Source: Memoirs, Unreliable Memoirs (1980), p. 64
“One of the peculiar characteristics of music is that it is both the most natural and least artificial of the arts, and as well the most complicated and subtle.”
Page 3 https://books.google.com/books?id=pQARAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA3.
Music: An Art and a Language (1920), Preliminary Considerations (Ch. I)
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Walter Raymond Spalding 10
American music pedagogue and author 1865–1962Related quotes

“The peculiar characteristic of classical music is that it is really better than it sounds.”
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)
“Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings. That's the end”
of the interview
1980 - 2000, Perfection Is in the Mind', 1995
Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Conclusion

Pop Chronicles, Show 1 - Play A Simple Melody: Pete Seeger on the origins of pop music http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19745/m1/, interview recorded 2.14.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.

Boccioni's quote on motion; as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 328.
1914 - 1916, Pittura e scultura futuriste' Milan, 1914

“Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories.”