Richard Taruskin > Quotes

“Everybody feels oppressed during a Wagner performance. That is part of the appeal.”
― Richard Taruskin, The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays

“It is tempting to look upon England as a sort of musical Australia, an island culture inhabited by, and sustaining, its own insular fauna – musical kangaroos, koalas, and platypuses. That, however, would be very much to exaggerate England's musical isolation or independence. It is also a considerable exaggeration to view the English preference for thirds as something altogether alien or opposed to continental practice, as if only in remote geographical corners (and behind closed doors, among consenting adults) could harmonies unsanctioned by Pythagoras or the Musica enchiriadis be furtively enjoyed.”
― Richard Taruskin, Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century