Music

[B]ut what did please me beyond anything in the whole world was the wind musique when the Angell comes down, which is so sweet that it ravished me; and endeed, in a word, did wrap up my soul so that it made me really sick, just as I have formerly been when in love with my wife; that neither then, nor all the evening going home and at home, I was able to think of anything, but remained all night transported, so as I could not believe that ever any music hath that real command over the soul of a man as this did upon me[.]

Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1669

Ohne Musik wäre das Leben ein Irrtum.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, Sprüche und Pfeile

In music, as with so many other forms of artistic expression, that which most like is utterly distinct from that which is liked most.

Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume, Clockwork music: an illustrated history of mechanical musical instruments from the musical box to the pianola, from automaton lady virginal players to orchestrion, New York, 1973

One would have to do an experiment to prove it, but I would guess that if we took two children of today—let’s say two groups—and exposed one group to Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, and the other to Schoenberg, Webern and Berg, there would be a substantial difference in their capacity to comprehend and deal with such musical experience.

Bryan Magee, Men of Ideas: Some Creators of Contemporary Philosophy, London, 1978, p. 218

I also tried to condition Electra to dissonant music. Henry Cowell was especially fond of one anecdote, which he recounted in his lectures and seminars. The story went something like this: When Electra would scream for a bottle, I would sit down at the piano and play a Chopin nocturne, completely ignoring her request. I would allow for a pause, and then play Schoenberg’s Opus 33a, which opens with a dodecaphonic succession of three highly dissonant chords. I would then rush in to give Electra her bottle. Her features would relax, her crying would cease, and she would suck contentedly the nutritious formula. This was to establish a conditional reflex in favor of dissonant music.

Nicolas Slonimsky, Perfect pitch: a life story, Oxford, 1988, p. 132

A lot of nonsense is talked nowadays about the “meaning” of music. Music indeed has a meaning, though it is not one that can be expressed in words.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, The making of music, Westport, Conn, 1955, p. 3

Metaphysiker sind Musiker ohne musikalische Fähigkeit.

Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, and Wolfgang Spohn (eds.), Erkenntnis orientated: a centennial volume for Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, Dordrecht, 1931, p. 240

God forgive me, I do still see that my nature is not to be quite conquered, but will esteem pleasure above all things; though, yet in the middle of it, it hath reluctancy after my business, which is neglected by my fallowing my pleasure. However, music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.

Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1669

music is the thing of the world that I love most, and all the pleasure almost that I can now take.

Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1669

strange tu hear my Lord Lauderdale say himself, that he had rather hear a catt mew then the best musique in the world—and the better the music, the more sick it makes him. And that of all instruments, he hates the lute most; and next to that, the baggpipe.

Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1669