The Gift of Music

“I think the purpose of a piece of music is significant when it actually lives in somebody else. A composer puts down a code, and a performer can activate the code in somebody else. Once it lives in somebody else, it can live in others as well.” – Yo Yo Ma

Music

It must be somewhere, the original harmony,

somewhere in great nature, hidden.

Is it in the furious infinite,

in distant stars’ orbits,

is it in the sun’s scorn,

in a tiny flower, in treegossip,

in heartmusic’s mothersong

or in tears?

It must be somewhere, immortality,

somewhere the original harmony must be found:

how else could it infuse

the human soul,

that music?

-Juhan Liiv

*Translated from the Estonian by H.L. Hix and Juri Talvet