"If I tend to reread the European past in my own Postmodern image, if I frequently write about Bach and Beethoven in the same ways in which I discuss the Artist Formerly Known as Prince and John Zorn, it is not to denigrate the canon but rather to show the power of music all throughout its history as a signifying practice. For this is how culture always works—always grounded in codes and social contracts, always open to fusions, extensions, transformations. To me, music never seems so trivial as in its 'purely musical' readings. If there was at one time a rationale for adopting such an intellectual position, that time has long since past. And if the belief in the nineteenth-century notion of aesthetic autonomy continues to be an issue when we study cultural history, it can no longer be privileged as somehow true."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
McClary, Susan (2000), Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form, p. 186–169. Berkeley: University of California Press.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_McClary
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Susan McClary
5 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Susan McClary →
Related Quotes
""Most people have music in the center of their lives. I believe my work sheds light on how music affects us and why i…"
"Rather than protecting music as a sublimely meaningless activity that has managed to escape social signification, I i…"
"Tonality itself - with its process of instilling expectations and subsequently withholding promised fulfillment until…"
"The point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingl…"
"We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it not as just so much air, water, and real estate, bu…"
"Comin' in on a wing and a pray'r Comin' in on a wing and a pray'r Tho' there's one motor gone, We can still carry on,…"
"Rule 1 of cryptanalysis: check for plaintext."
"Never underestimate the attention, risk, money, and time that an opponent will put into reading traffic."
"It is easy to run a secure computer system. You merely have to disconnect all dial-up connections and permit only dir…"
"Our forefathers were pioneers. So are we."