Wings Of Music Poem by gershon hepner

Music must have wings and float:
ignore all that it signifies,
for the importance of each note
should be apparent when it flies.

Don’t worry about music’s meaning:
its importance is its sound,
which, unless you’re overweening,
should lift you above the ground.

Music basically is like
that strange emotion we call love;
like it, we mustn’t let it psych
us out, but lift us high above.


Terry Teachout writes about Sir Thomas Beecham in Commentary, December 2008 (“Beecham! ”) :

[Beecham] believed that the purpose of music was to give pleasure to its listeners, not to improve their moral condition. “You critics are always writing about the meaning of music, the ethic, the Weltanschauung of the composer, and God knows what, ” he told Neville Cardus. “The whole point of music is that it should sound well. Never mind what it signifies. Music should have wings and float and give delight.”

12/4/08