As an “ensemble of spiritual and artistic facts,” the Game, as narrated by Hermann Hesse in Das Glasperlenspiel (1943), can be understood as “spiritual circulation” of the contents and signifiers of the West: sonorous, resonant matter that poetic language is called upon to reproduce. Therefore, the novelist, in challenging the musician, must ensure that words can express this sonic flow, the manifestation of the harmony of the cosmos, of an invisible spiritual order. In the dimension of transparency–invisibility, and yet at the same time of heaviness–opacity, the artistic flame ignites — and the beginning of the work of art —, positioning itself within an invisible and pre-existing order, an order whose musicality — the calling back and forth of its parts — receives new substance. This is the “serving” of the Game: the server is the musician, the artist, in their contribution to “spiritual life” in the most anonymous way possible. In this reflection, the concept of “Stimmung” is central: this term is not easily translated into European languages. It indicates the unity of the feelings experienced by a person when facing the world around them (nature, landscape, other humans); It merges objective (factual) data with subjective (psychological) data into a harmonious whole; it conveys a range of meanings: from the fleetingness of an emotional state to an objective understanding of the world.
Keywords: Aesthetics; Stimmung; Spirit; Music; Enchantment