The Musical Symbolism in Thomas Mann's Novel Doctor Faustus Author(s): Michael Mann Reviewed work(s): Source: Notes,

Second Series, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Dec., 1956), pp. 33-42 Published by: Music Library Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/891897 . Accessed: 15/12/2012 13:23
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THE MUSICAL SYMBOLISM in Thomas Mann's Novel Doctor Faustus

By MICHAEL MANN'

To talkabout a greatartist thestrength one's personalproximity on of to his workand life is to assume a heavyload of responsibility!I am to speak to you about my late father, Thomas Mann; and perhapsto fulfill this task, withcandor and yet without is indiscretion, facilitated at least in one sense: forThomasMann's biography-asa London Times reviewer recently it-is written put in exhaustively his books. I should, then, hardly in a position be nor shouldI wishto tellyou anything about him whichyou could not learn,directly inferentially, his novels. or from Besides,I can thinkof veryfewwriters who have takensuch pains as he did to pointout,himself, deepermeaningof thesenovels. the
The inclination of the artist to "explain" his work, to declare its intent and interpretits message, ian endeavor which became so characteristicof 19th century writers and composers, has often led to misunderstandings and futile ciontroversies. And perhaps it would be wiser to regard such authoritative self-explanationsrather as self-probingsor inevitable selfinterrogations. For it is a long way fromintuitiveconception to conscious awareness, and the artistmay never cover the distance completely. There are many examples. Some inquisitive lady, I remember,interviewed my father about what appeared to her an amazing intellectual constructionin one of his novels: "How did you figure it all out?" she asked, "or didn't you?" "Yes and no!"' he answered. "It just happens [Es passiert], and it happens with pleasure." My fatherwas anythingbut communicative about his work with those close to him. He scoffs in one of his stories at certain "novelists" so absorbed in talking about their novels that they never find time to write them! Yet, oddly enough, on occasion he wrote profuse letters to utter strangers,generously imparting to them accounts about one or another of his books-the receiver of such a communication playing, I suspect, somewhat the role of an emptyconfessional-box. He always listened with interest,sometimeswith surprise,to the various interpretations given to his novels. For instance, on attendinga Princeton
1 Mr. Mann read his paper at the wintermeetingof the Music LibraryAssociation in Pittsburghon Feb. 24, 1956. With the desire of gaining wider distribution the of article,the authorarrangedforits publicationin England in the November1956 issue of The Music Review.

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lecturein whichthe speakerlinked The Magic Mountainwith Richard the Wagner's Parsijal and the Holy Grail: "Extremelyinteresting!" mean raisinghis eyebrows. This did not necessarily authormurmured, it of he disapproved the interpretation; was just news to him. Thus if one may findin Thomas Mann's outlookupon his art a preconcern, romantic naivite,so to speak,combinedwithdeeplywondering withregardto heights certainly latterqualityrose to unprecedented the Composer the DoctorFaustus, Life of theGerman novel, his lastcompleted as Adrian Leverkiihn Told by a Friend. The authorof Buddenbrooks, and the Josephepic, who had come to look with The Magic Mountain, showed an eagerness,an upon praise as well as criticism, detachment he of in unwonted touchiness, thematter anycomments came acrossupon added to this latestwork-and therewere plentyof them. He himself some200 pages of his own: theNovel of a Novel, literature thisexegetical backand to he where attempted give an idea of theintellectual emotional had grown. whichthebook in question from ground of We mighthave perceivedalready in the unusual explicitness the in to titlepage a certainanxiety put this novel,fromthe veryfirst, its properplace. ThomasMann once wrotethat"any titleof a novelgiving morethan a merename shouldreallybe regardedas colportage!" Yet (or to gives,in -addition the hero's name and profession herehe himself but on rather, vocation), not only expressinformation his nationality, towardthe hero-presumably attitude also an indication thenarrator's of to although, be is a sympathetic sincethestory "toldby a friend," attitude, as worriedfriend, it soon turnsout. The dark shadow sure,an utterly of the Faust legend,of thepact withEvil, whichis cast overthe storyof will AdrianLeverkiihn give him good reasonforhis uneasiness!-But let me notanticipate. again and again in "Let me not anticipate!" This phrase,recurring underproper as thecourseof thestory if once moreto place thenarrator is of symptomatic its spirit:a certaindrivenbreathlessdiscipline, highly and divisionsinto paragraphs pauses, the orderly ness,wheredeliberate to of meanno morethanlip service thegood manners thenovel chapters, in way. thatare constantly transgressed manyanother "good manners" aspectof thisbook: the questionof alarming Thereis one particularly afterlayingdown his the identity its characters. Alas, whatnovelist, of in enveloped his ownworld -that, pen,has notfoundoutto his owndismay of whiledealingwithlivingideas, he had slippedintothecostumes living withsuspicion, are thoselivingbeings,watching beings. And sometimes mirror held up to in themselves the literary only too readyto recognize them. ThomasMann,early in life,had learnedthis when,afterthe publicahe tion of Buddenbrooks, had to contendwiththe reproachof having abused the good citizensof his home town. "Desist, at last, fromyour 34

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inquiry," exclaims an essay dealingwithsuch accusations;"'who is he in this?' and 'who is that?' I am drawinglittlefigures, consisting outof lines-and if anyonestandsin questionof serving a model,it is I! It as In theFaustusnovel,thegood citizens manyanother of townhad even less difficulty recognizing in theirfeatures-or rather, those aspectsthat suitedthewriter's schemes. In severalinstances did not eventake the he trouble changetheir to names! Flesh and blood,they wanderthrough the book, side by side withliterary who dine at theirtables and phantoms loungein theirdrawing rooms. The method n,ot is without entirely new contact precedent-thestrange established here betweenrealityand poetry,cuttingthroughfromthe latter theformer, to absorbing former, the ;as undigested it were,intothe latter rather, or, pastingthetwotogether-itis the method surrealism. of The term"mounting" montage, or whichthe authoruses to explainthis crucial aspect of his conception,has been used to describe similar phenomena modern and music. in art A sortof musicalmontage may be foundas far back as the music of GustavMahler. There,to be sure,it is an ex-post-facto discovery, pointed out by ErnstKrenekin an analysisof Mahler'smusic. Krenekrefers to Mahler'sway of writing innocent themes motivic or simple, features an of apparently obsoletecharacter and then"mounting" familiar the material into a strange, new environment fitting into, it by contradisconcerting puntal combina;tions and oversizeddimensions. Krenek comparesthe resulting "shock-reaction" "certainsurrealistic to deviceswhichshow the familiarlivingroom through distorting a magnifying glass, as it were, and thusrevealit as a horror chamber." In the music of GustavMahler,the techniqueof musical montageis stillin an evolutionary stage. In thehandsof latercomposers lostmuch it of its incipientmeaningand deteriorated into mere parody or other similarmanifestations musicalcynicism. In Mahler'smusic,however, of thesignificance themontage of principle stillfully is apparent. It is to be understood a desperate as a romanticism has become retrospectiveness, that an over-powering desire to hold on to thatwhich is no more; or-to expandour conception-tothatwhichis not. But we may turnhere,forthe moment, frommusicback to literature. Strip Mahler's nostalgia of its desperateness and you have the early romanticism Thomas Mann-the longingof Tonio Kr6ger,the artist, of fortheinnocence life,or thesoftand timeless of piano-improvisations of Hanno Buddenbrook, last descendant a wearybourgeois the of family. Yet it is precisely the recognition that the past is irretrievable, and the otherness, categories beyond subjective our self, ungraspable drives that theromantic artist forward. WhenThomasMann in DoctorFaustus,half a century after writing Buddenbrooks, the of made his "late return home into the musicaland Germanold-city atmosphere his first of novel,"the 35
is I."

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folds betweenhis brows had deepened,and the amiable self-scepticism had assumeda grimmer physiognomy.It is the veryexistence art,of of AdrianLeverkiihn culture civilization, and which finds stake. Tradition at illusion" of has been turned intothe "horror chamber." The "beautiful whichpleasedthe respectable man of a past art,thewell-calculated effect, will century, serveno longer; art mustdo away withit at any cost. eitherabove or below this The alternative itself proceeding of presents of present crisis. Therelooms,above,thespirit presumptiousness mocking at thelimitsof thehumanmind; and, below,the lure of the elementary, barbarism. The bo,ok levelsand of returning evolveson thesetwocultural becomesmanifest thenarration in itself:whereas the"ominousduplicity" is the world of the hero, Adrian Leverkiihn, still rooted in the overhis refinement thefinde siecle,the narrator telling storyat a later of is withthe catastrophe time-the culturallow ebb reachedin Germany of the second world war. The two planes are diametrically opposed,and of each other theveryextremity opposition. The yettheyare touching by is commongroundof extremes radicalism-a radicalismwherelove has been replacedby ecstasy. link between higherand the lower the The novelist providesa further of level of the book: the sickness its hero by meansof whichhe achieves for his ecstaticself-transcendence. Here is the realisticbackground his Faustian"alliancewiththe devil." "It is a graveerrorof the historical legend,"wrotethe author,"that betweenFaust and music." Faust it did not establishany connection shouldhave been a musician,and musthave been a musicianat heart! And in this sense Thomas Mann is going to improveon the medieval Faust legend. I need not dwell here on the role that music plays in the oeuvre of Thomas Mann. Criticalthought and music-love of music and inner -of musicality the word-are the verycornerstonesof thatwork. Here also is thebasis ofThomasMann'sdeepaffinity Friedrich to and Nietzsche, it is doubtless imageof Nietzsche the whichcame alive in thepicture that Thomas Mann, while himselfstanding"in question,"drew of Adrian Leverkiihn. ThomasMann,however, his loveformusicsharesnotonlyNietzsche's in passionbut,perhaps evenmore, doubts. Nietzsche his oncewrote:"music and tears-I hardly knowhowto keepaparttheone from other..... the This has a highly romantic sound-it is quitein keeping withour previous definition theromanticism GustavMahler. Yet it is also, and more of of specifically, highly German. Music and romanticism, ThomasMann tells us, are inseparablein the Germanmind. Music is identicalwith the "song of nostalgia,"and "song of death." And this song has a power which,in the hands of a magicianlike RichardWagner,is able to subjugate the whole world. Hence music became for Thomas Mann "a 36

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art Christian withnegativesign," "the realmof the Demoniacal,""both calculative orderand chaos-breeding ..." And if, in The irrationality. Magic Mountain, was leftto Settembrini, babbler,bluntly call it the to music"politically his the is suspicious," author notso farfrom giving own to in he endorsement theidea when, his 1945 essayon Germany, pondered heavilyon the"musicality" the German of people. But we are drifting here down towardthe lowerregionsof our story: the disastrous solutionof the cultural crisis in Germany's Third Reichand ecstaticself-transcendence means of sickness,of a the sickness, by country. The threadsconnecting two levels of the storyare going the forward and backward, upwardand downward;"the magic of the word whichis able to pull the upperdownto the lower,the unrestrained and yet unquestionably genuinepliancyof languageto exchangeand interweave"-of whichThomasMann can tell a tale-is fullyat work; and it was by no meansa slip of our.attention we haveso farrefrained that from Adrian Leverkiihn identifying withthe "upper" or the "lower" level of thebook. To be sure,the flight his spiritis high; but it is the abyss of belowwherehe finally ends in a dark nightof mentalderangement. His mentalbreak-down (which ends the narration)happens simultaneously withthepoliticalnightfall Germany, initiation the ThirdReich; in the of and he is reported havingdied about ten yearslater,earlyduringthe as war. The parallelbetween two case-histories, individualand the the the is national, obviousenough; and one might thatthedifference say consists mainlyin the na-ture the respective of for aspirations, spiritual powerin the one case and for politicalpowerin the other-the German"song of death" appearingin the latterinstancecorrupted and distorted, in a as horrid, squeaking phonograph recording. The supreme of aspiration AdrianLeverkiihn, his breaking in awayfrom was tradition, to turnart intotheinstrument a moreimmediate of vision. In linewith whathas already beensaid,thisis ragain extremely an romantic desire. Ultimately, it perhaps, is not so mucha breaking away as rather an intensification 19thcentury of romanticism.Understood thissense, in Leverkiihn's aspirations indeedparallelthoseof ThomasMann's hook! The "novel" ,as an art form,opines T. S. Eliot-and Thomas Mann quoteshim in his Novel of a Novel-may have outlived function. If its in his Doctor Faustus Thomas M.annwas to be successful passing in beyond-the limitsof realisticfiction, elevating book in part into the his sphere of biographyand undisguisedconfession, then how could the writer have failedto putAdrianLeverkiihn, compioser, touchwitha the in musicalworldthat reallyexistedand in whichromantic self-expression had been drivento its utmost limits? "Beautyexistsbut at themoment whentheunproductive beginsto miss it. The artistis content withtruth." This could be a quotationfrom DoctorFaustus; but,as everymusicianknows, was iactually it written by 37

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Schoenberg. And here we have arrivedat .thecentraland mostdaring piece of "mounted"materialin the entirenovel: the incorporation into thebook notonlyof theesthetic-ethical outlook but of theveryprinciples, the musicaltechnique, ArnoldSchoenberg. of Many people have reacted with utterconfusionto Thomas Mann's methodof drawingtogether the heterogeneous materialsof his novel. There was even a sense of flattered self-complacency among German readersthat theirnationalcatastrophe should have been interpreted in such loftytermsas in the figureof Adrian Leverkiihn. On the other hand, it goes without sayingthat Schoenberg, whenhe beheldhis ideas in the distorting glass,was beside himself. raked the firewhile otherstried to explain,to pacify. Some friends It has been relatedthat Schoenberg-whohad been on friendly terms with Thomas Mann for several years-kept saying on one of these occasions: "but whyon earth,if he neededsome musicalsystem, he did nottellme-I wouldhave invented forhim!" This wouldhardly one hiave mettheauthor's need. Perhapsit was not so muchthe fact of the assumedplagiarismitself thatexcitedSchoenberg, his angerdid not subsideeven after for Thomas to a Mannhad hastened insert noteat theend ofthebook,givingacknowlto edgement thetrueownerforthe property borrowed AdrianLeverby kuhn; but it was thenatureof the strange new environment whichhis in musical ideas appeared,and the function whichthey,supposedly, held in thisenvironment-the of theirgetting fact witha sick-minded involved fictional character and evenwithGermannationalsocialism. It was this thatwas too muchforhim! If I am right ithis, in thenbothpartiesconthe German readerand thehur.t cerned, flattered made thesame composer, mistake:thatof attributing function symbolism a to whichit no longer holds in modern literature. Let me give two examples. HenryJamestellsus the storyof a man who, all his life, "waited for something happen," only to find out to that "waitinghad been his lot." And Franz Kafka tells us a finally similarstory strikingly about a man who sits beforean open gate all his life,not able to enterit, onlyto findout finally thatthe gate had been keptopenjust forhim. Can we stillask aboutthe "significance" these of stories and thefunction thesymbols of employed? The question has been askedoverand overwithregard Kafka'snovel (The Trial); it has been to in interpreted the most divergent esthetic and religiousterms,even by Kafka'sclosest friends. It tookan equallygreatartist, AndreGide,to give the rightanswer. Deeply absorbedin Kafka's novel,he exclaimsin his Journal:"The anguishthis book gives offis, at moments, almostunfor bearable, howcan one fail to repeatto oneself that constantly: hunted creature I!" is The answerringsa familiar soundin our present rangeof ideas. This has "it is I," however, assumeda muchwidermeaning. It is no longer 38

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the writer the reader,discovering portrait some more or less or his in familiar it might surroundings; has boiled downto whatpsychoanalysis call an archetype humanexperience, of from timeimmemorial in gathered thecollective humansoul and translated a hereinto, picture from whichit cannotbe retranslated. This is thesymbolism thefairy-tale, myth, of the the legend. There are manyversionsto a legend,and theymay differ from each other:someare ofa mundane, widely others a super-mundane of character. Human beings are turnedinto giants and angels,and vice
versa. "The sphere is revolving,"writesThomas Mann, "and it can never be made out where a storyis ultimatelyat home ... above or below. It is the presence of that which is rotating,the unity of duplicity, the statue with the name 'simultaneousness'."

A survey of the works of Thomas Mann would easily show the increasing attractionexercised upon him by the legend and the myth-the archetype of human experience. He himself seems to become slowly aware of this development,from the highly personal to the super-personal,when he muses about one of his earlier novels: "One imagines himselftalking about his own private affairs and suddenly realizes that he is dealing with mattersof the most general interest!" Thomas Mann could hardly have spoken in such terms of surprise in regard to his renderingof the Faust legend. It is significantthat whereas all of his formernovels, including even the Joseph epic, had been planned as short novels and only in the process of writinggrew into their larger size, the Faustus novel is the firstand only work which in its very conception is of huge dimensions: it is to embrace millions--in Beethoven's sense -and it is not by coincidence that it is the luminous figureof Beethoven that becomes visible behind the dark contours of Adrian Leverkiihn. But it is an embrace not in joy but in pity and despair. The work of Adrian Leverkiihn is the "revocation of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony." Angels are degraded into torturedhuman beings, and there remains at the end but a prayer. Whether,however, it is Good or Evil that triumphsat the end of the Faust legend, it is the mutual encounterof Good and Evil thatthe archetype of the Faustian experience envisions. And to weld both togetheror freeze them together,indeed, is the essence of Thomas Mann's interpretation. It is this overwhelmingvision of coherence which transcends the "beautifulillusion" of art and transforms into truth- the truth,nevertheless, art shining from a maze of mutual reflectionswhich in their correlations to each othercan never be computed withouta remainder. Yet this is neither the sphere of the esthetic,as it still was comparativelyin the case of the Joseph legend (where the knittingtogether of the "simultaneousness of the stories" is bathed in a hilarious light of playful irony and beauty, and where "form confounded makes most form in mirth"), nor is it strictly speaking the sphere of the intellect. Form here becomes emotion-the 39

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of and emotion holding together thereby givingsenseto thatwhichotherwise would burstapart into numbly threatening meaninglessness. to is This emotion, my feeling, the point of departure whichled to ThomasMann'snovelDoctorFaustus-and which led, in music,to Arnold twelve-tone Schoenberg's method. We may here retraceour steps. Thomas Mann chose Schoenberg's musicalworldto mirror it theconception his book and, beyondthis, in of in to findin it thereflection our present-day of cultural crisisin general, as whichthebook also is considered takingan activepart. The Faustus novelis a product thatcri(sis, onlyby virtueof its subjectmatter, of not form butevenmoreso by its innerstructure, new approachto literary its and of in regard which principle montage theresulting to the of overthrow One of the most thenovelas an artform have been foundsymptomatic. in forcesbroughtinto play in our time,and accordingly characteristic Thomas Mann's book, is the irrational;and again it is music,not only Schoenberg'smusic but music in general,which becomes the central for symbol thesedarkersides of the humanmind,and moreparticularly of theGerman mindas embodied, an ambivalent on spiritual level,in the figure AdrianLeverkiihn. of But let therebe no mistake. The musicalworldof AdrianLeverkiihn used Schoenis notthemusicalworldof ThomasMann. Whenthewriter berg'smusic in his literary equation,he was guided,quite certainly, by than by an immediate and theoretical underintuition knowledge rather standingof Schoenberg's musical language. His ears rejectedSchoenberg's music. His was the world of Richard Wagner. He admired in Tchaikovsky, loved Gounod,and could delight an aria by Saint-Saens. reAnd whilealreadyimmersed the Faustus storyhe once innocently in I like-Cesar marked:"If I were a composer, shouldcompose,perhaps, Franck." How shall we explainthis-one mightalmostbe tempted say parato doxical-musical conservatism? Was the writer perhapsstilllookingin in his private illusionof art" whichhe denounced lifefor the "beautiful his workshop? Surelyit is morethanthis. ThomasMann was deeply Kunst of the 19th in rooted,like Adrian Leverkiihn, the biirgerliche he wherever could, in ordernot to lose century. He clung to tradition himself thespiritual in adventure his ownartistic of mission. AndThomas Mann's musicaltasteis a legitimate ties. From part of thesetraditional them there evenin someaspectsof his literary resulted, work, appearthe ance of a certainconservatism.As the writerhimselfrepeatedly reit marked, however, is a deceptive appearance. the back-doorso to speak, to our preAnd this returns through us, viouslyindicatedanalogy betweenhim and Arnold Schoenberg. With the reversed. Schoenberg Schoenberg, though, case is intrinsically clings to traditionin the underlying formsof his compositions whereasthe
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of fromtradition. The art of surfacetexture his musicseemsestranged music,one might is of generalize, sweptaway by thetorrent its own everlaw moreperceptibly withless resistance and thantheart of the changing word. And the relativestrength such a resistance Schoenberg's of in musiccan hardlybe surmised the ear of the layman. ThomasMann by in musicwhathe foundin themusic therefore couldnotfind Schoenberg's of Cesar Franck-a synthesis Wagnerianromanticism traditional of and musical formalism-despite fact that these two elements, the carriedto theirultimate music. consequences, mayalso be foundin Schoenberg's But it is not for me to draw any closer together "heterogeneous the material" of these present contemplations-Arnold Schoenberg and ThomasMann. Beforeconcluding, for let however, me return a moment to the timewhenthe Faustus novel was written. The authordescribes a photograph himself of fromthattime as being "pallid in its features and ofan esoteric withhis usual appearance. sharpness," in hardly keeping Accustomed fixed to working hoursin themorning, was working he overto time; he gave himself working the novelup tilllate afternoon, on and he cameto feel"a little and shivery" hot overit, muchas did Leverkiihn. Later on, the suspicionmay well have arisenin him that"whenone has fever-there pretty are in thentoo . . . and it livelygoings-on thesystem mayeasilybe thatone involuntarily to findan emotion tries whichwould explain,or evenhalf-way he explain,the goings-on." Certainly gave expression thiswhen, fewyearslater,he wrote to a The Black Swan, a short noveldealingwiththedeceptiveness nature-or, rather me say, the of let functions a natureattacked disease. of deceptive by Therewas "thisheatin theface" and "theseidioticpalpitations." They seemedto becomeinseparable fromthe wlork theyturnedout, more but and more,to be a matter of subjective not emotionbut of fact. He fell ill. I verywell remember thatnight. I had been playingfor seriously him-I do not recall whatcontemporary sonata. He was seated in his study,listening the open door, but he retiredbeforethe end. through Whilelyingill, some days later.he thoroughly his enjoyedthrough bedside radio the symphony Cesar Franck! It was like an illicitrecess by from worldhe had to deal withintotheworldhe loved. the But after a undergoing seriousoperation, completed-without he palpitationsand without heat in the face-his workof artistic propulsion and profound pessimism. The correspondence which followed between and ArnoldSchoenberg him has becomewell-known far as themisunderstandings but unfortuas went no the nately farther: worldis usuallymoreinterested frictions in thanin reconciliations. Schoenberg finallyannouncedpeace. "Let us bury the hatchet," he "therewill come some occasion,some eightieth wrote, birthday so to or 41

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celebrate our reconciliation public." Schoenbergdied before his in eightieth birthday; father destined live on, after completion my was to the of Doctor Faustus,foranother decade. in There was formulated theseten years stillanotherafter-thought to the novel,far more important than the one of The Black Swan. It is the motiveof grace which became the destinyof Gregorius, Holy the Sinner. It maybe wellto recallherethatthesame saga had alreadybeen told en passantin the course of the Faustus novel. Gregorius failed as gravely did AdrianLeverkiihn; as yet,in the Holy Sinner,it is not Evil whichultimately prevails. Thus-to borrowthephraseof a poetJustice,in one last endeavor, wrests from Evil life's rich prizes, and a kingdomnew arises . . .

Arnold Schoenberg translated this into a musical picturein an early a cappellachorus. Sopranos,altos,and tenors witha scalebeginquietly wise descending motif introduce poem: to the
As the shepherds heark'ningthen, left their flocks. . . the angel's voice went on to sing, heavens did not cease to ring: "Peace on Earth. Good Will to Men!"

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