TO MARE ANDRE SOUCHAY, LUBECK.[1]
Berlin, 15th October, 1842.
There is a great deal of talking about music, and very little said to the purpose. My own belief is that words are inadequate to express it, and if it were otherwise I should end by leaving off composing music altogether. One constantly hears people complain that the meaning of music is so indefinite, it leaves them in so much doubt as to the significance intended to be conveyed in it; and yet they imply that language is intelligible to everybody. With me it’s exactly the opposite. And that not only with complete sentences, and so on, but single words also seem to me vague, indefinite, and very open to misunderstanding in comparison with real music, the music that fills one’s heart with a thousand things finer than any language. What any music I care for means to me is not an indefinite feeling which one might render definite by translating it into words, but something perfectly clear. And, therefore, all at-
- ↑ This letter was written in reply to Herr Souchay’s question as to the meaning of some of Mendelssohn’s “Songs without Words.”
