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. . . music, like all
nonverbal arts and certainly
like mathematics and some branches of science, has its own dialectic, which
is not that of words at all. I am aware that some philosophers and linguists
have disputed, sometimes rather hotly, the possibility of nonverbal thinking.
I cannot say how far this is still considered a disputable philosophical
question, though some years ago I had a rather heated argument with a well-known
musicologist, who objected to my use of the word “logical”
in connection
with music. His point seemed to me quite untenable then, as it still does,
though I am obviously speaking entirely from my own experience and knowledge
of musical processes, creative and otherwise, and not from a theoretical
point of view. Anyone interested in the subject of nonverbal thinking may
find an exhaustive and well-informed treatment of it, in terms of the controversy
itself, in the sixth chapter of The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical
Field, by the distinguished French mathematician Jacques Hadamard.
The book as a whole is most interesting for the
light it throws on what might be called the mechanics of the creative process,
whether it be in mathematics or any other field. It is interesting to note
that one of the documents Hadamard cites, near the beginning of his book,
is a very well-known letter often attributed to Mozart, which I shall discuss
briefly in Chapter IV.
Roger Sessions
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