In a collection of philosophical essays, I came across the following text.
On the nature of words and music
As more mysteries emerge from the unspoken world we talk about all the time, the nature of words themselves seems more and more unspeakable, and just so interesting to talk about.
Associated symbols convey something beyond, something which they are not. Yet, if they were to exist in a different realm from the one in which they are expressed, they could not be expressed, since expression seems to be the very nature of their existence. A magical binding between the ideal and its unlimited expressions within the real. Artificial patterns of linguistic conventions associated with unique, distinct forms of something in common. And so the word becomes the vehicle of meaning to the mind. While meaning itself remains something beyond the word, and not transferable by the word alone. A pattern that can be expressed in infinite ways of associating symbolic patterns with the essence they are pointing at. An infinite library of languages.
Which seems to be distinct from the language of music and what it is able to convey. A language which must not be learned. A purely perceivable form of patterns themselves and how they break. Directly merged with emotional meaning in a universally understandable, yet individually resonating way.
If we now think of all the unspeakable things music is able to express, which we will never capture with mere words, the mysterious unfolds. No words describing music will be able to convey the same meaning or feeling that is experienced through the music itself. If words are able to create a very similar inner experience, then they are not words about the structure of the music, but rather what the music seems to be about.
As if there was something magical to music the mind might never be able to grasp through the symbolic languages it knows. At least conceptually, since a focused mind seems to be clearly able to appreciate the full effect the patterns of the music have on the individual perceiving it. An invisible world of vibration, vividly real, just beyond the horizon of the understandable. A magical glimpse into the limitless depths of the world beyond our words.