“And oft with holy hymns he charm'd their ears, And music more melodious than the spheres.”
Quote of Kandinsky, 1911; in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, transl. Michael T. Sadler (1914); reprint. New York: Dover, 1977), p. 17
1910 - 1915
August 5, 1838
Journals (1838-1859)
“And their music smote heaven and earth, and a terror struck all living things.”
Sarkis an old Greek Shepherd, called the madman: Jesus and Pan
Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)
Context: "And now let us play our reeds together."
And they played together.
And their music smote heaven and earth, and a terror struck all living things.
I heard the bellow of beasts and the hunger of the forest. And I heard the cry of lonely men, and the plaint of those who long for what they know not.
I heard the sighing of the maiden for her lover, and the panting of the luckless hunter for his prey.
And then there came peace into their music, and the heavens and the earth sang together.
All this I saw in my dream, and all this I heard.
“No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.”
Source: Lady Sings the Blues (1956), Ch. 4.
“There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacings of the spheres.”
As quoted in the preface of the book entitled Music of the Spheres by Guy Murchie (1961)
The Golden Verses
“Silence is the speech of love,
The music of the spheres above.”
Speech of Love.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
[Beecham admitted to Neville Cardus that he had made this up on the spur of the moment to satisfy an importunate journalist; he acknowledged that it was an oversimplification. (Neville Cardus: 'Sir Thomas Beecham, A Memoir', 1961)]
“Color is to the eye what music is to the ear.”
The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany (Doubleday, Page & Co New York, 1916)
“music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but
you are the music
While the music lasts.”
Source: Collected Poems, 1909-1962
