasure directly from the harmonious interplay of the sounds. Melody and harmony do not seem to me to have to be merely symbolic of something else if they are to please; they are in themselves the object of our pleasure, our sense of well being, our admiration. One would have to censure much music that is highly esteemed (e.g. many excellent fugues) if the criterion of judgement were that they should be precisely expressive in one particular way expressed conceptually. What melody and harmony depict or stimulate is an awareness of the beautiful, the sublime, and the noble, which is the product of these two. It is this and this alone that pleases. It does so on its own account, without further significance being implied. In doing this, music may still be characteristic: and its power is then that much greater. Music that is of its nature pathetic retains its great value; the truer to life its expression is, the more certain it is to conquer the imagination and the heart. But we should not, I think, require every piece of music to be expressive of moods, emotions or states of mind; for we should have to be shown that the composition in question contained nothing additional that was pleasant, interesting or moving, which I believe not to be the case if its content is purely aesthetic. On the other hand, what is essential is that no piece of music should be loosely constructed from sections that effectively cancel each other out and neutralise the overall impression. Everything should possess unity in diversity. If character is definable as a certain satisfying impression left behind by the combination of musical ideas, melodies, chords and modulations -- even, indeed, by suitably contrasting effects of light and shade -- then every piece of music should in that case possess character. But the music's aesthetic quality, as in everything where beauty captivates us, does not, however, have anything to do with what is stated or expressed, but with the order and manner in which ideas are presented. Just as a lover rejoices to hear his beloved speak, bewitched by the sound of her voice and oblivious to what she is saying, so music often enchants us simply by its very existence, by the union of melody and harmony in a manifold interplay of the most intimate kind which reverberates in our innermost being, whatever the content may be.(3)
The second part of this article is divided off from the first; and the word sublime occurs only once. None the less, it is clearly meant as a rider to it, describing as it does, the symphonies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as: "on an epic scale, with heroic struggles between the themes" and asserting that the contrast throws new light on the material. The conclusion is almost unavoidable that for the reasons already stated, Michaelis regarded these works as examples of the sublime in music.
An essential difference between the beautiful and the sublime is revealed (following Kant's penetrating analysis) in the following: the beautiful relates to form, outline, limitation, the easily apprehended image of the object in space, or the easily apprehended melody, the gentle harmonic and rhythmic play of emotions in time. Sublimity, on the other hand, must, under certain circumstances, also be considered a constituent of crude unformed, unshaped objects, and must be based on the idea of infinity or immeasurability. The beautiful depends in this respect on quality, the sublime on quantity. If the emotions are easily integrated in audible expression and fuse into a whole; if the sounds relate fluently to one an other, constituting by their rhythmic symmetry a melody that the imagination can grasp without difficulty, then true beauty manifests itself in music. But when the sounds impinge on the ear at great length, or with complete uniformity, or with frequent interruptions, or with shattering intensity, or where the part-writing is very complex, so that the listener's imagination is severely taxed in an effort to grasp the whole, so that it feels in fact as if it is poised over a bottomless chasm, then the sublime manifests itself. The feeling of sublimity in music is aroused when the imagination is elevated to the plane of the limitless, the immeasurable, the unconquerable. This happens when such emotions are aroused as either completely prevent the integration of one's impressions into a coherent whole, or when at any rate they make it very difficult. The objectification, the shaping of a coherent whole, is hampered in music in two principal ways. Firstly, by uniformity so great that it almost excludes variety: by the constant repetition of the same note or chord, for instance; by long, majestic, weighty or solemn notes, and hence by very slow movement; by long pauses holding up the progress of the melodic line, or which impede the shaping of a melody, thus underlining the lack of variety. Secondly, by too much diversity, as when innumerable impressions succeed one another too rapidly and the mind being too abruptly hurled into the thundering torrent of sounds, or when (as in many polyphonic compositions involving many voices) the themes are developed together in so complex a manner that the imagination cannot easily and calmly integrate the diverse ideas into a coherent whole without strain. Thus in music, the sublime can only be that which seems too vast and significant, too strange and wonderful, to be easily assimilated by it. Sublime notes, figuration and harmonies stimulate the imagination, which must exert itself and expand beyond its normal bounds to grasp, integrate and recall them. They offer it, not flowing melodies with gentle cadences, but something that appears intractable to rhythmic laws; they have no immediately pleasant effect on the personality and the imagination, but an almost violent one of frightful and terrifying aspect. To the extent that music can depict greatness exceeding the normal capacity of the imagination, thrilling the listener with horror and rapture, it can express the sublime. But because the sublime does not readily appeal to the mind or to the imagination, but is able to satisfy us only because of its very incompatibility with both and because of its impact on the mind; frivolous, feeble and bunkered temperaments are not responsive to it. It appeals only to men of spirit and sensitivity, men of the noblest intellect.(5)
In the final paragraph of the "Analytik des Erhabenen", Kant discussed the question of humour in art, allowing it a place among the pleasant arts rather than among the beautiful, and asserting that humour really exists when the practitioner can voluntarily assume the talent "to assume according to this disposition a particular state of mind in which everything is assessed quite differently from normal (even topsy-turvy) and yet according to certain rational principles" (p. 282).
Michaelis takes this up in an article on "The Humorous or Comic Element in Musical Composition", dating from August 1807. True, it smacks somewhat of the earnest teutonic professor explaining the point of a string of earnest teutonic jokes, but Michaelis shows that he has grasped at least one vital point obscured from nineteenth-century writers and composers, namely, that there is such a thing as humour in music and that many of the ambiguities and incongruities in the music of, say, Haydn are intentionally humorous.
Music is humorous if it displays the composer's wilfulness more than the strict practice of artistic techniques; in such a case, the musical ideas are very odd and unusual and they do not follow on one another as the natural harmonic progressions might seem to imply. Instead, the listener is surprised by quite unexpected turns of phrase, by unexpected transitions, or by wholly new and oddly shaped figures . . . . Established ideas are inverted into new shapes, the notes are syncopated, individual parts are woven into remarkable textures, keys are boldly approached and left, returns to the original key and main theme are equally unexpected and everything concludes in so individual a manner that nothing can be explained in terms of conventional musical techniques, customary musical forms, or natural, regular procedure. The very unexpectedness of it all has precisely the same impact as do the ideas of a comical or humorous narrator who combines the bizarre with a wayward imaginative capacity to give the most familiar things a new look, and who, boldly and openly gives rein to his thoughts without ever offending against good taste.
Humorous music is sometimes comic and naive, sometimes serious and sublime. Deviations from the conventional, wayward combination of the bizarre and the unfamiliar, the inversion of themes, unorthodox openings, transitions, endings, and such like, might at first sight appear clumsy; but because these deviations are still unexpectedly combined with inspired music, because they immediately lose their clumsiness in their proper context, the music assumes a comic quality and it may arouse laughter.
Humorous music is either witty and of a jovial, pleasing character, or else it is on the whole more serious, bearing the traces of a wayward humour in which the impressions conflict strangely with each other and in which the imagination cannot quite enjoy free play. One rarely encounters these categories in their pure form. The term scherzo (scherzando) is generally used to describe the principal characteristics of the first kind of humour, and capriccio, the second. Music that is playfully humorous is designed above all to cheer and entertain us; the composer allows himself a freer rein than he does in the other genre, though he may well make use of ideas that he has himself devised, attractive or amusing themes which he varies and contrasts with other ideas. In a proper scherzo, the structure is more controlled and regular, and the procedure is more obvious, flowing and comprehensible than in a capriccio. For in the latter, the composer seems to be too dependent on his immediate mood and upon ideas that are generated by it to have in mind an audience or to attempt to entertain it and engage its sympathy by means of comprehensible ideas. He seems rather to be impelled by an inner urge to lay bare his immediate soul and to express the strange succession and transformation of emotions and ideas to which he is subject. Whereas the scherzo assumes much of the character of the beautiful, the capriccio tends towards the sublime and easily strays into the pompous or bombastic . . . . What I understand in this instance by capriccio our composers often entitle fantasy and especially free fantasy. In the music of earlier times, humour was extremely rare, since composers preferred to observe strictly regular procedures, and were reluctant to embark on those bold, imaginative essays that transcend the conventional. Handel was perhaps one of the most distinguished composers of genius to introduce into his music an element of the comic now and then. There is, on the other hand a considerable element of humour in modern music, especially since Joseph Haydn, the greatest master in this genre, set a pattern, particularly in his highly original symphonies and quartets. J. S. Bach frequently wrote in this style, but he confined himself mainly to ingenuities of harmony. C. P. E. Bach too, often composed in a humorous style; but it was Haydn who first did so at all regularly, thereby influencing a number of composers of the modern era to write in this vein. Mozart's fertile genius, too, was no stranger to humour, but it seemed attuned more to the serious and sublime than to the comic and naive. Skilful though Mozart was at handling musical humour, he rarely exploited the vein at great length, and when he did, he managed to effect a quick smooth transition from the grand and impressive to the intimate and moving. His duos, quartets and quintets for various instrumental ensembles seem especially suited to the humorous style. Not only Haydn, but also Pleyel, Viotti, Rode, Kreutzer, Clementi and Beethoven have drawn upon rich springs of humour to flow in their compositions, a humour that in some has tended more towards roguish wit, whilst in others it has been serious and imaginative.(6)
NOTES 1. Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, vol. 9, no. 43, p. 674. 2. Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, vol. 9, no. 44, p. 694. 3. Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, vol. 9, no. 43, p. 676. 4. Berlinische musikalische Zeitung, vol. 1, no. 46, p. 180. 5. Berlinische musikalische Zeitung, vol. 1, no. 46, p. 179. 6. Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, vol. 10, no. 46, p. 725.