INTRODUCTION

Schopenhauer's metaphysics of music is based on two presuppositions: (1) music is the embodiment of the Will and (2) music and nature (the world as representation) share certain parallel features. Schopenhauer readily admits that his metaphysical conception of music as the embodiment of the Will cannot be logically demonstrated. Evidence for this metaphysical vision of music as Will is provided by the comparative analysis of the parallel constitution of music and nature, the latter being the objectification of the Will (WWR 1, 258–259). But Schopenhauer's evidence – his comparative analyses of the structures of nature and music – is in the mode and tone of (an additional) metaphysics without proof, logical or empirical. After all, Schopenhauer argues that the depth of the Will and music is ineffable. He warns about the conceptual constitution of discursive descriptions of music; descriptions fettered in conception are not freed by the pure “will-less” perception that he argues is required for a meaningful musical experience. Therefore, how can one ever know whether a discursive description of music or the Will is uncorrupted and thereby valid if not certain?

Schopenhauer turns to laws of acoustics to authenticate his collateral analysis of music and nature, and in so doing, to validate his metaphysical vision. In the recitation of those laws he is on solid and verifiable ground: Pythagorean principles of sound vibrations and laws of “harmonics” are immutable as he recounts them. However, Schopenhauer ventures from the surety of mathematics to the frailty of music theory.