Hesse, Hermann (EN)

Hesse Hermann, *2 July 1877 Calw (Wirtembergia), †9 August 1962 Montagnola (near Lugano), German novelist and poet, winner of the Nobel Prize (1946). After completing his secondary education, he served an apprenticeship as a bookseller (Tübingen 1895–98). In 1904, he settled in Gaienhofen on Lake Constance and devoted himself to literary work; in 1912, he took up permanent residence in Switzerland. He developed a passion for music at home in Calw, where he learnt to play the violin and grew up surrounded by his mother’s musical family. He owed the expansion and deepening of his musical knowledge to K. Isenberg (his half-brother) and O. Schoeck, as well as to his friendly contacts with other musicians (V. Andreae, I. Durigo, K. Erb, A. Busch, E. Fischer, C. Haskil). Music played a decisive role in the development of Hesse’s personality and permeated his work in a unique way. In his poetry, it became the subject of lyrical expression. In it, he gave voice to his youthful fascination with Chopin’s works (Chopin, Grand valse, Berceuse, 1897) and his spiritual experiences and reflections associated with listening (Sarasate 1897, Konzert 1917, Zu einer Toccata von Bach 1935) and the performance of music in general (Meiner Geige 1896, Adagio 1900). He was also inspired by the technical devices of music, occasionally introducing a “syntactic-musical interplay of elements” (Feierliche Abendmusik: Allegro, Andante, Adagio 1913, Dreistimmige Musik 1934, the prose piece Ein Satz über die Kadenz 1947). Hesse’s philosophy of music (Das Glasperlenspiel 1933, Orgelspiel 1937, Flötenspiel 1940), which he articulated in novels, short stories, essays and letters, is also reflected in his poetry. It reveals the influence of German Romantic thought (E.T.A. Hoffmann, Novalis, Jean Paul) and conscious references to the cosmological and ethical concept of music in ancient Chinese and Greek philosophy (Li Bu Wei, the Pythagoreans, Plato). Hesse understood music as an expression of the essence of being and the essence of art, and in a commentary on the poem Flötenspiel he defined it as an aesthetically perceptible projection of time, in which the moment is identical with eternity (letter to O. Korradi, April 1940). Initially, music was a refuge (Zuflucht) for Hesse on the path “from man to silence, from words to music” (the novel Gertrud, 1910; the collection of poems Musik des Einsamen, 1915). During the First World War and his pacifist activities, which he began with an article bearing the Beethovenian title O Freunde, nicht diese Töne (1914), Hesse re-evaluated concepts relating to European culture and morality. He ultimately rejected the legacy of late Romantic ideology (Schopenhauer, Wagner), seeing in it the danger of abuse and the “sweet and disturbing music of doom” (the novella Klein und Wagner, Klingsors letzter Sommer, 1919). Later, in his major novels Steppenwolf (1927) and The Glass Bead Game (1943), Hesse addressed the ethos of music as an art form leading to the highest goal: inner freedom, purity and fulfilment. He saw its redemptive power even in mechanical exercises and drills, for they too are “an emanation of order and clarity and create a specific space beyond or above reality” (letter to F. Schiller dated 4 March 1945). He associated the moralising and therapeutic function of music primarily with classical music devoid of pathos, by which he understood works composed between 1500 and 1800. He regarded it as “the essence and fullest expression of our culture,” because it expresses “an understanding of the tragic nature of humanity, an affirmation of human fate, courage, and serenity”. He associated the embodiment of this “immortal serenity” (Heiterkeit) with the magical name of Mozart. From music, its idea and principles, Hesse derived The Glass Bead Game—a mathematical-musical game encompassing all the contents and values of our culture. He saw in it—at least in the form of an aesthetic utopia—the possibility of overcoming the devaluation of concepts and words brought about by inauthentic intellectual life in the “feuilleton era”. Hesse’s novel contains certain pioneering elements. The literary description of the early days of the glass bead game at the Musikhochschule in Cologne anticipated the actual experiments in transforming musical material carried out at the same institution a few years later, which led to the emergence of electronic music. Other musical concepts are also close to Hesse’s ideas, such as the notion of the growing ludic element in dodecaphony (T. Adorno), the theory of music as possible music (H. Eimert), the composition of human situations (C. Cardew), the combination in a single process of visions of sound, technology, notation and interpersonal connections (K. Stockhausen’s Telemusik), audiovisual and conceptual music, and metamusic. Closest to Hesse’s ideas is the semiotics of culture developed at the Tartu School. In the 1960s, Hesse’s work experienced a renaissance on the wave of protest youth movements in Europe and the United States. A measure of the popularity of his books is the name of a well-known rock band and the title of an album – Steppenwolf (Dunhill 1968).

Works set to Hesse’s poems (approx. 260, mainly solo songs) were composed by, amongst others: O. Schoeck (Vier Gedichte, Op. 8; 6 songs from Op. 24b; 2 songs, Op. 31; 10 songs, Op. 44; and 2 choral songs, Op. 67), J. Marx (Drei Gedichte for female choir), V. Andreae (Vier Gedichte, Op. 23), J. Haas (Unterwegs, 7 songs, Op. 65), R. Strauss (3 songs from Vier Letzte Lieder for voice and orchestra), G. Raphael (Acht Gedichte for voice and orchestra, Op. 71), G. Frid (Auf Reise, song cycle Op. 60) and G. v. Einem (Lebwohl, Frau Welt, song cycle Op. 43).

Literature: Hermann Hesse. Gesammelte Briefe, 3 vols., eds. U. and V. Michels, Frankfurt am Main 1973; W. Dürr Hermann Hesse. Vom Wesen der Musik in der Dichtung, Stuttgart 1957; J. Mittenzwei Hermann Hesses Ideal der inneren Heiterkeit durch Musik, in: Das Musikalische in der Literatur, Halle 1962; E. Valentin Die goldene Spur. Mozart in der Dichtung Hermann Hesses, Augsburg 1966; A. Prosnak Hermann Hesse a przyszłość muzyki, “Miesięcznik Literacki”, 1977 No. 8.