264 Chapter 17
conception of sound sensation fit into this widening space between the world of physics and the
sense world based on human mensuration. For one, this increasing distance reinforced Planck ’ s
framework by revealing the deceptiveness of the senses — a single listener could hear the same
interval differently depending on her use of accommodation, and a vocalist could only maintain a
pure interval with careful and sustained concentration .... If passive hearing could shift significantly
in just a few generations due to material and aesthetic shifts in the music world with the spread of
equal temperament (that is, very much as a result of human activity), and yet a listener could, with
accommodation, toggle between tuning systems in their sensory perception of sound, certainly the
sense world and the real world were not one and the same.^24In the end, Planck was not disillusioned but instead raised his quest for the absolute to
another venue: that of the highest aims of musical art. This emerged as he confronted
practical problems of performance: “ How is one to proceed in such cases as, for example,
the above-cited composition of Sch ü tz? Should one, in order not to give up the absolute
pitch level, let the choir sing the third in a triad not in natural tuning, as musical hearing
suggests, but in tempered tuning? Or should one, yielding to everything, renounce perform-
ing a constant tonic? ” His conclusion is a judicious triumph of musical sensibility:Above all, in such a question the composer must be consulted; he alone, through the composition
given us, ought to speak the deciding word. If, though, as in the foregoing case, this court is no
longer accessible, then other considerations enter in and here it cannot be sufficiently stressed that
the last, highest decision once and for all ought to rest on the consideration of the artistic effect. For
art finds its justification in itself and no theoretical system of music, be it ever so logically founded
and consistently realized, is capable once and for all of meeting all the demands of the human spirit
as well as of ever-changing art. In this connection, the natural system has absolutely no priority over
the tempered and there is no justification for performing famous compositions in natural tuning for
no particular reason.^25Thus, Planck turns to the autonomous realm of music, “ ever-changing ” though it be, as a
new locus of authority: “ Academic rules must regulate themselves according to art, not
turn it upside down. ”^26 In the process, he had to reconcile himself to historicity, despite
his overarching preference for the timeless absolute. For Hui, “ this conception of physics
as oscillating between the worlds of sense and reality but also asymptotically approaching
unity with the real world is a rather delightful solution that allowed Planck room to his-
toricize scientific thought while maintaining an antipositivist stance. ”^27 To her formulation
I would like to add several new aspects in which Planck ’ s return to the quest for the abso-
lute was affected by his musical encounter with historical relativity.
At the most basic level, Planck ’ s musical findings required an implicit confrontation
with the old authorities, particularly his revered mentor Helmholtz, who had maintained
the fundamental, absolute status of natural tuning. But in October 1893, when Planck
delivered his paper on tuning, Helmholtz suffered a serious fall, after which his health
was never the same until his death the following year. Indeed, Planck called 1894 “ the
black year of German physics, ” during which Heinrich Hertz and August Kundt also died
prematurely.^28 Thus, Planck ’ s struggle with these musical-physical questions notably