The Purest Form of Art
Music is the purest form of art... therefore true poets, they who
are seers, seek to express the universe in terms of music...
The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his
very life. They are not materials gathered from outside. His idea
and his expression are brother and sister; very often they are born
as twins. In music the heart reveals itself immediately; it suffers
not from any barrier of alien material. Therefore though music has
to wait for its completeness like any other art, yet at every step
it gives out the beauty of the whole.
As the material of expression even words are barriers, for their
meaning has to be construed by thought. But music never has to depend
upon any obvious meaning; it expresses what no words can ever express.
What is more, music and the musician are inseparable. When the singer
departs, his singing dies with him; it is in eternal union with
the life and joy of the master. This world song is never for a moment
separated from its singer. It is not fashioned from any outward
material. It is his joy itself taking never-ending form. It is the
great heart sending the tremor of its thrill over the sky.
There is a perfection in each individual strain of this music, which
is the revelation of completion in the incomplete. No one of its
notes is final, yet each reflects the infinite. What does it matter
if we fail to derive the exact meaning of this great harmony? Is
it not like the hand meeting the string and drawing out at once
all its tones at the touch? It is the language of beauty, the caress,
that comes from the heart of the world and straightway reaches our
heart.
Last night, in the silence which pervaded the darkness, I stood
alone and heard the voice of the singer of eternal melodies. When
I went to sleep I closed my eyes with this last thought in mind,
that even when I remain unconscious in slumber the dance of life
will still go on in the hushed arena of my sleeping body, keeping
step with the stars. The heart will throb, the blood will leap in
the veins, and the millions of living atoms of my body will vibrate
in tune with the note of the harp-string that thrills at the touch
of the master.
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