"Music is, fundamentally, the art of feeling."

Yesterday, I had one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that happen surprisingly, delightfully often here.

My beloved orchestra, the Bach Society Orchestra (a.k.a. BACHSOC), played John Adams's "The Wound-Dresser," a setting of a Walt Whitman poem for baritone and orchestra. Then, Professor Helen Vendler, a scholar of poetry, President Drew Faust, a Civil War historian (and president of our glorious university, and object of my undying love), and John Adams himself oh my god had a casual panel discussion about the piece.

John Adams is possibly the most significant living American composer. His music is just transcendent--if you've heard it, you'll know when I mean when I say it can be like drinking light. It is amazing. I'd actually never listened to Adams before this year (ah, that's an embarrassing revelation), but I've been on something of a binge lately, and he has definitely rocketed up to my twentieth century top ten list.

On a more personal note, he conducted BachSoc back in the day when my father played clarinet in it, and apparently they knew each other and played chamber music together. Incredible!

John Adams impressed me a great deal. His commentary on the piece when he coached us during the dress rehearsal cut right to the heart of the musicality, his speech was peppered with metaphors--I love finding out the images composers use to visualize their music. He spoke just brilliantly on a dozen different things--choosing which verses of a poem to set, the meaning of the vernacular in literature and music, technology in music, etc etc etc...

One of the coolest things I learned is that when he sets a text, he will record himself speaking the line and then consider the rhythm and intonation in natural spoken American English when he puts it to music.

The title of this post is his--and I think it is quite admirable for a man who is obviously so deeply intellectual about music to say that it is "the art of feeling."

I think this reflects his commitment to musically coherent music. I'm not at all one of those bitter classicists who whines about this newfangled modern music what with its minimalism and its atonality and why don't any of these whippersnappers write tunes anymore (and it's not like John Adams is known for his hummable melodies, anyway). So I don't at all believe that music has to be tonal and melodic and pretty to be good. But I do think, as I am led to believe John Adams probably does, that the purpose of music is to stimulate the emotions.

It's notable, I think, that music is unique among art forms for actually being incapable of communicating ideas. (I assume this is somehow a controversial statement, and it is definitely not my own thought--I don't remember where I read it, though...) While adding words or accompanying information certainly allows music to communicate ideas (see: opera), music itself says nothing. You can't teach facts or tell a story through music. Music isn't even really about anything.

If we believe that, then I think we have no choice but to declare music "the art of feeling." Because even without words or historical context, the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's 9th Symphony and and the "Dies Irae" from Mozart's Requiem (please excuse the cliché examples) still somehow communicate things that are very different to us. I wish I could speak with some real understanding about this, but I am fundamentally ignorant about music--I can just say that to me, music that succeeds in causing its audience (even an audience as ignorant as I am) to feel is good music.

P.S.: All countless millions of you who asked me, "John Adams, the president?" are philistines and uncultured rubes, so there! (I am mostly kidding. Mostly.)