Directly, in itself, music signifies nothing, unless by convention or association. Music means nothing and yet means everything. One can make notes and say what one will grant them any power of analogy: they do not protest. In the very measure that one is inclined to attribute a metaphysical significance to music discourse, music (which expresses no communicable sense) lends itself, complaisant and docile, to the most complex dialectical interpretations. In the very measure that one tends to confer upon music the dimension of depth, music is, perhaps, the most superficial form of appearance.
Music and the Ineffable (1961)
Vladimir Jankélévitch
Interior with Woman at Piano, Strandgade 30 (1901)
