“More positively, taking pleasure in music is the most obvious sign of comprehension, the proof that we understand it, and we may extend that to sympathy with other listeners' enjoyment …”

Source: The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994), Ch. 1 : The Frontiers of Nonsense

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Charles Rosen 69
American pianist and writer on music 1927–2012

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L’extrême plaisir que nous prenons à parler de nous-mêmes nous doit faire craindre de n’en donner guere à ceux qui nous écoutent.
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“This is why we get infinitely more pleasure imagining combinations of the sounds of trolleys, autos and other vehicles, and loud crowds, than listening once more, for instance, to the heroic or pastoral symphonies.”

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Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 6
Context: Each sound carries with it a nucleus of foreknown and foregone sensations predisposing the auditor to boredom, in spite of all the efforts of innovating composers. All of us have liked and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. For years, Beethoven and Wagner have deliciously shaken our hearts. Now we are fed up with them. This is why we get infinitely more pleasure imagining combinations of the sounds of trolleys, autos and other vehicles, and loud crowds, than listening once more, for instance, to the heroic or pastoral symphonies.

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