Stephen Mithen: The Neanderthals—there’s no evidence that they had language. But they must have had a sophisticated form of communication. They were just like humans, they might would have had to have told other people how they’re feeling, they would have had to look after their children and nurture them. They had to have made plans for group hunting and general movement. So what sort of communications system did they have? Now I came to the conclusion which must have been based on high degrees of musicality. Because we can see traces of that in our nearest living relatives. This seems to be the only form of communication with that language that would have been complex to allow them to have function as a social group, and yet not gone that extra step to modern language. So I think they communicated by using sets of phrases, almost like musical phrases that would have had semantic meanings, phrases such as something that would translate into “Let us share meat,” “We’ll go hunting” or “How are you feeling?” but would have been expressed in musical tones, different types of pitches, different types of rhythms. They might have used these also to build a sense of group identity, very much how we use music today, especially for caring for infants, you know just like we do today with our youngest children before they got language, we sing to them and move them rhythmically . I’m sure the Neanderthals would have been doing exactly the same.

Daniel Barenboim: Sound has several very interesting aspects, I think, worth observing. One is duration—that there is a connection between sound and time. But before that there is a connection between sound and silence. When one speaks about sound, very one speaks of the color of sound— a bright sound or a dark sound. Which is of course nonsense because what may be dark for one is light for the other, and vice versa. It’s very subjective. I could say “It’s a beautiful sound.” What is a beautiful sound? So it’s very subjective and not really a definable characterization. Whereas the duration of sound and it’s relation to silence is a very objective thing. I sing a note or I whistle a note and when I have no more air, the note goes. Where does it go? Into the silence again. And when we observe that really more clearly we see that sound has a relationship with silence not unlike the law of gravity. In order to lift a certain object from the ground we have to use energy. But then to sustain it at that level, we have to keep on adding energy or otherwise the object falls to the ground. It’s exactly the same thing with the sound. We need a certain amount of energy to produce the sound. But then to sustain it we have to give more energy or otherwise it goes and it dies in silence. And therefore sound is absolutely, inextricably connected to time, the length of time. And this, I think, what gives it or even more so when it becomes music. It’s really tragic element of the fact that it can die, of the fact that it is a lifetime. Every note is a lifetime for itself.