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Full Idea
Mendelssohn said that what music expresses is not too indefinite to put into words but, on the contrary, it is too definite.
Gist of Idea
Music is too definite to be put into words (not too indefinite!)
Source
Stephen Davies (The Philosophy of Art (2nd ed) [2016], 6.4)
Book Ref
Davies,Stephen: 'The Philosophy of Art (2nd ed)' [Wiley Blackwell 2016], p.141
A Reaction
Not sure whether that is true, but it is a lovely remark. It certainly challenges the naive philosophical view that words are the most precise mode of expression.
| 171 | Music is a knowledge of love in the realm of harmony and rhythm [Plato] |
| 316 | Music has harmony like the soul, and serves to reorder disharmony within us [Plato] |
| 5063 | Music charms, although its beauty is the harmony of numbers [Leibniz] |
| 20101 | Without music life would be a mistake [Nietzsche] |
| 20341 | An interpretation adds further properties to the generic piece of music [Wollheim] |
| 12168 | Music is not representational, since thoughts about a subject are never essential to it [Scruton] |
| 12875 | One false note doesn't make it a performance of a different work [Simons] |
| 20402 | Music is too definite to be put into words (not too indefinite!) [Davies,S] |