Quote of the Day (Hermann Hesse, on Music, ‘A Continual Consolation’)

“It has been a continual consolation to me and a justification for all life that there is music in the world, that one can at times be deeply moved by rhythms and pervaded by harmonies. Oh, music! A melody occurs to you; you sing it silently, inwardly only; you steep your being in it; it takes possession of all your strength and emotions, and during the time it lives in you, it effaces all that is fortuitous, evil, coarse and sad in you; it brings the world into harmony with you, it makes burdens light and gives wings to the benumbed! The melody of a folk song can do all that. And first of all the harmony! For each pleasing harmony of clearly combined notes, perhaps in one chord, charms and delights the spirit, and the feeling is intensified with each additional note; it can at times fill the heart with joy and make it tremble with bliss as no other sensual pleasure can do.” — Swiss Nobel Prize-winning novelist Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), Gertrude (1910), translated by Hilda Rosner