All Entries Tagged With: "Sir Donald"
As Abhorrent As The Worship Of The Golden Calf
Sir Donald’s backhanded defense of opera.
Doubtless there are some people to whom the use of music for illlustrating other things is as abhorrent as the worship of the golden calf was to the law-giver of Israel; but if you wish to break all the commandments of aesthetic philosophy at once you will infer that, because [...]
Conscientiously Blind To A Real Aesthetic
Does technical knowledge of music help or hinder a listener’s experience? Sir Donald weighs in:
I was once severely rebuked by a friend when I pointed out a specially beautiful example of “double counterpoint in the twelfth” in an orchestral work. My friend dryly said that there was no beauty in such a merely [...]
Ruminating on Second Hand Theories
From Sir Donald Tovey’s 1934 lecture entitled Musical Form and Matter
Neither the humble lover nor the master of pure musical form need entertain any tolerance for theories that deny the supremacy of absolute music. But all history and experience go to prove that the absoluteness of music is a result; that this result remains [...]
