In this article, Jessica Tancredi explores the relationship between music, language, and storytelling, beginning with the creation stories of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. From there, she looks at the idea that music may predate spoken language, traces the ancient connection between song and oral storytelling, and discusses how classical composers transformed literary ideas into music. Jessica concludes by offering practical suggestions for pairing classical music and great literature in your homeschool, with examples for younger children, epic adventures, Shakespeare, nautical tales, and pastoral stories.

Music as the Language of Creation

In C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew, we read how Narnia is brought into existence through song.  When Digory, Polly, Uncle Andrew, Jadis (the White Witch), Frank the cabby, and Strawberry the horse first tumble into the world, it is a completely empty, pitch-black void. There is no earth, no sky, and no light. Then creation unfolds in a beautiful, orderly progression as Aslan sings it into being.

Fellow Inkling J.R.R. Tolkien also used music as the foundational force of creation, though his mythos is much more grand, symphonic, and complex.  Tolkien details the creation of the universe in the Ainulindalë (The Music of the Ainur), which is the first section of The Silmarillion. Instead of a single creator singing a solo, Tolkien’s creation is a massive, multi-layered heavenly choir that actually wrestles with discord and rebellion before the world is physically spoken into being.

Though their execution reflects their distinct literary styles, both Lewis and Tolkien share the beautiful premise of a musical creation, alluding to the fact that music is the ultimate creative force, which relies on feelings and emotions that words fall short of encompassing. 

Is Music Older Than Language?

Another literary example that highlights this connection between music and language comes to us in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes mystery, A Study in Scarlet. Holmes says to Watson: 

“Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.” 

Doyle got this idea from Charles Darwin’s 1871 book, The Descent of Man. Darwin was trying to figure out how human language evolved, and he noticed that many animals use their voices to sing and express intense emotion long before they have anything resembling “speech”. Doyle captures Darwin’s idea through Holmes’s reflection that music taps into the “misty centuries when the world was in its childhood,” bypassing our logical brains and striking our souls because it is ancient, primal wiring that predates our vocabulary.

From Song to Story

Yes, music and singing are extremely ancient arts. The idea that music is an earlier language, older than the spoken word, is also visible in the progression of storytelling. Before the written word of prose, there was oral poetic verse. Stories in ancient Greece, for example, took the form of long, epic poems which were sung by a rhapsode – a person whose life was dedicated to memorizing and singing epic poetry and performing not only to entertain the public but also as a means of passing along the tales and wisdom of the past. In various nations and cultures throughout the world, there was a person who took on this role of remembering, sharing, and passing down the songs and stories of their people. 

Humans have been telling stories for a very long time and singing and making music for even longer. A great story in any form is like a great symphony: there are ups and downs, crescendos and diminuendos; different characters and storylines, melodies and harmonies; conflicts and tensions; happy endings and resolution. 

Music as Storytelling

This deep architectural connection between narrative and music became especially pronounced during the Romantic era, when composers turned to literature for inspiration. Through “program music” and orchestral tone poems, composers like Franz Liszt, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Richard Strauss translated plot arcs, character motifs, and thematic tension directly into sound without uttering a single word. In these works, a recurring melodic motif (idée fixe) functions like a character’s internal arc, while dramatic key changes mirror moments of narrative peril or triumph.

While music and song may be the original thread, language and story are their natural successors and partners, adding richly to the woven tapestry of human experience. Including both great music and great literature in our homeschools is vital to sharing with our children the good, true, and beautiful in all its wonderful mediums.

Pairing Classical Music and Literature in Your Homeschool

 

Here are a few ways to pair classic literature and orchestral music in your homeschool, allowing both art forms to enrich one another:

• Beginners: For younger children, or if you want a little more guidance on connecting music and narrative elements, Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf narrated by Leonard Bernstein or Sir David Attenborough is great place to begin.
• The Epic Quest: Pair J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings with Richard Wagner’s Overture to Tannhäuser or Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. Discuss how musical themes mirror the brave steps, mounting danger, and triumph of a hero’s journey.
• Shakespeare: Pair Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music of the same name, or Romeo and Juliet with Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture. Challenge your children to identify how the instruments capture specific elements of the story, such as the fluttering woodwinds representing fairies or brass instruments signaling conflict.
• Nautical Adventure: Pair Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick or Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island with Claude Debussy’s La Mer or Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Notice how orchestral dynamics evoke the rolling sea, mystery, and impending storms just as vividly as descriptive prose.
• The Pastoral & Whimsical: Pair Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows or Beatrix Potter’s tales with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”) or Ralph Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. Listen for how the peaceful strings and soaring violin solos suggest the quiet beauty of creation and the natural world.

When we invite children to listen to the narrative arc inside a piece of music, or to hear the rhythm and melody within a passage of prose or verse, we help them connect to that ancient language – a language that speaks directly to the soul and reminds us of the divine harmony behind all creation.

Jessica Tancredi

Jessica Tancredi is a homeschooling mom of 4, English professor, and founder of Inklings Academy, an online school focused on teaching writing organically using great works of literature and a classical, Charlotte Mason-inspired approach. Explore her courses at Inklings Academy and follow @inklings.academy on Instagram for more inspiration on literature, writing, and classical homeschooling.