ANEXOS

The Moi of the composer is the pure source of ideas, but we can also say that transcendence lives within the individual. The Moi is surrounded by the sphere of the Soi, that part of the ego which is social, coded, community-bound and not existential; together they form the phenomenon called “the semiotic self”

(see Thomas A. Sebeok 1979), denoting the physical and virtual body. Some identify the semiotic moment either with social codes (the Saussurean tradi-tion) or with the kinetic energy of the ego (Julia Kristeva), and these theories have their supporters also in musical semiotics. Raymond Monelle, for exam-ple, adheres to the former when he says that the semiotic appears particularly well in the socially codified forms of eighteenth-century music (Monelle 1992:

5). By contrast, the new musicologist Richard Taruskin leans towards the latter when he suggests that the undulating gestures of the Polovtsian girls in Boro-din might represent a typically Kristevan “semiotics” of music (Taruskin 1997:

152).

In my theory, both are necessary. They together form the Ich-Ton of an organism, surrounded by the Other. Insofar as this Other is another

subject-organism, one can presume that it is constructed in the same manner, that is, of Moi and Soi. The sphere of Soi is the point and surface in which one Ich-Ton touches the Other, or Dich-Ich-Ton. Only on this level does language function as a codified set of rules, which enables communication in the proper sense between these organisms.

It was asked above whether one’s Moi can directly communicate with other’s Moi, to which one has to answer, mostly no. Moi must first be trans-formed into Soi within one’s organism; the I must become Me (in the sense of G. H. Mead) before one subject reaches another one. But correspondingly, if the Sois were only communicating between themselves, we could never be sure whether what the other expresses, via gestures and words, really represents what is intended in his/her noemas. Intention always covers both Moi and Soi.

Now to return to the problem of the composer, who is surrounded by tran-scendence that extends even beyond the intonation store of his Dasein. He can be connected with this transcendence – to all previously produced musical ideas in the historic sense and to the timeless ideas and universal principles of composing – only insofar as they are transformed and filtered in to form a part of his own intonation store or of the already codified and modalized set of ideas, techniques and topics. Only via this sphere can ideas be filtered in from musical transcendence. At the same time, the composer has his own

“inner” transcendence, which seems to dictate new ideas to him, and from where new thoughts and innovations arise, as if from a bottomless, uncon-scious source. Writers and composers can “feel” as if they create directly from this source, much like the automatic writing of the Surrealists.

The musical compositions of Friedrich Nietzsche were born as if directly offered by the Moi. He even astonished himself when he later examined what he had produced from the point of view of his own rational-discursive Soi.

That is why it is interesting to study composers like the Finn Sibelius, the Lithuanian Mikalojus Čiurlionis and the amateur Nietzsche, all of whom create, as it were, outside the tradition. From the standpoint of the Soi their music can be unacceptable, because it speaks in the direct voice of Moi.

The primus motor of music history is the becoming of Moi from Soi, or rather the constant rebellion of the Moi against the conventional world of the Soi. In sonata form the appearance of the Moi was at first only permitted in the chaotic domain of the development. Wagner then elevated the principle of continuous transition into the constructive principle of his operas, or their Soi.

Then came the shift to atonality and serialism, representing total dominance of the Soi. Yet even this was negated, since it is impossible to repress the Moi.

The sphere of Soi perpetually resists the being of the Moi. Correspondingly, the existence of Moi prevents the communication from ever becoming merely the domain of the Soi.

It is paradoxical, however, that if the Moi is left to realize itself freely, the result is not a flourishing of modalities but their scarcity and suppression. In Nietzsche’s compositions ‘will’, ‘know’ and ‘can’ do not develop into anything, since they do not take on forms codified by the Soi. Only through these forms can one create a hierarchical, structural work. Nietzsche’s tremendous inner will is evidenced by the German performance indications strewn across his compositions, his resorting to extra-musical programs (as in Ermanarich) and by the emphasis on the principle of will in his writings. However, his ‘will’

does not develop to its climax, nor do his ‘know’ and ‘can’ – they lack the

‘must’ of the Soi. Modalities favored by the Soi are, in descending order of priority, ‘must’, ‘know’, ‘can’ and ‘will’ – a modal hierarchy that is reversed in the case of the Moi.

Let us consider more closely the modalities of the Moi. ‘Will’ is the most important; it conveys the inner pressure of movement or stability of the compo-sition. ‘Will’ does not necessarily appear as ‘want-to-do’, but may manifest as

‘want-to-be’ or ‘want-not-to-do’ or ‘want-not-to-be’ (this holds true also for the other modalities). The second most important modality for the Moi, is ‘can’, the important category of power, often even bodily. Thereafter ‘knowing’ is essential, since it concerns the memory of the Moi, a kind of “profound ego”

(le moi profond) in the Bergsonian sense. In fact, Bergson’s concept of “intellec-tual effort” (Bankov 2000), seems to be based upon ‘know’ but at the same time ‘do’ and ‘can’. For instance, a composition delivers information only via an effort, not by itself. With help from the memory of the Moi, the composition as an organism, so to speak, remembers its earlier solutions in the enunciation.

Finally, one may assume that even the Moi possesses its own ‘must’, its inter-nal obligations – one cannot break the laws of Moi. Whoever does so, stifles his own expression.

The most important modality for the Soi is ‘must’, representing normative forms and structures of communication: styles, techniques and topics. If the composer provides his work with a title such as sonata, symphony or fugue, he commits himself to a certain ‘must’ of the Soi. Second most important for the Soi is the ‘know’, or the penetration of elements of the intonation store (Eco’s

“encyclopaedia of knowledge”), the transcendence to the work. For instance, the beginning of the last piano sonata by Beethoven, Op. 111, concerns not only the topics of Sturm und Drang but the French ouverture of the Baroque, with its dotted rhythms (cf. the first movement of Handel’s Suite in G minor). Therefore, when we say that the Ich-Ton of a composition determines which elements it accepts from its surroundings – transforming them into endosemiotic entities within its organism – this involves the modality of ‘know’.

The third most important modality for the Soi is ‘can’, the adoption of certain techniques and resources, whereby the aforementioned ‘must’ and

‘will’ can be realized. The least important is ‘will’, but even it appears as a kind of collective wanting in music, as occurs when a composer expresses the voice of his community, or when Verdi wrote his operas like Il Trovatore in order to join the Italian Risorgimento, or when later Sibelius in his Finlandia expressed the patriotism of the Finns. The ‘will’ of the Soi is thus of collective origin.