Tacito Sensu

I was idly browsing through Cicero's De oratore the other day when I ran across this passage:

Omnes tacito quodam sensu sine ulla arte aut ratione quae sint in artibus ac rationibus recta ac prava dijudicant.

For those with "small Latin and less Greek" that translates as:

Concerning arts and reasons everyone judges right and wrong by means of a silent sense, without any art or reason.

Well, of course I wasn't browsing around in Cicero in Latin, I ran across this quote in Carl Dahlhaus' (translated by William Austin) book Esthetics of Music. I have even less Latin and Greek than Shakespeare! But I quite liked the quote.

Dahlhaus states that Cicero is "appealing to the capacity that eventually came to be called, metaphorically, 'taste.' " He mentions that the 18th century spent a great deal of effort trying to resolve the issue of taste, and never managed it (perhaps David Hume, whom Dahlhaus does not mention, came closest).

But I like the idea of a "silent sense" that responds to and evaluates music. I don't know if the metaphor of "taste" is the right one, apparently not, but the idea that there is something beyond art and reason ("art" in the sense of "artifice") goes along with my sense that there is always something magical about music--good music at least. What could be more magical than the peal of a single, mysterious note, falling into the silence? With all the infinite possibilities of its continuation?

Imagine a great, deep forest, silent save for the soughing of a breeze in the high branches. Then imagine a sound: the caw of a raven, the crack of a twig, the crystalline flurry of a birdcall, the sound of distant water. All this is like the basic materials of a composition. Then one searches for a narrative to unite them. But not a narrative in words or any concrete meaning. No. A musical narrative, one that only suggests without defining.

Now this is quite different, but just a bit similar. Debussy: Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune. Montreal Symphony, Charles Dutoit: