What, in reality, is music? Where does it come from and what is its aim?

I think that we can pinpoint three “places” from which music originates.

One of its first sources is the experience of love. When men were first seized by love, another dimension of being opened up to them – a new greatness and breadth of reality. And this led to a new mode of expression. Poetry, song, and music in general were born from this being struck, from this being awakened to a new dimension of life.

A second origin of music is the experience of sadness – of being touched by death, by pain, and by the depths (abysses) of life. Also in this case, new dimensions of reality opened up in opposite directions; new dimensions which cannot find expression in words alone.

Finally, music’s third place of origin is in the encounter with the divine which, from the beginning, is a part of what defines human reality. It is this encounter of man with the totally other and the totally great that elicits even more new ways of expression. As a matter of fact, it could perhaps be said that even in the other two areas – love and death – the divine mystery touches us and, in that sense, it is the fact of being touched by God that constitutes the true origin of music. I find it moving to observe how in the Psalms, for example, singing alone does not suffice: appeal is made to all instruments. In this way the hidden music of all creation – its mysterious language – is aroused. With the Psalter, in which the motifs of death and love are also operative, we find ourselves right at the origin of the sacred music of the Church of God. One can say that the quality of music depends upon the purity and the greatness of the encounter with the divine, with the experience of love and of pain. The purer and truer this experience is, the purer and greater also will be the music that is born and develops from it. – from an address at Castelgandolfo, July 4, 2015