This book is an attempt to explore the way that music can affect us so powerfully, and although I don't think Storr quite succeeds in explaining exactly what's going on with music (how is it that a piece of music can evoke such strong emotions in me?), he makes some interesting points along the way:

• he definitely thinks that music is something more than just another type of artistic expression - unlike painting and literature, for example, it's not obviously representational, and it's hard to see what practical use it might have outside itself, or what adaptive use it might have. But, "A 'higher standard of living' does not make life itself worth living. The arts can do so; and, amongst the arts, music is profoundly significant." [p167]
• it's not clear what the origins of music are: people have suggested that it could be imitative of natural sounds such as bird-song, but Storr feels this to be unlikely, and suggests that music "developed from the prosodic exchanges between mother and infant" [p23]
• "there's a closer relation between hearing and emotional arousal than there is between seeing and emotional arousal" [p26]
• studies show that the emotional response to a particular piece of music is similar, i.e. music can be characterised as wistful, happy, sad, etc..
• watching people play music can enhance the pleasure of the experience
• in answer to the question "is the western scale of music the proper one?", he quotes arguments from both sides but concludes that it isn't, and that, simply put, it just seems that way to us because we're used to it.
• the book concludes "Music has incomparably enriched my life. It is an irreplaceable, undeserved, transcendental blessing"

Although he does comment on the fact that some people don't seem to be blessed with the faculty of being moved by music - Freud is a notable example - he doesn't attempt to explore the implications of this. One thing that strikes me is that the love of music is something more often seen in men than women, and I wonder if this is just because the women I've known are not representative or whether something more fundamental is going on.

I think there may be a clue about this in the way that running through the book is a theme that music is about patterns. In the last chapter, when Storr mentions music and mathematics in the same breath, saying in both cases we are able to appreciate patterns for their own sake: "Aesthetic appreciation of this kind is not simply a cold, cerebral, intellectual exercise; it touches human feelings. We delight in perceiving coherence where there was none before; we take pleasure in contemplating perfect form." [p182]. There's a good quote from Yehudi Menuhin in the book: "Music creates order out of chaos; for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent; melody imposes continuity on the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous."

If it's true, as some have suggested, that men generally are to a greater or lesser degree autistic, then perhaps music appreciation is a side-effect of that. On the other hand, perhaps I'm totally wrong; the dedication at the front of the book is "for Sophia, Polly, and Emma who share my love of music".

Unfortunately, I can't write and ask him about this, because he died in 2001. See obituary.

Completed : 01-Mar-2004