"People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words"

Felix Mendelssohn’s reflection addresses a fundamental difference between music and spoken or written language, delving into the essence of human expression. Many find music elusive because, by its nature, it resists precise definitions. Notes and harmonies evoke emotion and sensation, yet rarely declare a specific, universally agreed-upon meaning. Listeners may yearn for guidance: a clear story, an instruction on how to feel or interpret, a function most often fulfilled by words, which seem immediate in their communicative clarity. Words are invented specifically for understanding and direct transmission of thought, with the assumption that their definitions anchor meaning unmistakably, reducing ambiguity.

For Mendelssohn, however, the paradigm is reversed. He finds the music he composes to be more directly expressive than language itself, not only in the grand context of composed works but even in the smallest details, single musical gestures, just as one might consider individual words. While many trust the simplicity and directness of words, Mendelssohn reveals a personal experience where language falters and proves vague, insufficient to the depth and specificity of thought or feeling. Words often carry multiple definitions, connotations, and subtle social cues that muddy their clarity. In contrast, for Mendelssohn, musical phrases carry an intrinsic, almost inevitable significance, one that is intuitively felt, not argued or analytically explained.

In this view, music’s seeming ambiguity is actually its strength. Its power lies in moving directly to the emotional or spiritual core, bypassing the potential slipperiness of linguistics. Music can say what words cannot, or perhaps communicate with a precision and purity that spoken definitions struggle to achieve. Mendelssohn’s perspective questions not only the nature of ambiguity but also assumptions about what it means to truly understand. He suggests that, at least for some, music’s lack of explicit content offers a clarity and connection that words cannot match.