Silence and Eternity
by solitary walker
“Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.”
“The tempo is the suitcase. If the suitcase is too small, everything is completely wrinkled. If the tempo is too fast, everything becomes so scrambled you can’t understand it.”
“There are many types of silence. There is a silence before the note, there is a silence at the end and there is a silence in the middle.”
Daniel Barenboim
In an interview for the BBC last week Barenboim was asked what he thought Beethoven‘s message was in the Choral Symphony. He reflected a while then answered: “The solution lies within.”
Turnstone 
Many composers have commented about, and also used, silence as such an important part of their work. The pause, the rest, is essential and how it is achieved often alters the quality of the performance. I’m sure this is true of all art forms but easier to achieve in music of course.
Although I recall going to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition on Members’ Day (we were Friends Of) and being appalled at the total lack of silence, so that viewing the pictures was torture. We never went again.
I have just thought, maybe you can compare silence in music with space in sculptures – do you think there is any connection?
I think there is indeed a connection. Also the use of enjambments, line breaks and other such pausing devices in poetry. The older I get, the more I like silence. Those final words of Hamlet come to mind.
There is a related principle in the world of painting, specifically, the use of negative space or negative shapes, which are no less important than positive shapes in a good composition. In life as in art, silence and sound give meaning to one another, and, of course, the same could be said about emptiness and fullness, sadness and joy, pain and pleasure, etc.
Barenboim is an inspiring man.
I think the job of a composer is to create a situation where the notes (s)he writes are the only notes that can be written.
Thanks George for relating this idea to painting too . . . and Dominic, I understand this completely. The question is: what are those essential notes, and in what order?