Schopenhauer’s discussion of music is of interest both because of the distinctive role he assigns to it and because of its influence on Nietzsche. But after reading Schopenhauer you should also look back at Hegel’s briefer discussion on HK 442-3. (Although, you will “look back” relative to the order in which we have read these works, Schopenhauer’s actually came first. You are reading material that was in Schopenhauer’s first edition of 1819 while what you read in Hegel was assembled from lectures delivered during the 1820s.)

• HK 486-488. Think about the difference between music and other arts for Schopenhauer; the distinction will be central in Nietzsche. Schopenhauer begins by posing the problem as he sees it; the solution he proposes is stated in the first full paragraph of HK 488. (The Latin phrase from Leibniz on HK 486 can be translated as “an unconscious exercise in arithmetic in which the mind does not know it is counting.”)

• HK 488-492. The analogy Schopenhauer speaks of on HK 488 is continued through HK 491. If you are not familiar with some of the terminology he uses, try to fill out the points he is illustrating by thinking of your own examples. Watch for comments on other matters along the way, especially his discussion of the composer on HK 490f. The discussion of the relation of words and music on HK 492 raises an interesting issue and one that will be important in Nietzsche.

• HK 492-495. In this passage, before and after a return to his analogy, Schopenhauer addresses the broader significance of what he has said. Notice what he says about the relation to philosophy on HK 492-3 (the parody of Leibniz might be translated “an unconscious exercise in metaphysics in which the mind does not know it is philosophizing”) and, especially, the metaphor of the play in the last paragraph (HK 495). Remember the latter, along with the earlier discussion of music with words, when you go on to read Nietzsche after spring break.

What I’ll suggest we discuss is Schopenhauer’s basic claim about music, that “it stands alone, quite cut off from all the other arts” in the nature of its relation to the world. Is he right? Notice that one alternative is Hegel’s view HK 443 that music is the central example of a certain kind of art, of which painting and poetry are also examples (just as sculpture is the central example of all the fine arts).