To Whom it May Concern

This purpose of this blog is to collect occasional thought-provoking passages from books, blogs, and other sources. The blog title is stolen from the epigraph to John Cage's Silence.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Vladimir Jankelevitch on Musical Charm

From Jankelevitch's Music and the Ineffable:

"...anyone who seeks music somewhere will never find it: our curiosity will end up disappointed if we aspire to some revelation of who-knows-what anatomy of musical discourse. But if we agree, in the end, that we are dealing with a mystery and not some material secret, with a Charm and not a thing; if we understand that this Charm is wholly dependent on human intention, on the moment in time, the spontaneous lurch of our hearts; if we realize that such a Charm is fragile and not always obvious to our minds and is allied to so many imponderable factors; that it depends first and foremost on our own honesty; the and only then will we know how to consent to this, the Charm created by music, which is the only, true state of Grace."

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