The House
...She lays her beams in music,
In music everyone,
To the cadence of the whirling world
Which dances around the sun-
That so they shall not be displaced
By lapses or by wars,
But for the love of happy souls
Outlive the newest stars.
The technical history of modern harmony is a history of growth of toleration by the human ear of chords that at first sounded discordant and senseless to the main body of contemporary professional musicians.
In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass.
I have learned that there lies dormant in the souls of all men a penchant for some particular musical instrument an an unsuspected yearning to play on it, which are bound to wake up an demand attention someday. Therefore you who rail at such that disturb your slumbers with unsuccessful and demoralizing attempts to subjugate a guitar, beware! For sooner or later your own time will come.
What strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom?