"Melody is a form of remembrance. It must have a quality of inevitability in our ears"
About this Quote
Menotti frames melody less as invention than as recognition, a small act of memory disguised as sound. Coming from a mid-century opera composer who watched modernism turn music into a proving ground for novelty, this is a pointed aesthetic manifesto: the ear is not a laboratory, it is an archive. “Remembrance” suggests that a good melody doesn’t merely please; it triggers the sensation that something in you already knows it, even if you’re hearing it for the first time. That’s why the line lands with a faintly polemical edge. Menotti is arguing against the prestige economy of difficulty, where complexity can become a moral badge.
The key word is “inevitability,” borrowed from the language of narrative. He’s smuggling storytelling criteria into music: the best melodic turn feels fated, not arbitrary, like a sentence that could only end one way. Subtext: the composer’s job is to set up expectations so subtly that fulfillment feels like destiny, not manipulation. It’s craft as misdirection, the magician’s flourish made to look natural.
Context matters. Menotti built his reputation on operas that stayed legible to broad audiences (The Medium, Amahl and the Night Visitors), even as the cultural center of gravity shifted toward serialism and academic austerity. In that climate, to insist on inevitability is to insist on public intelligibility without apologizing for it. He’s defending the emotional contract between composer and listener: music should not lecture the ear into compliance; it should persuade it into assent.
The key word is “inevitability,” borrowed from the language of narrative. He’s smuggling storytelling criteria into music: the best melodic turn feels fated, not arbitrary, like a sentence that could only end one way. Subtext: the composer’s job is to set up expectations so subtly that fulfillment feels like destiny, not manipulation. It’s craft as misdirection, the magician’s flourish made to look natural.
Context matters. Menotti built his reputation on operas that stayed legible to broad audiences (The Medium, Amahl and the Night Visitors), even as the cultural center of gravity shifted toward serialism and academic austerity. In that climate, to insist on inevitability is to insist on public intelligibility without apologizing for it. He’s defending the emotional contract between composer and listener: music should not lecture the ear into compliance; it should persuade it into assent.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|
More Quotes by Gian
Add to List
