Skip to content

The relation of the performance of music to sound is complex and ambiguous: this is what makes possible Mark Twain's joke that Wagner is better than he sounds.

— Charles Rosen Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist (2002)

Another quote →

Topics

Music

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)

All Charles Rosen quotes →

You may also like

The emphasis of study upon a particular aspect of music is in itself ideological because it contains implications about the music's value.

Lucy Green

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Thomas Carlyle Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

Eduard Hanslick

Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.

François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532)

Attribution

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.