Abstract
Based on an initial determination of ēthos, elaborated in the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology (§1), the chapter explores the central tenets and ethical import of Sergiu Celibidache’s musical phenomenology (§2). The pivotal notion of Celibidache’s thinking is found in his understanding of musical tempo. In contrast to the common concept of tempo as speed, or pace, of a piece of music, for the Romanian director tempo has nothing to do with speed, and indeed with what he calls “physical” or “mechanical” time, i.e., clock time; seeing that the tempo is “nothing but a condition [for] the intertwining identification of vertical and linear simultaneity in our consciousness,” it cannot be grasped in terms of “units of time,” which are altogether alien to the dimension of music. In fact, notwithstanding the fact that a musical performance can always be timed, music itself “has no duration,” meaning that its extension in “physical time” is, musically speaking, meaningless. Instead, a notion of “original time,” as can be gathered from Celibidache’s considerations, is suggested as a theoretical key for understanding the notions of “vertical” and “linear” “simultaneity,” and of their “identification,” that is, their unification in the Same. “Tempo” finally turns out to be a name for the above-defined ēthos, experienced in its original temporal structure; this, in conclusion, allows us to identify some ethical implications of Celibidache’s musical thinking for our epoch marked by the will to power. Subsequently (§3), the chapter ventures on a brief analysis of Husserl’s lectures on the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time. While Celibidache himself refers to his approach as “phenomenology of music,” and acknowledges his indebtedness to Husserl, he also mentions that “at a certain moment, the paths diverge.” According to Celibidache himself, the reason for this divergence lies in the “false” presupposition, shared by Husserl and Brentano, that “any consciousness is the consciousness of something.” The scope of the interpretation of Husserl’s lectures is therefore to hold the “identification of vertical and linear simultaneity in our consciousness” against the consciousness of internal time. According to Husserl, the latter is based on the time-constituting act of absolute subjectivity, which occurs in the “primal impression.”