“Our sensuous appreciation of the world and of the works created by man has, no doubt, a biological foundation, one shared by all human beings, but that is no use to us when we try to evaluate a Bach fugue or a Dostoevsky novel-or even the simple experience of a landscape, as our delight in the view of a mountain or a waterfall is also determined by the traditions of our culture. The coexistence of different criteria of judgment is, in any case, by now a fact of life. Beethoven cannot be judged or even understood by the standards of Mozart, however much he may have continued them, nor Berg by the standards of Wagner or Richard Strauss, nor Elliott Carter by the values of Ives and Stravinsky.”

—  Charles Rosen

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

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 "Our sensuous appreciation of the world and of the works created by man has, no doubt, a biological foundation, one shar…" by Charles Rosen?
Charles Rosen photo
Charles Rosen 69
American pianist and writer on music 1927–2012

Related quotes

Werner Erhard photo

“We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family. We can choose to make our love for the world what our lives are really about. Each of us has the opportunity, the privilege, to make a difference in creating a world that works for all of us. It will require courage, audacity and heart. It is much more radical than a revolution – it is the beginning of a transformation in the quality of life on our planet. What we create together is a relationship in which our work can show up as making a difference in people's lives. I welcome the unprecedented opportunity for us to work globally on that which concerns us all as human beings. If not you, who? If not now, when? If not here, where?”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

Source: The Graduate Review (1980)

Barbara Hepworth photo

“Sculpture is, in the twentieth century, a wide field of experience, with many facets of symbol and material and individual calligraphy. But in all these varied and exciting extensions of our experience we always come back tot the fact that we are human beings of such and such a size, biologically the same as primitive man, and that it is through drawing and observing, or observing and drawing, that we equate our bodies with our landscape.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Studio International 171 – June 1966, p. 280
1961 - 1975

Daniel Dennett photo

“People ache to believe that we human beings are vastly different from all other species — and they are right! We are different. We are the only species that has an extra medium of design preservation and design communication: culture. … We have language, the primary medium of culture… In a few short millennia — a mere instant in biological time — we have already used our new exploration vehicles to transform not only our planet but the very process of design development that created us.”

Daniel Dennett book Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Ali Al-Wardi photo

“Our experiences have taught us that no matter how silly it may look today, it might become correct at some point in the future when the criteria used for evaluation are changed”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist
Asger Jorn photo

“We cannot inherit a fixed, unmoving view of life and of art from the past generation. The expression of art is in any period different, as are our experiences. A new experience creates a new form. We like to learn all we need from earlier generations, but we have to find out for ourselves what we need; nobody else can do that for us. It is not our business to receive and work on what the earlier generation might want us to work on. On the other hand, it is its business to help us where we want its help.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

1940 - 1948, Intimate Banalities' (1941)

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“As human beings living in this monstrously ugly world, let us ask ourselves, can this society, based on competition, brutality and fear, come to an end? Not as an intellectual conception, not as a hope, but as an actual fact, so that the mind is made fresh, new and innocent and can bring about a different world altogether? It can only happen, I think, if each one of us recognises the central fact that we, as individuals, as human beings, in whatever part of the world we happen to live or whatever culture we happen to belong to, are totally responsible for the whole state of the world.
We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1960s, (1969)

Asger Jorn photo

“This is not an objective, historical or psychological evaluation of Danish experimental art and its historical roots, but an ideological and artistic, collective representation of our own work, thoughts, and ideas. It shows how we ourselves view our work and our way of working, and considers which of the many traditions that make up our foundation we feel connected to.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

from Jorn's 'Notebook', containing the draft for a book on Danish experimental art (1948)
1949 - 1958, Various sources

Kofi Annan photo

“Throughout history, human life has been enriched by diversity, and different communities have learnt from each other. But, if our different communities are to live together in peace we must stress also what unites us: our common humanity, and our shared belief that human dignity and rights should be protected by law.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)
Context: Both security and development ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law.
— Although increasingly interdependent, our world continues to be divided — not only by economic differences, but also by religion and culture. That is not in itself a problem. Throughout history, human life has been enriched by diversity, and different communities have learnt from each other. But, if our different communities are to live together in peace we must stress also what unites us: our common humanity, and our shared belief that human dignity and rights should be protected by law.

“We know from many experiences that this is what the work of art does: its life — in which we have shared the alien existences both of this world and of that different world to which the work of art alone gives us access — unwillingly accuses our lives.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"The Profession of Poetry," Partisan Review (September/October 1950) [p. 166]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Related topics