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November 29, 2008
sublime love
What is there more systematically architectonic, more reflectively elaborate, than a Beethoven symphony? But all through the labor of arranging, rearranging, selecting, carried out on the intellectual plane, the composer was turning back to a point situated outside the plane, in search of acceptance or refusal, of a lead, an inspiration; at that point there lurked an indivisible emotion which intelligence doubtless helped to unfold into music but which was in itself something more than music and more than intelligence. Just the opposite of infra-intellectual emotion, it depended on the will. To refer to this emotion the artist had to make a constantly repeated effort, such as the eye makes to rediscover a star which, as soon as it is found, vanishes into the dark sky. An emotion of this kind doubtless resembles, though very remotely, the sublime love which is for the mystic the very essence of God.
Bergson - The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
Posted by amin at November 29, 2008 5:20 PM