“ Therefore it has always been said that music is the language of feeling and of passion, as words are the language of reason. ”
 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1819). copy citation

edit

“This will expresses itself in the actual world as the series of its deeds; but melody says more, it records the most secret history of this intellectually-enlightened will, pictures every excitement, every effort, every movement of it, all that which the reason collects under the wide and negative concept of feeling, and which it cannot apprehend further through its abstract concepts. Therefore it has always been said that music [pg 336] is the language of feeling and of passion, as words are the language of reason. Plato explains it as ἡ των μελων κινησις μεμιμημενη, εν τοις παθημασιν ὁταν ψυχη γινηται (melodiarum motus, animi affectus imitans), De Leg. vii.; and also Aristotle says: δια τι οἱ ρυθμοι και τα μελη, φωνη ουσα, ηθεσιν εοικε (cur numeri musici et modi, qui voces sunt, moribus similes sese exhibent?)” source

write a note