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MET APHYSICS . COSMOLOGY . TRADITION . SYMBOLISM

STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE RELIGIONTHEFIRSTENGLISHJOURNALONTRADITIONALSTUDIES- ESTABLISHED1963

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Metaphysics of Musical Polyphony

by

Marco Pallis

Source: Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Spring, 1976). World Wisdom, Inc.

www.studiesincomparativereligion.com

LIKE every genuine art, music provides an im age of the Universe at the level of the Less er Mysteries; when practiced with this truth in

mind, it will serve as a s upport of contemplation and the joy it incidentally evokes will be seen as a reflection of the Divine Bliss.

The suchness of God, inexpress ible and unmanifestable in Itself, corresponds, in our human experience, to voidness or silence. When

silence is affirmed, sound then takes birth: In the beginning was the Word. Music comes out of silence, and into silence it retreats in the

mom ent of fulfillment. The primary affirmation of this truth is recognizable in the keynote, whether actually heard or im plied in what is first

heard; the keynote remains, throughout any piece of music, as a reminder of the Unity from which all that is manifested or developed

derives its existence; the keynote, as it were, represents the germ of creation, it is never absent in fact, as efficient cause, from all the

effects it will subsequently give rise to. Those effects are all contained in the primary cause, just as that same cause is communicated

across its every effect, cause and effects be ing in fact inseparab le: the prototype of this relationship i s the Divine Intellect, wherein all that

God has created or will create remains in a state of permanently present actuality which things and beings, in the course of their

successive becoming, at once veil and reveal.

What actually happens in the created universe we see around us and in which we are involved? This universe is characterized by the

triple fatality of change, competition and impermanence; to speak of a world (any kind of world) is to speak of contrast or oppos ition, for

distinction of one being from another inevitably imposes this condition; a world is always a play of black and white, with all the

intermediate shades of grey or, shall we s ay, all the changeful play of the spectrum: what then exactly happens when two or mo re beings

are developing in the same world? These be ings m ay either converge or diverge or, for a brief space, move parallel with one another (or

almos t so, since an abso lutely parallel course is not a poss ibility) and this will from time to time bring the beings in question into contact

or even collision: what happens then? In proportion as one being is carried along with greater force as compared wi th another, the latter

will get pushed and deflected from its course till it is free to move again in its own direction; this fresh d irection it will pursue until it againruns into opposition of some kindperhaps this time its own impetus will prove the stronger and it will be the other being which will be

deflected in its turn and so on inde finitely.

What does this picture suggest but acounterpointwhich, by its continual interplay of tensions and releases, expresses that unity out of

which all its constituent elements have arisen and which they are all forever seeking to regain consciously or unconsciously? The

mus ical parallel is s elf-evident and it is this, in fact, which confers on contrapuntal music its s trange power to move the soul. The rigor of

the contrapuntal principle governing the mus ic of the XVth-XVIIth centuries in Wes tern Europe eas ily accounts for the tremendous effect

which this kind of music m akes on the performers and, in a slightly lesser degree, on outside lis teners.

For instance in a fantasy for Viols (or in the Church mus ic of the period) what is it that typically happens? Silence is affirmed (therefore

also b roken) by the primary enunciation of a theme which evokes, from another player, either agreement (i.e.repetition of the theme in the

original key or else in a related key) or contrast (i.e.reply in the form of another subject); but this very agreement, inasmuch as it

introduces a duality, leads to collision at some point or other; the stronger part pushes the weaker off course until the sense of

opposition (which is what a discord amounts to) has ceased, only to give rise to another such opposition as the parts in question

encounter fresh points of resistance in trying to cross the path of some other part or parts. The search for freedom goes on as long as

this process continues; each relation of concord represents a relative and provisiona l freedom with its corres ponding degree of comfort,

but so long as there is a process of change no situation can remain comfortable for long; oppositions will continue to arise, with a

consequen t urge to resolve them: only by a return to the original unity, of which the lurking mem ory constitutes one s incentive to achieve

that very return, can peace at last be found.

Just as in the world one finds uphill and downhill, the one imposing extra effort and the other allowing of relaxed movement, so in our

contrapuntal scheme we find that the interplay of parts is such as to im pose, from time to time, an increase of effort perceptible by the ear

as a crescendo and vice versa: this impulse to increase will always start in a particular part, it is never due to an arbitrary (=heretical)

wish to play louder. In contrapuntal mus ic, crescendi and diminuendi are always expressions of musical logic, not of some individualistic

or sentimental m otive in the players. It is always poss ible to determine exactly in which part, and why, an increase or decreas e in s ound

is needed, evoking in its turn a corresponding response from the other parts, until a collective climax results for such time as musical

logic does not begin to reverse the tendency in the direction of more or else less sound. The discipline of contrapuntal music is to heed

the signs telling one what to alter at a given moment; otherwise one goes on as one is. This kind of musicit is the secret of its qual ity

is half-way between a science and an art: ars sine scientia nihil. In teaching this music one should from the start accustom ones pupils

to see and feel things in this way; one induces the right way of seeing through concrete exampletheory and application keep step at

every turn, but it takes som e time before one is i n a posi tion, as now, to sum up ones experience in terms of a coherent synthesis .

Similarly that counterpoint we call life is a search for a unity which, across all the vicissitudes of existence, is s ensed as everpresen t:

only in a return to our existential keynote will peace be found. Temporary resting-points or closes there may be; each pas sing cadence in

fact provides in its own way a micro-image of the whole process of resolving dualistic opposition into unity. Each note included in a

cadence calls for a different kind of emphasis ; certain notes have to be joined smoothly, others s eparated, and some have to be swelled

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8/12/2019 Metaphysics of Musical Polyphony (Marco Pallis).pdf

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4/3/2014 "Metaphysics of Musical Polyphony" - an essay by Marco Pallis

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. .

In terms of the more s tatic arts, God has often been described as the great Architect of the Universe; in terms o f the essentially dynamic

art of Music, He could with equal appropriatenes s be called the great Contrapuntist of the Universe, si nce creation, the express ion of

being through becoming, also implies its corresponding Divine Name, as above.

A more succinct version o f the same idea m ight read thus :

Counterpoint, whether musical or existential, affirms and illustrates the unchanging presence of Unity across all the vicissitudes of

multiplicity, as also the reduction of the oppos ition consequen t upon the very process of change to that same Unity in which the process

itself took birth (whereby it was created) and from which, causall y, it can never become releas ed except in the Divine Presence: this is the

mystery of existence which counterpoint, in terms of sound, serves to reveal. Hence also the spiritual profit to be derived from its

intelligent performance, for those who have ears to hea r.

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