A Philosophy of Music through the Artistic Education

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Manuela Teodora Balaşca-Mihoci
“Gheorghe Asachi” Library, Jassy, Romania
e-mail: mihoci_manuela@yahoo.de

AGATHOS, Volume 1, Issue 1 (1): 181-184
© www.agathos-international-review.com CC BY NC 2010

Ion Gagim. Muzica şi filosofia. Kishinev: Ştiinţa, 2009. Pp. 159

Trying to synthesize the essence of the last book signed by Ion Gagim, some words of the author are the most eloquent: „The musical education, in its ultimate form (...) becames education through music” (p.155). This is the final idea of the intellectual effort of a thinker with a rich educational experience in the field of musical practice, under the philosophical reflection.

 Those who are hurrying to read this book, it would be enough to consider the issue about Music – Didactica Magna: a philosophical overview. But, undoubtedly, by chosing the „essence”, they would lose the „way” to reach it; eventually, the way of musical education that the author wants to share with us. So, I’m asking: what is more important, in such a situation? The way toward Wisdom or the „wisdom” without the reading work? I invite all the interested people to travel with Ion Gagim through a well done cultural work, grounding on the tryad Music-Human Being-Existence.

 The corpus of the book contains 19 studies that bring into light the relation between music and philosophy; the entire material has also a motivation and a short introductory, and a referential bibliography at the end.

 Step by step, the music art is followed within the existence, the sound and the silence, the cosmos, the experienced philosophy, the movement and time, the transcendental world, the self-knowledge and the climax one, and the consciousness.

 The very own experiences of personalities like Cioran, Kant, Lupasco, on the one hand, and on the other, those of great authors coming from music art and theory, as Dimitrie Cuclin, have been considered. No less, the book offers significant elements of contemporary thinkers; i.e. George Balan and Carmen Cozma.

 The collected studies about philosophies and music art put together the sageness / the wisdom. Constantly, the theory – the contemplation - is linked to the practice – the experienced harmonious sound, the feeled one like vibration; seeing that the musicality of human being is conceived in its function to activating the poliphonic variations of our universe of life.

 The book begins in a Kantian style. Thus, some philosophical inquiries sound in the framework of the 19 sequences of living into music and philosophy, emphasising the assertion that „music means an experienced, and not just a reflected philosophy of life” (p.6).

 Ion Gagim turns to Im.Kant in a peculiar study: Kant and music art (pp.98 – 108). He puts in act Kantian concepts, applying them to a modern understanding of music, even he underlines: „the music has nothing to do with the conceptual thinking” (p.105).

 Somehow, despite this notice, Ion Gagim meditates the human soul, and the consciousness, in terms of musical harmony, elevating towards a generous spirituality; he communicates using the musicality of the thought, that, beside its characteristics of rationality, is full of the emotion of „speaking” about music art. Sometimes, it is difficult to see: what is the prime term? The music art or the philosophy? It deserves to stress the rectitude of man and the methodical writing, showing an internal silence to which the author has reached by a long cognition of the musical and philosophical culture, that is so necessary to every human agent.

 Ion Gagim proves that music doesn’t control the emotions, but it creates emotions; it challenges a sort of detachement from any system, from the material, generally, opening toward happiness and divine revelation – at the same time, harmonious sound and silence, alike. Too short seems to be the topic around the Philosophy of silence (p.33); but, it is unfolded by a subtle educational method. The author mentions some others contributors who have written about silence, as an invitation to a deep comprehension (Note 52).

 The silence and the music art are rejoined; if the silence and the mystery are initiating routes in the world religions, there is also a new approach of the relations between contradictory categories: sound and silence.

 Especially, the section Music – an experienced philosophy develops fundamental aspects: musical experience; musical act; the experience of music art. According to Cioran, we could say: „When the whole existence necomes music, and when your entire beingness is metamorphoses into a vibration, all the regrets are finished!” (Cioran and the Music, Bucharest, Humanitas, 1996, p.61). Ion Gagim dedicates a study to Emil Cioran. Being a gifed educator, he presentsthe Cioranian vision about music art and life.

 The central part of the book is upon the spiritual destiny of George Balan – the man able to think and to experience in a musical manner. He is the man who, many years ago, has founded a School of music for the listeners, sustaining the concept of musicosophia. This means a way to taking the music and the life together; it is a spiritualization method, a way of human musicalizating, a particular form of education. George Balan is the character to which the author devotes his friendship hommage; the respect for the Romanian contemporary philosopher reveals part of the creator who can find even the human mystery within the musical sound.

 Using a very short bibliography, Ion Gagim discusses the „case of Dimitrie Cuclin” - a great personality of 20th century in Europe. Cuclin is the thinker for whom the music means much more than „a mirror of life”, seeing that he has elaborated an axiological perspective about „human life as the way between Substance and Essence” (p.94). The „Cuclin case” needs a larger approach, to enlightening his major contribution for the philosophy of music art.

 In his turn, Stéphane Lupasco is mentioned with his theory around logic and music art. According to Ion Gagim, the reputed philosopher has reached the appex of music art by his concept of „the knowledge of knowledge”; he realized a trancendent movement in the horizon of science, by understanding the music art in relation with the dynamism of the „contradictory energy”.

 The fine unity of music art and the ethics was also undertook. Ion Gagim insists on the concept of philosophy of music that Carmen Cozma has launched in 1996; namely: the „meloethics”. It is a nucleus concept, by which the classic values are brought into light, on the thesis that „music is a state-of-being-in-the-world of humanness” (See, Carmen Cozma, Meloethics. A Semiotic Essay on the Moral Values of Musical Artistic Creation, Junimea Publishing House, Jassy, 1996, pp.10 -11). The „meloethics” is created by its author in the framework of a phenomenological hermeneutics, by starting from the musical experience. The dynamic integrality of „meloethics” guides to the self-knowledge, as a continuing of psycology in the relation with music art (Ion Gagim, op.cit., pp.131 – 134).

 The book of Ion Gagim is impressive not only thanks its content, but also thanks the design at large; one made by grace and harmonious color.

 We dare to say that Ion Gagim has already discovered a superior level of living and writing about the „singing status”. His works represent a veritable openness from music art towards philosophy; and from philosophy towards music art, no less. On this pathway, we find the human beingness with all the gifts, enscribing on the eternal route, by activating: living, experience of harmony, emotions and virtues, paychic balance and creativity, cultural horizon and inquiries labyrinth. Anything else is merely silence... – as source for a new musical sound, for a new other book.