Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Music: Sensuous or Spiritual?

When exploring the great musical erudites of the Western tradition, perhaps  Søren Kierkegaard  does not readily come to mind. Indeed, Kierkegaard was born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark, in the first half of the 19th century; he led a quiet but decidedly profound life, and made his mark on the world in the realm of philosophy, theology, and existentialism – not music. Yet one would be remiss to overlook his unique perspective(s) on the musical, developed through the lens of existential philosophy. Kierkegaard’s understanding of the human condition is rendered according to three “existence-spheres” or Stages [Stadier] on Life’s Way, which can be expressed as the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious (Lippitt, 2023). The relationship between the three stages is multi-dimensional, difficult to traverse, and not necessarily mutually exclusive. The human person, according to Kierkegaard, strives to become a “self” through the progression of these existential spheres, in which the ‘lower’ stages are enlightened and elevated without dissolution. 

The ‘first’ stage, the aesthetic, is the domain of feeling, ardor, eros – and music gives it voice. It is in this impassioned sphere that Kierkegaard anchors his philosophy of music...at least, so it would seem. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym “A” in Either/Or certainly lays claim to music as the ultimate expression of erotic immediacy, asserting its pre-reflective inadequacy to convey higher, spiritual designs. However, I would argue that, just as the self is meant be illumined through the process of becoming, the aesthetic and its music is not “something that is [merely] transcended, but rather something that is taken up into the higher existence-spheres in a transformed way” (Lippitt, 2023). Moving beyond the aesthete “A’s” sensuous immediate, Kierkegaard’s own personal journals reflect on the power of hymnody and worship in a deep Christian life. In this light, music is no longer merely aesthetic, but is transformed through participation in the ‘new immediacy’ of faith in the realm of the religious.

To explore more deeply Kierkegaard’s philosophy of music, in all its facets, it makes sense to begin where he did: in the realm of the aesthetic. The first volume of Kierkegaard’s first published work, Enten-Eller (1843) – in English translation Either/Or – is a compilation of musings by his pseudonymous aesthete “A.”

Center stage in Either/Or is “A’s” fascinating essay entitled “The Immediate Erotic Stages or the Musical Erotic,” which is the primary reference when discussing Kierkegaard’s perspective on music. The title is very apt in conveying the aesthetic geist of the piece – music expresses the immediate, the immediate is the mode of the erotic, and eros is the absolute theme of the musical.

Before traipsing further into “A’s” dialectical essay, it would be prudent to contextualize some terminology. Indeed, “A” famously writes:

Music always expresses the immediate in its immediacy. (EO1, 70) ¹ 

One cannot help but ask – for Kierkegaard, what is the immediate? Although such a question could overflow into a plethora of dissertations, I will endeavor to address it in accordance with Kierkegaard’s philosophy of music: first in relation to the aesthetic sphere, and then later with regard to the religious.

So, more pointedly, what is the aesthetic immediate which music expresses?

According to German philosopher Gerhard Schreiber, the ‘immediate’ (Greek άμεσος; Latin immediatus; German unmittelbar; Danish umiddelbar) “denotes a direct relationship, one that emerges without further ado and without the mediation of a third party. Immediacy in this sense refers to a spatiotemporal presence that is unaltered and unadulterated by anything else” (Schreiber, 29). In layman’s terms, the immediate is unaccounted for, unreflected upon, and is based solely upon its own evidence (Croxall, 3).

“A” designates this aesthetic immediacy as archetypically erotic; and music is its ultimate expression. In the context of the “Musical-Erotic,” eros describes sensuous love, yes, but also serves as a broader manifestation of feeling, in the Greek sense. “Music, in a way nothing else can, takes hold of the essence of feelings or moods; i.e. the sensuous (τὰ αἰσηθτά) or sensuousness, in all its infinite varieties,” asserts Croxall, “It does not explain, but expresses moods” (Croxall, 11). Indeed, the aesthetic is the realm of human passion, and such passion is the muse of music:

Sensuousness in its elemental originality is the absolute theme of music. The sensuous in its essential nature is absolutely lyrical, and in music it erupts in all its lyrical impatience. (EO1, 70) ¹ 

Here, “A” conveys that “in music the aesthetic appears in its most elemental form, as the sheer delight of natural human existence. As a medium of feeling music is said to manifest as effervescent, passionate, on-rushing immediacy. By ‘immediacy’ is meant a natural valuational response to the world – or even fantasy – without any alteration resulting from reflexive choice” (Osolsobě, 101). This lack of “reflexive choice” or reflection is a very important point: it separates music from language, which is by nature reflective – and by extension, “A” argues that it separates music from the spiritual, whose medium is language.

As an abstract and unreflective purveyor of feeling, music is thus inherently inferior to language, “A” claims, when it comes to intelligible communication (Malantschuk, 39). Music is, on this account, decidedly unqualified to convey the spiritual and incapable of rightly expressing true religion.

That which religious fervor wants to have expressed is spirit; therefore it requires language, which is spirit’s proper medium, and rejects music, for it is a sensuous medium and thus always an imperfect medium with which to express spirit. (EO1, 73) ¹ 

Music – as a “sensuous medium” and the embodiment of eros – is, in fact, excluded by spirit, and placed by “A” in the domain of the demonic. ‘Demonic’ in this essay does not literally evoke “the devil’s work” (EO1, 73) ¹ , but rather refers to a carnal paradigm that is incompatible on that basis with the spirit of Christianity. Indeed, the “Musical-Erotic” is imbued with “abstract, immediate, desirous energy that bubbles forth for a listener rather than any concrete, repeatable, and intelligible spiritual truth” (Jothen, 267). In this way, “A” argues that music is “demonic not in the sense of revealing demons but rather in the sense of being the opposite of the spiritual life of Christianity. Where Christianity calls one to hear and live by the Word of God, the language of the spirit, music calls one to hear and live by sensuous desire, natural inclinations, and unreflective immediacy. And it is this demonic calling that Don Giovanni perfects” (Jothen, 266).

For “A,” Mozart’s Don Giovanni is the paragon of the aesthetic immediate and the “Musical-Erotic”; the discussion of this opera par excellence comprises the lion’s share of “A’s” charismatic energy. Using an Aristotelian turn of phrase, theologian David Gouwens writes: “Mozart, supremely in Don Giovanni, achieves a perfect union of form and content, wherein absolutely musical subject matter (the Don Juan myth) is united with the absolutely musical form that reflects it” (Gouwens, 462).

Don Giovanni embodies the apex seducer, whose music truly is that which it expresses: sensuous desire. “It is Don Juan who represents the culmination of the aesthetic awareness,” explains Czech philosopher Petr Osolsobě, “In him the sensual genius specified as a seduction and takes the form of demoniacal intensity. ...Don Juan was not so much a person as sensuousness itself personified, i.e. the life of feeling” (Osolsobě, 103). And in a very real sense, “A” asserts that Don Giovanni himself shares a nature with music even as he gives voice to it.

Don Giovanni, like the fleeting eros of music, “hurries on in an eternal vanishing,” always seeking his next conquest. He is never sated nor subdued, but rather transfixed in a perpetual state of sensuous immediacy. In this way, Don Giovanni has no reservoir of forethought nor regrets, which would be a “total negation of his essence” (Żelechów, 70); he exists always in the unmirrored present.

He needs no preparation, no plan, no time, for he is always ready; that is, the power is always in him, and the desire also, and only when he desires is he properly in his element. …But this power, this force, cannot be expressed in words; only music can give us a notation for it; for reflection and thought it is inexpressible. (EO1, 101) ¹ 

The power of desire is always aroused in him, and thus Don Giovanni’s very nature consists of and is dependent upon his trysts. His existence can be measured from one ravishment to the next and onward ad infinitum.  

Leporello, Don Giovanni’s clandestine aide-de-camp, keeps an infamous catalog of his hundreds of conquests from every corner of Europe. In Spain alone, mille e tre! That seems a ludicrous figure for one man – and yet, for “A” Don Giovanni is no mere man; he is the “Musical-Erotic” incarnate.

If I imagine a particular individual…then his having seduced 1,003 becomes comic. …But when he is conceived in music, then I do not have the particular individual, then I have a force of nature, the demonic, which no more wearies of seducing or is through with seducing than the wind with blowing a gale, the sea with rocking, or a waterfall with plunging down from the heights. (EO1, 92-93) ¹ 

Through his explication of Mozart’s opera, “A” offers a view of music (in and together with its personification in Don Giovanni) as erotic immediacy – demonic, carnal and sensuous in nature, and thus diametrically opposed to the spiritual.

However, I do not believe it would be fair to definitively characterize “A’s” pseudonymous perspective as “Kierkegaard’s philosophy of music,” nor even to attribute such a view, wholesale, to Kierkegaard himself.

On the contrary, I think it is quite clear from his intimate reflections that Kierkegaard definitely affirms that music can be spiritual – and that it obviously is not always carnally erotic. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that music, for Kierkegaard personally, can be a spiritual good, in the context of hymnody and Christian worship.

In order to seek a more “authentic” – or at least holistic – understanding of Kierkegaard’s relationship with music, his journals are incredibly insightful. His prolific entries speak to matters small and great, banal and profound, and although Kierkegaard himself was not a musician of any renown (nor perhaps a very avid consumer), music does make some notable appearances. It seems that his personal connection to music, unlike “A’s” occupation with eros and flamboyant charisma, was one of quiet intimacy and deep reverence focused mainly on hymnody.

In a delighted journal entry from 1850, Kierkegaard exclaims:

The 8th of September! The gospel: No one can serve two masters (my beloved gospel)! My favorite hymn: ‘Commit Thy Way’ [a German hymn by Paul Gerhardt, no. 42 in Roskilde-Konvents Psalmebog], which Kofoed-Hansen [the curate at Frelsers Church] chose today! (NB20:160 / KJN 7, 486)

From “A’s” perspective in Either/Or, music is meant to unite “an aural, sensuous form with the existential content of natural passion. Music is then a means of communication, one that unveils sensuous, abstract immediacy to a listener rather than any clear, understandable truth. Yet, within his journals, Kierkegaard stresses the importance of music, in particular hymns, as being valuable for his own faith life when framed by the gospel and thus connected to the Christian form of life” (Jothen, 262). Kierkegaard would perhaps agree with “A” that music does not convey “clear, understandable truth” in a rational or intellectual sense, as was so important to Enlightenment thinkers and their legacy; indeed, he wrote above that the words of hymns should be “simple” and “negligible,” so as to not detract from their intimate melodies. But it is certainly obvious that Kierkegaard believed hymns capable of conveying truth of a deep and spiritual nature. 

With these reflections on religious music in mind, one cannot help but wonder why Kierkegaard wrote his first work, Either/Or, in such a manner as he did. Why is “A” so adamant that eros is the absolute theme and nature of music? And why assert that music is demonic and excludes the spiritual – when that is contrary to Kierkegaard’s own personal feeling? 

Although concrete answers to those queries will never be forthcoming, I did find one of Kierkegaard’s entries particularly enlightening:

If one is to elevate an entire age, one must truly understand it. This, you see, is why those who proclaim Christianity, starting right off with orthodoxy, accomplish little and affect only a few. For Christendom lags very far behind. One must begin with paganism. That’s why I began with Either/Or. By these means I brought the age along with me. It didn’t have the slightest idea where it was going or where we are now. Yet people have been made aware of the problems. They can’t free themselves of me precisely because they went along so happily, so happily, with Either/Or. Now they might wish to abandon me; they could put me to death: it won’t help them, I’m in their blood. If one begins straightway with Christianity, they say: there’s nothing here for us – then they’re immediately on guard.   (NB4:66 / KJN 4, 319)

I am especially struck by Kierkegaard’s notion that one must “begin with paganism” in order to “elevate an entire age.” In other words, one must speak the language of the world fluently if one hopes to influence it toward higher designs. This is perhaps why Kierkegaard began with Either/Or – which happens to be an exploration and exposé of the aesthetic sphere, and there could be no better pilot than the adept and vivid aesthete “A.” Although the aesthetic is by no means explicitly akin to the pagan, it does share that unavoidable despair which comes from spiritual poverty. And “A” makes it clear he knows no other god than Mozart: “Immortal Mozart! You to whom I owe everything – to whom I owe that I lost my mind, that my soul was astounded, that I was terrified at the core of my being – you to whom I owe that I did not go through life without encountering something that could shake me, you whom I thank because I did not die without having loved, even though my love was unhappy” (EO1, 49) ¹ .

Kierkegaard, a deep Christian himself, perhaps employed the language of the aesthetic (which is, by his estimation, excluded by spirit) in order to speak to unguarded hearts and minds, subtly hinting that more profound transformations await. And although “Christendom lags very far behind,” its marks are everywhere in Kierkegaard’s work. Indeed, even “A’s” aesthetic bastion, “The Musical-Erotic,” is not exempt, and this is very revealing for Kierkegaard’s philosophy of music. 

To that end, I would like to briefly revisit Don Giovanni, from a perspective that is starkly important and that “A” suspiciously neglects. Considering the grandiloquence with which “A” praises Mozart and the thoroughness with which he explicates Don Giovanni, such negligence is nigh on criminal. Or, more shrewdly, deliberate.

The full and oft-forgotten title of the opera includes Il Dissoluto Punito – “The Rake Punished.” It is clear, especially from the finale wherein the Don is damned to Hell for unrepentant dissolution, that Don Giovanni explicitly involves moral and, dare I say, spiritual themes. These are ignored by “A” for the most part, treated as if irrelevant. Most notably, “A” dismisses the significance of the Commendatore (who is slain by the Don in the opening sequence and who spiritually returns to cast final judgment in the scena ultima), viewing his position as inessential to Don Giovanni’s nature of immediacy. The Commendatore is supernatural – and therefore extraneous and merely peripheral to the Don’s ultimate naturalness and eros, which is “A’s” preoccupation.

However, the Commendatore’s singular importance to the opera cannot be understated. As a character, his scenes frame the piece, so as to narratively surround and underscore the entire affair with his presence. Thematically, and from an aerial perspective, it is as if the religious encompasses a small, fleeting flicker of aesthetic immediacy. “A” even reluctantly admits that Don Giovanni has no hold over the Commendatore, finding him immune to the Don’s seductive web, set apart but certainly not lacking in power. And it is he who has the last word, casting the wicked Don into eternal perdition, which certainly strikes a religious chord. “A” attempts to downplay and dismiss “the moral tone of the opera by claiming that Giovanni is an unreflective seducer whose seduction is not out of malicious cunning but immediate desire” (Tseng, 417). “A’s” Don Giovanni exists only in erotic immediacy – he does not reflect or regret – and has no personal guilt (nor need for repentance) for his actions. This might be a salient defense if the world were merely aesthetic (and perhaps that is “A’s” idyll), but such is simply not the case. No one who witnesses the opera could come away deceived: Mozart’s fictional narrative ultimately finds Don Giovanni ethically and religiously reprehensible – and this is evident in both the plot and the musical medium.

As a character, the Commendatore is “the opera’s central organizing force” (Herwitz, 121), and he is no less important as a musical motif. It is to this area that “A” is most inattentive throughout his analysis of Don Giovanni. By the time of the Commendatore’s return in the scena ultima, in a very real way the music itself has forsaken the Don’s ephemeral eros and moved beyond, taking on a new spiritual significance; the finale is called Già la mensa è preparata (“Already the Table is Prepared”), which evokes a sense of divine providence. As Chinese philosopher Shao Tseng writes, “The D-minor key, combined with the ombra style, especially the liturgical trombones, ascribes to the Commendatore an unmistakably religious tone” (Tseng, 421). All of these musical aspects converge in the finale, transcendent, leaving no listener in doubt that Christian justice shalt be done. The musical impact is indeed “so forceful that it is characterized by a strong sense of immediacy…[but] this immediacy is by no means defined by the Don’s eroticism; rather, the forceful music belongs to the Commendatore, a moral-religious idea both literarily and musically” (Tseng, 414). I find that, instead of “sensuousness in its elemental originality” (EO1, 71) ¹ , the absolute theme and dominating presence of Mozart’s music is defined by the Commendatore, who is Judgment and who banishes Eros into oblivion.

“A” waxes poetic about Don Giovanni, seeing through his aesthetic lens a perfect (unholy) union between immediacy, sensuousness, and the “Musical-Erotic.” However, that is but an aspect of Mozart’s story – and certainly not the fullness of music itself – as Kierkegaard is well aware. With that in mind, I would submit that Kierkegaard’s choice of Don Giovanni as “A’s” fixation serves several subtler goals. His choice speaks fluently to the erotic sphere within, offers the perspective of an insider aesthete, and yet clearly leaves the listener wondering what is missing. Don Giovanni is the archetype of the sensual seducer, writes “A” – and yet “A” does not dare touch the dire fate of the seducer nor his broader place in the world, which exist outside his aesthetic bounds. But, and this is the genius, such is not beyond the bounds for Kierkegaard himself, who meditates profoundly on the religious and spiritual realities. And, as it turns out, music is wont to transcend likewise.

According to Peder Jothen, Kierkegaard’s dialectical “Musical-Erotic” can be understood as “a call for the listener to hear music rightly, notably its sensuous elements, as ever intertwined with spirituality. As such, hearing rightly means hearing it as ennobling a passion for the world, becoming ethical, and affirming spiritual truth (as in rightly knowing God). But hearing it wrongly means accepting the consequences of living a life like the Don’s” (Jothen, 269-270). Instead of romanticizing the Don’s sensuous immediacy, as “A” does, I believe that Kierkegaard would favor the “spiritual truth” and ascension to the religious sphere represented by the Commendatore, who “is composed in the immediacy of religious passion” (Tseng, 421). Where Don Giovanni’s immediacy is un-reflective, the Commendatore’s is post-reflective, staunchly anchored in Christian faith – yet maintaining its immediate musicality, if in a more illumined form.

In Stages on Life’s Way, which is essentially a continuation of Either/Or but concerned with the religious sphere, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Hilarius Bookbinder describes the relationship between immediacies. 

Religion is a new immediacy, it has reflection betwixt it and the first immediacy. (SLW, 159)

This distinction, with specific reference to the aspect of religious faith, is also mirrored in Kierkegaard’s personal writings:

Faith is an immediacy that follows reflection. [NB4:159 / KJN 4, 363]

I am loath to believe that Kierkegaard uses the same word – immediacy – to describe both aesthetic passions (i.e., eros) and the ascendant “passion” of faith without some little regard to his philosophy of music. I submit that Kierkegaard, like “A,” believes that music expresses the immediate; but that does not mean it has to be unreflective and therefore unable to compass spiritual truths. Kierkegaard himself found spiritual edification and truth in the hymns of the church and the practice of Christian worship. Because of this, Canadian philosopher Yaroslav Senyshyn argues there should be, in the context of music, “room for the religious category in the aesthetic” (Senyshyn, 59) – but I think for Kierkegaard it is precisely the reverse. There is a place in the religious sphere, the realm of divine glory, for transformed aesthetics, including music. I find that Kierkegaard’s philosophy of music leaves room, beyond “A’s” limited scope, for music to participate in the ‘new immediacy’ of faith. Music can transcend the aesthetic, being changed and enlightened in the process of becoming and reaching the religious τέλος. And in the realm of the religious, music no longer expresses eros, sensuality, and the worldly, but instead spirituality, divinity, and the immediacy only found in relation to God.  

It is no surprise to me, given the content of my research, that the writings of Søren Kierkegaard have been a tremendous inspiration for sacred music. His reverence for the Gospel, his devotion to worship – and most of all, his love for God are defining aspects of Kierkegaard’s character, as well as his profound philosophy. His supreme gift with words, paired with existential and religious passion beyond measure, leaves behind no dearth of worthy texts just aching to be set to music. I would like to close this project with two beautiful arrangements of the Prayers of Kierkegaard that cannot help but express the ‘new immediacy’ of faith.