“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.”

Source: Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist (2002), Ch. 1 Body and Mind

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Charles Rosen69

American pianist and writer on music 1927–2012

Related quotes

“Wagner's music is better than it sounds.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Actually by Bill Nye, possibly confused due to Nye quoting Twain in More Tramps Abroad, 1897. (See also autobiography, vol. 1, p. 288.)
Misattributed

“The late Bill Nye once said "I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds."”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010), p. 288

“The peculiar characteristic of classical music is that it is really better than it sounds.”

Edgar Wilson Nye (1850–1896) American journalist, who later became widely known as a humorist

A stand-up line quoted in 1888.
Attributed
Variant: Wagner's music is better than it sounds (attested in an obituary; see The Quote Verifier)

“The idea that beauty is revolution is a revelation to me. I once believed that the concept of the music was more important than the sound, that the politics of the notation was more important than the time limits of the rehersals and therefore, more important than the sound of the performance”

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“A sound body is good; a sound mind is better; but a strong and clean character is better than either.”

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Context: Remember that in life, and above all in the very active, practical, workaday life on this continent, the man who wins out must be the man who works. He can not play all the time. He can not have play as his principal occupation and win out. Let him play; let him have as good a time as he can have. I have a pity that is akin to contempt for the man who does not have as good a time as he can out of life. But let him work. Let him count in the world. When he comes to the end of his life let him feel he has pulled his weight and a little more. A sound body is good; a sound mind is better; but a strong and clean character is better than either.