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It is not, however, the unfamiliarity or strangeness of a work or of a composer's manner that is a bar to understanding, but rather the disappearance of the familiar, the ongoing disappointment of the expectations and hopes fostered by the musical tradition in which we have grown up.

— Charles Rosen The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994)

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More quotes by Charles Rosen

Visual delight, sentiment, and exploration become one in the new appreciation of landscape and Nature.

The Romantic Generation (1995)

None of Chopin's contemporaries could rival him for the variety and effectiveness of his treatment of the return.

The Romantic Generation (1995)

It is above all through landscape that music joins Romantic art and literature.

The Romantic Generation (1995)

Understanding music simply means not being irritated or puzzled by it.

The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994)

Schumann's humor is rarely either witty or light: the unrealizable musical structure, the musical motto hidden and partly inaudible, must have stirred his musical fantasy.

The Romantic Generation (1995)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Rosen (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.