No cheating now. If you look it up on Google you will find three references (one would be this post), but see if you can guess without help.
“What is music? How can one define it? Music is a calm moonlit night, a rustling of summer foliage. Music is the distant peal of bells at eventide. Music is born only of the heart and it appeals to the heart. It is love. The sister of music is poetry and the mother—sorrow!”
This is a case in point that a composer's music can be anything that s/he wants it to be. In the case of this composer, the music this composer writes could probably not be described any more accurately, eloquently, or honestly.
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6 comments:
Frederick Delius?
Rachmaninoff?
That's right Michael! And I know you got it without looking!
Delius actually said something very similar, rootlesscosmo.
"Music is a cry of the soul. It is addressed and should appeal instantly to the soul of the listener. It is a revelation, a thing to be reverenced."
I don't know how I guessed correctly, Elaine. Somehow the idea of music having a mother and sister seemed very Russian to me.
I was going more by your hint that the quote applied to the works of the person quoted, but of course that applies to Rachmaninoff too, especially the bells. This is a nice game; maybe you could make it a regular (or irregular) feature on your blog?
I was going to guess Delius too!
Great point, Michael, about the mother/sister phrasing sounding Russian.
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