Daniel Barenboim: Philosophy in music

Spinoza has written of knowledge as not just an amalgamation of information : there is indeed a difference between experience and knowledge. Many problems, like nervousness before starting to play, have to do with too great a reliance on purely intuitive feelings, or empirical knowledge. once you know how something is constructed, how it reacts to the laws governing sound and phrasing, then there is less reason for nervousness. This does not mean that one can always control one's nerves, but there is a nervousness that springs from a fear of not being able to realise everything one wants to, and of course there is a nervousness which comes from insufficient knowledge. Mechanical repetition is a musical equivalent of superstition. You repeat something mechanically and feel more secure because you have done it three or four times. This is a fallacy, and illogical thinking.

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Einstein said that the most inexplicable thing about the universe is that it is inexplicable. One could almost paraphrase him and say that the most explicable thing about music is its inexplicability. After every observation and analysis there is always an element that remains incomprehensible. This is to me music's transcendental quality.

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If we are to understand the phenomena of nature, or the qualities of human beings, or the relationship to a God or to some different, spiritual experience, we can learn much through music. Music is so very important and interesting to me because it is at the same time everything and nothing. If you wish to learn how to live in a democratic society, then you would do well to play in an orchestra. For when you do so, you know when to lead and when to follow. you leave space for others and at the same time you have no inhibitions about claiming a place for yourself. And despite this, or maybe precisely because of it, music is the best means of escape fromthe problems of human existence.