Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep.
Charles IvesBeauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep.
Charles IvesIf a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven.
Charles IvesBut maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense.
Charles IvesFor the man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of sense trivial and to count them nothing considerd with his devotion to his art.
Charles Ives