silence — music — silence

Whenever music happens, silence must follow.
Not the absolute absence of sound but no other piece of music should be allowed to interject the silence which ought to encompass and protect a piece of music.

A short, intricate piece, at times “simple” – Schubert, Chopin, Satie, Liszt, et cetera – interpreted by a mature, talented, seasoned, experienced pianist, even a short piece, needs the emptiness of other acoustic realms to provide as much of what that piece is in itself. Any work is a piece because nothing is before, nothing afterwards – this is why it is a “piece”. And its greatness is itself, not the interpreter needing immediate applause before the natural acoustics dissipate the last notes.

A symphony demands movements which move with space. The transition into the next movement is that space, spacious enough to allow the transition as intended or needed.

There are pieces of music which are tools for grasping what transcendance is. Not because a composer has injected such essence in the piece but rather because the essence of all we are is intertwined with what music is. The composer who allows the act of composing to be deep, “inspired”, open, focused, all while being a vessel, is bound to create pieces which are inherently contained and winged to such density, and lightness that the piece is born with what it needs to be heard by ears that perceive far beyond music notes, tonality, passages. Once such music spreads out in a space, it will be indispensable that nothing follows, except silence.

This is not to say that a demand exists on composer and interpreter to forcefully include such time calculation before and after each piece, nor is it a forceful command to the listener, to rigidly place silence between each work, or else! This is a plea for a consideration of how we listen, and in which tangible and intangible spaces the listening happens.

II 2 2026
Sila Blume