Quote of the Week...from Claude Debussy

Music begins where words are powerless to express. Music is made for the inexpressible. I want music to seem to rise from the shadows and indeed sometimes to return to them.
                                                           ---Claude Debussy

The French classical composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) is one of my favorites of that genre, responsible for such great music as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, La Mer, Nocturnes, Arabesque, Gardens in the Rain...and my favorite, Clair de Lune.  His musical skills and ability to delve deep into his own feelings to create such masterpieces are not unique in this art, but his works do tend to resonate with me in a way that those of other composers rarely approach.  I often listen to classical music radio station programs where the announcer talks about aspects of this or that piece he or she is presenting, to the point when I finally want to scream "enough talk, just play the music!"  Listening to music of any sort for me has always been an intensely personal experience...if you've been reading my weekly feature on this blog about my 500 all-time favorite songs, you know that the songs listed impacted me in that way.  Sometimes its hard for me to express exactly why I become so fervently inclined toward a particular song or classical work...that's because music in itself transcends the spoken word and works its way more deeply into my unspoken and often unspeakable feelings, be they conscious or beyond my immediate awareness.  And another brilliant classical music "superstar", Felix Mendelssohn, would emphasize that it is the extremely detailed nature of music itself that gives it this ability to speak the unspeakable.  In any event, having music throughout my life has been an enormous blessing to me...