Music’s origin is the gestural release of tears, not meaning

Evidence

Just as the goal of music reaches beyond the realm of intentions, the realm of meaning and subjectivity, so too does its origin. The origin of music is of the nature of gesture, and closely related to the nature of tears. It is the gesture of release. The tension of the facial muscles, the tension which both directs the face into action on the environment and seals it off from that environment, is released. Music and tears open the lips and set the arrested human being free … One who lets himself go in tears, or in a form of music no longer resembling him in any way, at the same time lets the stream of everything he himself is not, everything which had been dammed up behind the wall of the objective world, flow back through him. As one who weeps, or one who sings, he goes forth into alienated reality … The gesture of someone returning, not the expectancy of someone waiting, describes the expression of all music, even in a world which deserves to die. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1262

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Adorno’s equation of music’s origin with tears and release, and ‘the gesture of someone returning,’ is a dense, self-contained aesthetic thesis worth sitting with.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno links music’s origin to the gesture of weeping and release — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1262; Music communicates emotion and shared cultural symbolism rather than propositional content

Broader Connections

• Adorno links music’s origin to the gesture of weeping and release #corroborates (1.00) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1262
• Music communicates emotion and shared cultural symbolism rather than propositional content #qualifies (0.75)