Music as metaphor
Donald N. Ferguson · 1960
ion, this is true of art as well as representative (in which category we have considered music). The rectangle may hold, for the painter, depths of experience which it does not possess for the geometer; and none may gainsay (however few may perceive) the truth of that artist's perception. Music, as abstract design — which, however representative of non-musical feeling, it must also be — plumbs similar depths. But if—as we contend, and the world at large appears to hold — the area of experience bounded by the rectangle or the tonal design is narrow in proportion to the area which that world must somehow interpret, the gain in depth will continue to be weighed against the loss in experiential perspective — for the most part to the disadvantage of abstraction. All the arts, after their fashion, serve the purpose of communication — essentially, the purpose of language. All, indeed, strive for and often reach the vividness of metaphor, the most vivid of linguistic devices for communication. Music, originating in the region of consciousness where the meaning of experience is felt, has an almost unique aptness for metaphoric utterance. The immediate trend, in all the arts, appears to be away from pure abstraction toward a new manner of representation. What addition the now established vocabulary of abstract musical thought may make to the scope of musical representation is a question for the future to answer. But the world will not gladly renounce the communicative power of that wonderful tongue which, in the shortest life-span of all the arts, has contrived so metaphorically to reveal the spiritual stature of men.