“If good music has charms to soothe the savage breast, bad music has no less powerful spells for filling the mildest breast with rage, the happiest with horror and disgust. Oh, those mammy songs, those love longings, those loud hilarities! How was it possible that human emotions intrinsically decent could be so ignobly parodied.”

— Aldous Huxley

“Silence is Golden,” p. 59
Do What You Will (1928)

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Aldous Huxley 290

English writer 1894–1963

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“Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”

William Congreve The Mourning Bride

Act I, scene i; the first lines of this passage are often rendered in modern spelling as "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast", or misquoted as: "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast".
The Mourning Bride (1697)
Context: Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.
What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe!
'Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs.
Anselmo sleeps, and is at Peace; last Night
The silent Tomb receiv'd the good Old King;
He and his Sorrows now are safely lodg'd
Within its cold, but hospitable Bosom.
Why am not I at Peace?

“Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Those evening Bells.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter by Mozart, as quoted in a journal entry (12 December 1856) The Journal of Eugene Delacroix as translated by Walter Pach (1937), p. 521. The quote is not found in any authentic letter by Mozart.

“Of all the arts, music makes the most direct appeal to the emotions and to those shadowy, but real portions of our being called the imagination and the soul. Emotion is as indispensible to music as love to religion.”

Walter Raymond Spalding (1865–1962) American music pedagogue and author

Page 3 https://books.google.com/books?id=pQARAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA3.
Music: An Art and a Language (1920), Preliminary Considerations (Ch. I)

“The earth has its music for those who will listen.”

Reginald Vincent Holmes

Often misattributed to Shakespeare, because the words remind us of “If music be the food of love play on”. Statement is also commonly associated with Santayana, but no source or attribution can be found in his works or correspondence.
Variant: The earth has music for those who listen.
Source: Book Fireside Fancies, Poem The Magic of Sound. 1955.
Context: I've heard the soft whisper of wind in the pine trees,
The silvery ripple of brooklets at play;
I've heard the low voice of a sweet singing mother
As she sang to her child at the end of the day.

I've heard the faint rustle of sails in the sunset
And blue waves caressing the wild, rockbound shore;
The whistle of trains as they cross the green prairie
And mountains re-echo the cataract’s roar.

The notes of the organs in ancient cathedrals,
Where hearts of the faithful are lifted in song;
I've heard the gay laughter as children were playing,
The chatter and buzz of a large, happy throng.

The earth has its music for those who will listen;
Its bright variations forever abound.
With all of the wonders that God has bequeathed us,
There's nothing that thrills like the magic of sound.

“To some the powers of bloody war belong,
To some, sweet music, and the charm of song;
To few, and wondrous few, has Jove assigned
A wise, extensive, all-considering mind.”

Homér Iliad

XIII. 730–733 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Oh it’s very beautiful to have a very rich heritage from my Indian ancestors. My mother is Mixtec [a native tribe of Oaxaca], and my father was Scottish American. Growing up with those cultures has been enriching. Though, at first very difficult because I was rejected by one culture — in the Mexican Nation there is a lot of discrimination towards the Indian groups. So I struggled with that and with being discriminated as a Mexican. But I think music has been able to erase those boundaries. I think it’s easier to stop talking about those borders, and talk more about the music — to make music so that those borders are erased in a poetic way.”

Lila Downs (1968) Mexican American singer-songwriter

On her racial heritage in “Q&A: Lila Downs, A Sin and A Miracle” https://remezcla.com/music/lila-downs-sin-miracle-pecados-milagros-interview/ in Remezcla (c. 2011)
Heritage and indigenous peoples

“Those who trust develop a finer sense for the good, even at the hight cost of blighted hopes. Charmed by the spell of love, faith is, as it were, imposed upon their heart.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"The Holy Dimension", p. 338
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)
Context: The account of our experiences, the record of debit and credit, is reflected in the amount of trust or distrust we display towards life and humanity. There are those who maintain that the good is within our reach everywhere; you have but to stretch out your arms and you will grasp it. But there are others who, intimidated by fraud and ugliness, sense scorn and ambushes everywhere and misgive all things to come. Those who trust develop a finer sense for the good, even at the hight cost of blighted hopes. Charmed by the spell of love, faith is, as it were, imposed upon their heart.

“The music industry, I've never been concerned with. I've been very fortunate that it has taken care of me. Like a baby being breast fed.”

Flea (musician) (1962) American musician

Quoted from Guitar Center Flea Interview http://www.guitarcenter.com/interview/flea/

“All over the world, for those who are part of it, music, entertainment and art are a work of emotions: be grateful.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) In tutto il mondo, per chi ne fa parte, musica, intrattenimento ed arte sono un'opera di emozioni: siatene grati.
Source: prevale.net

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Aldous Huxley 290

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