The old pond—
a frog jumps in,
sound of water.

— Matsuo Basho, “The Old Pond” (trans. R. Hass)

Reading about music is no substitute for hearing it, or for making it. But that’s no reason not to do it (read about it, that is). Music is deep! There’s no danger of exhausting its depths, its relation to the human being, the human form, the cosmos. Exploring such ideas doesn’t diminish our appreciation or love for music itself. Why should it?

Each of the books below is proof of this.

For some, for lovers and makers of live music, this past year has been strangely silent, it must be said. I, for one, don’t “miss” music—music is all around me, always. But my heart goes out to the singers, players, performers whose means of expression, of connecting, means (or dreams) of supporting themselves through their art, have been disrupted or severed for the past year. Let’s remember to hear them, remember the humanity of live music, that this exquisite transcendent conversation shall not perish from the earth.

“The archetype of music is in the spiritual, whereas the archetypes for the other arts lie in the physical world itself. When the human being hears music, he has a sense of well-being, because these tones harmonize with what he has experienced in the world of his spiritual home.”

— Rudolf Steiner, The Inner Nature of Music, Lecture 1