The musician’s role: maintain our trust in the world

“I feel that tolerance, love and social harmony can and should be the by-products of an artist’s way of life and creation.  I would like to believe that beauty and truth, two great disciplines, when combined as they are in music, where order is based on self-restraint and a better understanding of repose, will lead to a greater maturity, awareness and equilibrium in our civilization.  Words may conceal truth, but this is hardly possible in the case of music.  Even when it is used corruptly, we should be able to detect the unwholesomeness within if we listen with care.  In any event, I feel it is the musician’s role to maintain our trust in the world and the world’s trust in us, to help us express genuine emotions.  When music takes on that responsibility, it draws upon the best kind of human effort and is deeply therapeutic, harmonizing the physical and the spiritual, the intellectual and emotional, joining body and soul.”

– Yehudi Menuhin.  

Menuhin, Yehudi & Davis, Curtis (1979) The Music of Man.  Sydney: Metheun of Australia, p.43.

 

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