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How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art by Henry Edward Krehbiel
page 36 of 278 (12%)
expositions, and of not one of them can it be correctly said
that it is exhaustive, the right one, and contains the whole
significance of the music. This significance is contained
most definitely in the music itself. It is not music that is
ambiguous; it says the same thing to everybody; it speaks to
mankind and gives voice only to human feelings. Ambiguity
only then makes its appearance when each person attempts to
formulate in his manner the emotional impression which he
has received, when he attempts to fix and hold the ethereal
essence of music, to utter the unutterable."

[Sidenote: _Mendelssohn's._]

[Sidenote: _The "Songs without Words."_]

Mendelssohn inculcated the same lesson in a letter which he wrote to a
young poet who had given titles to a number of the composer's "Songs
Without Words," and incorporated what he conceived to be their
sentiments in a set of poems. He sent his work to Mendelssohn with the
request that the composer inform the writer whether or not he had
succeeded in catching the meaning of the music. He desired the
information because "music's capacity for expression is so vague and
indeterminate." Mendelssohn replied:

"You give the various numbers of the book such titles as 'I
Think of Thee,' 'Melancholy,' 'The Praise of God,' 'A Merry
Hunt.' I can scarcely say whether I thought of these or
other things while composing the music. Another might find
'I Think of Thee' where you find 'Melancholy,' and a real
huntsman might consider 'A Merry Hunt' a veritable 'Praise
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