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Romantic Music - Part One   Jeffrey Swann   . . . There is so
much talk about music, and yet so little really said. For my
part I believe that words do not suffice for such a purpose, and
if I found they did suffice, then I certainly would have nothing
more to do with music. People often complain that music is
ambiguous, that their ideas on the subject always seem so vague,
whereas everyone understands words. With me it is exactly the
reverse -- not merely with regard to entire sentences, but also
as to individual words. These, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so
vague, so unintelligible when compared with genuine music, which
fills the soul with a thousand things better than words. (To get
a sense of what Mendelssohn is saying, visit the web site of
Joshua Bell, the American violinist; then, simply listen to the
music.)  --Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, from a letter to Marc-
Andre Souchay, Lubeck (October 15, 1842)  The Age of Classical
Music and Romantic M