“Now, as discord is allowable, and even necessarily opposed to concord, why may not noise, or a seeming jargon, be opposed to fixed sounds and harmonical proportion? Some of the discords in modern music, unknown till this century, are what the ear can but just bear, but have a very good effect as to contrast. The severe laws of preparing and resolving discord, may be too much adhered to for great effect; I am convinced that provided the ear be at length made amends, there are few dissonances too strong for it.”

—  Charles Burney

The Present State of Music in France and Italy (1771) pp. 152-3

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Now, as discord is allowable, and even necessarily opposed to concord, why may not noise, or a seeming jargon, be oppos…" by Charles Burney?
Charles Burney photo
Charles Burney4
English music historian 1726–1814

Related quotes

Henry David Thoreau photo

“Sphere Music — Some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then settle to earth again like dust; such are Noise, Discord, Jargon. But such only as spring heavenward, and I may catch from steeples and hilltops in their upward course, which are the more refined parts of the former, are the true sphere music — pure, unmixed music — in which no wail mingles.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

August 5, 1838
Journals (1838-1859)

Luigi Russolo photo

“This evolution toward noise-sound is only possible today. The ear of an eighteenth century man never could have withstood the discordant intensity of some of the chords produced by our orchestras (whose performers are three times as numerous); on the other hand our ears rejoice in it, for they are attuned to modern life, rich in all sorts of noises. But our ears far from being satisfied, keep asking for bigger acoustic sensations. However, musical sound is too restricted in the variety and the quality of its tones. Music marks time in this small circle and vainly tries to create a new variety of tones... We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 6

Horace photo

“What the discordant harmony of circumstances would and could effect.”
Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors

Horace book Epistles

Book I, epistle xii, line 19
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)

Joseph Addison photo

“From hence, let fierce contending nations know,
What dire effects from civil discord flow.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act V, scene iv.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Plutarch photo

“Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Amit Chaudhuri photo

“The car horns created an anxious music, discordant but not indifferent.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

The Immortals (2009)

Prudentius photo

“War rages, horrid war
Even in our bones; our double nature sounds
With armèd discord.”
Fervent bella horrida, fervent ossibus inclusa fremit et discordibus armis non simplex natura hominis.

Prudentius book Psychomachia

Fervent bella horrida, fervent
ossibus inclusa fremit et discordibus armis
non simplex natura hominis.
Psychomachia, line 902; translation from C. S. Lewis The Allegory of Love (London: Oxford University Press, [1936] 1975) p. 72.

Henry Adams photo

“Even the discord of war is a detail on which the Abbey refuses to insist. Not till two centuries afterwards did the Mount take on the modern expression of war as a discord in God's providence. Then, in the early years of the fifteenth century, Abbot Pierre le Roy plastered the gate of the Châtelet as you now see it, over the sunny thirteenth-century entrance called Belle Chaise which had treated mere military construction with a sort of quiet contempt. You will know what a Châtelet is when you meet another; it frowns in a spirit quite alien to the twelfth century; it jars on the religion of the place; it forebodes wars of religion; dissolution of society; loss of unity; the end of a world. Nothing is sadder than the catastrophe of gothic art, religion and hope.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Henry David Thoreau photo

“A slight sound at evening lifts me up by the ears, and makes life seem inexpressibly serene and grand. It may be Uranus, or it may be in the shutter.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

July 10-12, 1841
Journals (1838-1859)

Benjamin Creme photo

“Another great entity standing behind the Christ is the Spirit of Peace or Equilibrium. He is overshadowing the Christ, in a very similar way to the way the Christ overshadowed and worked through the disciple Jesus in Palestine. He works very closely with the law of Action and Reaction, and His function is to transform the prevalent discord, confusion, chaos, turmoil in the world into its opposite, so that we shall enter an era of tranquility and peace - in exact proportion to the present discord. The violence and hatred of today will be transmuted into goodwill, and again, in exact proportion to the intensity of the hatred and violence. This is the great Law of Action and Reaction functioning. The law stated is that action and reaction are equal and opposite, and this great Cosmic Entity, the Spirit of Equilibrium, is working now through the Christ, producing the transformation of the world.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

Related topics