Philosophy and music ...

... Review of Francois Noudelmann, "The Philosopher's Touch: Sartre, Nietzsche, and Barthes at the Piano" | Inside Higher Ed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

But Barthes’s passion for Schumann (or Sartre’s for Chopin, or Nietzsche’s for Bizet) involves more than relief at escaping severe music for something more Romantic and melodious. The familiarity of certain compositions; the fact that they fall within the limits of the player’s ability, or give it enough of a challenge to be stimulating; the way a passage inspires particular moods or echoes them -- all of this is part of the reality that playing music “is entirely different from listening to it or commenting on it.” That sounds obvious but it is something even a bad performer sometimes understands better than a good critic.