# Sublime and mundane in music...



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Discuss this statement, in relation to classical music -

*All music is a combination of the sublime and the mundane.*

(This comes from me generally thinking about and also what I've read recently in books on music, etc.)...


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Of course, but doesn't this statement go against your view that music shouldn't be ranked/assessed? Sublime and the mundane/mediocre, are all ranking notions whether percevied to be objective or indeed subjective. Bach's great _B Minor Mass_, the winner of my poll about favourite masses so far, is likely a sublime piece for all times (along with many other pieces, just as an example). Mundane pieces would probably be along the likes of Cage's experimental piece where he used a bird's feather and a cactus plant to generate noise. But others might think differently. Either case, the sublime and the medicore (or crap) are all part of it. Unless your sentence meant that all music in totality in every single case, is a combination of the sublime and the mediocre; then that, cannot be true with all pieces, because Bach's great _B Minor Mass_ contains not one single note of the mundane.

My views are usually consistent on this one, admittedly being a calcified conservative from the Jurassic, actually the Cambrian (which preceded the Jurassic), I do agree with your statement. Let's see what others might say.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I for one like dialectic/dualistic decriptions of things. To my mind at least, they are great tools and help me hammer some sense into difficult concepts. Sergei Eisenstein wrote that art is born at the point where "industry" and "nature" meet. This is somewhat analogous with "law" and "chaos"; it's about the presentation of the form of art. I could try to hammer "sublime" and "mundane" into it, but now that think of it, it seems more analogous with pairs such as "spirit and matter" and "content and form"; i.e. art as an object and art as a experience; the truth in the work and the truth beyond the work.

If we look at it like that, then "sublime" means the experience, and "mundane" means the tones as they're played, or the notes on the partiture. Thus, the "mundane" always exists with any music, but the "sublime" only exists if the listener had any thoughts or emotions about the music. It's quite rare that the listener does not feel anything at all; thus, the "sublime" is practically omnipresent - but it cannot exist without the "mundane" that sort of gives birth to it. 

We can also apply "sublime and mundane" to Eisenstein's maxim. "Sublime" could be associated with "law", or "idea", because laws and ideas are made by man, they do not exist in "nature". The "mundane" could be associated with "nature", with the patternless "chaos" that surrounds us every day. Depending on your philosophical bent, you could also do it the other way around, if you see laws and ideas as mundane and the patternless chaos as sublime. 

Whichever way you'd choose, here is what law and nature have to with art in my view. Art is a combination of things that make sense to us, and things that we can't make sense of. Patterns satisfy us, patternlessness intrigues us. If a piece of art is completely patterned, we're satisfied for a split second and then move on. It has no lasting appeal. On the other hand, a completely patternless piece of art might look intriguing, but if it has nothing that our mind can grasp, we spend a minute engaged in unrewarding contemplation and then move on. It is the fruitful combination both of these things that simultaneously rewards and teases our mind. That kind of art has lasting appeal and becomes a classic. The proportions don't have to be exactly 50%/50%; some works are naturally more mysterious and some are more comprehensible. But truly great art has to have both components, in some sort of balance, I think.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

That reminds me of the statement by Mikhail Baryshnikov: "Art is born of inspiration and dedication."


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Discuss this statement, in relation to classical music -
> 
> *All music is a combination of the sublime and the mundane.*


Considering this to be true, what comes to mind is a sublime masterpiece inspired by and written for something as mundane as lost love or death. In this sense the two go hand in hand.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Impossible to answer unless you give us an interpretation of "sublime" and "mundane" to work with.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Impossible to answer unless you give us an interpretation of "sublime" and "mundane" to work with.


Just use your own interpretation, otherwise we'll probably end up discussing what these two words mean rather than discussing the topic. For example, I thought mundane = mediocre or my favourite, "crap".


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Xaltotun said:


> I for one like dialectic/dualistic decriptions of things. To my mind at least, they are great tools and help me hammer some sense into difficult concepts. Sergei Eisenstein wrote that art is born at the point where "industry" and "nature" meet. This is somewhat analogous with "law" and "chaos"; it's about the presentation of the form of art. I could try to hammer "sublime" and "mundane" into it, but now that think of it, it seems more analogous with pairs such as "spirit and matter" and "content and form"; i.e. art as an object and art as a experience; the truth in the work and the truth beyond the work.
> 
> If we look at it like that, then "sublime" means the experience, and "mundane" means the tones as they're played, or the notes on the partiture. Thus, the "mundane" always exists with any music, but the "sublime" only exists if the listener had any thoughts or emotions about the music. It's quite rare that the listener does not feel anything at all; thus, the "sublime" is practically omnipresent - but it cannot exist without the "mundane" that sort of gives birth to it.
> 
> ...


Quite a philosophical answer. Can you kindly give practical examples using well known pieces to support your thoughts?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Just use your own interpretation, otherwise we'll probably end up discussing what these two words mean rather than discussing the topic. For example, I thought mundane = mediocre or my favourite, "crap".


I was willing for Mr. James to impose his own definition on us all without us discussing whether or not we like the definition.


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## Guest (Dec 13, 2011)

I say again, Harpsichord Concerto, you are the M-A-N. High five - again!!


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## Guest (Dec 13, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Just use your own interpretation


Yeah, and thus have no sort of conversation at all.



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> otherwise we'll probably end up discussing what these two words mean rather than discussing the topic.


I believe the idea there was to agree on meanings _in order to be able to_ discuss the topic.



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> For example, I thought mundane = mediocre or my favourite, "crap".


Which is not at all what "mundane" means or has ever meant.


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## Scarpia (Jul 21, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Discuss this statement, in relation to classical music -
> 
> *All music is a combination of the sublime and the mundane.*


To the extent to which the words can be defined, sublime means "not mundane." So can't anything be described as a combination of the sublime and mundane?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


> Which is not at all what "mundane" means or has ever meant.


It does to me. 

Edit: In any case, I'm quite excited about this thread, as "sublime" and "mundane", whatever folks might take it to mean, involve ranking - my favourite hobby apart from listening to the music itself.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

How about this

Sublime = Grand
Mundane = ordinary

Thats the closest accurate agreeable definition I can think of.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Emilbus = Sublime

Enadnum = Mundane


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## Guest (Dec 13, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> ranking - my favourite hobby


Hmmm, interesting. Especially when you factor in what *I* think the work "ranking" means.:lol:


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

violadude said:


> How about this
> 
> Sublime = Grand
> Mundane = ordinary
> ...


_Sublime_, over the limit - the suffix -_lime _is likely from _limen_, Latin, threshold. _Sub_-, Latin, actually means below (as in submarine, but also as in subliminal, below the threshold - so sublime, subliminal are essentially the same word and mean the opposite to each other). 
You could consider _sublime _to mean heavenly, which is certainly over the limit and contrasts with...

_Mundane_, of the world, from _mundus_, Latin, world. By extension, ordinary, day to day.

Hope that helps.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I'm growing impatient for Mr. James's return, so I'll comment briefly. 

The reason I think we need a definition is because I don't think HC's initial interpretation of ranking is applicable - it's not about some pieces being sublime and others being mundane, it's about any individual piece containing both sublimity and mundaneness.

My intuition would be that this is true, for the usually yin-yang crap like "you can't experience happiness without sadness" and "no good without evil". Those are a little more junk than this one though - I think the sublime/mundane thing probably does exist in music in that not _every_ second in a piece can be sublime, and so we are led through the narrative of a work by 'mundane' sections (meaning interesting but ordinary, not '****').


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

TC is the only place where a free association gets turned into a semantics seminar.


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## Scarpia (Jul 21, 2010)

Polednice said:


> I'm growing impatient for Mr. James's return, so I'll comment briefly.
> 
> The reason I think we need a definition is because I don't think HC's initial interpretation of ranking is applicable - it's not about some pieces being sublime and others being mundane, it's about any individual piece containing both sublimity and mundaneness.
> 
> My intuition would be that this is true, for the usually yin-yang crap like "you can't experience happiness without sadness" and "no good without evil". Those are a little more junk than this one though - I think the sublime/mundane thing probably does exist in music in that not _every_ second in a piece can be sublime, and so we are led through the narrative of a work by 'mundane' sections (meaning interesting but ordinary, not '****').


Is there anything that *isn't* a combination of the sublime and the mundane? I'm one of the sort lacking imagination who looks up words in the dictionary. Mundane means of the world and sublime means beyond the world. Two mutually exclusive categories which together include everything. How is it possible to define something which isn't a combination of mundane and sublime, at least if we include the limit of sublime fraction approaching zero?


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## Guest (Dec 13, 2011)

Why would you WANT to discuss anything which was mundane? Away with it, say I!!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Thanks for your posts everybody.

Re the definition of these words, I was on the run, but in any case, I didn't mean to lock down the debate to be just around these two words.

The gist of what I'm thinking is that sublime and mundane can be something of contrast. Eg. amazing and banal. Or unexpected and cliche. Stuff of the sort. Although thinking of the literal meanings of the two words given by Jeremy Marchant above can also be of use here.

As I said, how I came to creating this thread, is just reading about music and listening to it. My thoughts largely accord with Xaltotun's post earlier here. I was listening to and reading about J.S. Bach's solo cello suites, and the musician playing the pieces on this Australian recording, Michael Goldschlager, talks about how these works are like a combination of the sublime and mundane (or banal, I forget his exact words, but that is the gist). In terms of these pieces incorporating popular dance forms of Bach's time but also his innovations with counterpoint and multiple voicings on the one instrument. And many other things. I think Mr. Goldschlager makes sense to me, listening to these works. There are catchy tunes there (esp. the gigue movements, which can quickly become earworms!) to the long drawn out sarabandes, esp. in the last two suites which were likened by Rostropovich to being symphonies for solo cello (well the 6th one at least, but the 5th is similarly expansive).

These are my thoughts, and I think this can be applied to a lot of the music I listen to. I was just listening to some cabaret songs of William Bolcom, Schoenberg and Satie and there were similarly both sublime and banal, or what you'd call that, in those songs. Esp. nuanced the way they deal with animating the texts, but also with a certain down to earth feeling.

I will return but I agree with Rasa's sentiments above, let's not get too bogged down in semantics, lets get to the nitty gritty, and don't be afraid to give examples esp. with regards to music that you've been listening to lately...


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Sid James said:


> ... I didn't mean to lock down the debate to be just around these two words.
> 
> ... let's not get too bogged down in semantics, lets get to the nitty gritty, and don't be afraid to give examples esp. with regards to music that you've been listening to lately...


I agree entirely. I was even the first one to give examples, while not many other replies thus far have.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Scarpia said:


> Is there anything that *isn't* a combination of the sublime and the mundane? I'm one of the sort lacking imagination who looks up words in the dictionary. Mundane means of the world and sublime means beyond the world. Two mutually exclusive categories which together include everything. How is it possible to define something which isn't a combination of mundane and sublime, at least if we include the limit of sublime fraction approaching zero?


See, Sid, you made me waste my time on a pointless post. Define these words now, good man, before I am forced to challenge you to a duel!


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I'm tired and am being childish. Away with me, I say!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^As I said, it basically boils down to a combination of the ordinary and the extraordinary. My last post above gives more detail & examples. I want this discussion to not necessarily revolve around my response to that opening statement but what you all think of it, how you see it, agree/disagree/middling, etc...


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Now, there is another side to this, which is the deliberate combination of "ordinary" and extraordinary. Good examples include pieces written for more than one player in mind of different virtuosity in the one piece, requiring virtuosic and ordinary (i.e. not virtuosic) parts. For example, Mozart's concerto for three pianos, K242 where the third piano part is rather ordinary, originally composed for the daughters of one of his students or his students (I can't remember which). Likewise with say, Bach's _Brandenburg_ #6 where one of the viola da gamba parts was written for his boss, who was a keen but amatuer viol player. Though these pieces as a whole are of course, not mundane.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Discuss this statement, in relation to classical music -
> 
> All music is a combination of the sublime and the mundane.


Here's a preparatory thought. The, some would say, great musicologist Hans Keller proposed a criterion for assessing greatness of a piece of music (not the only criterion, but a necessary one). It is couched in terms of background and foregroud. Background is what the listener expects to hear, and foreground is what he or she wasn't expecting. Too much background and you get something which is routine, banal, predictable. The more foreground there is after a certain point, the more the music alienates - a little too much and you have composers that are an "acquired taste", like Gesualdo, a lot too much and you get composers who just turn off vast swathes of the paying public, like Milton Babbitt. (My examples, not Keller's.)

Greatness lies in knowing where that certain point is, according to Keller - that is why Mozart's piano concerti are greater than those of his contemporaries.

So, I think the sublime takes off from that certain point. But too much sublimity becomes cloying, too rich - think of the Allegri _Miserere _which is so successful precisely because the melismata are grounded in the chant.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Well, I agree with the OP when it concerns good music. Much music could probably be considered mundane through and through. Good music includes sections or parts that, by themselves, are mundane. No one would be especially interested. But then comes the sublime! When you put them together, the effect can be profound. As an example, Salieri in the film Amadeus discusses the adagio of Mozart's Wind Serenade Op. 361 in terms of ordinary and sublime (though I'm not sure exactly what words were used). It begins in an ordinary fashion, but then it becomes as wonderful as music can be. Throughout the movement, there is a three note background that remains ordinary, but interplay of instruments on top is sublime.

The first 0:25 is mundane. Then the magic begins.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*@ Jeremy M* - Your reference to "background and foreground" & a composer finding balance between the two rings true with me for sure. Another member on this forum, some guy, talked of the "background" aspect - or something quite similar - in THIS post today on another thread. My hobbyhorse of ideology has a bit to do with this as well.

*@ mmsbls *- What you say makes me think of Beethoven's 9th, that choral ending. There, he does something quite extraordinary with very ordinary, some say banal, material. Of course opinions differ on whether what he does is extraordinary or banal, but probably it's both. It's Beethoven's working out that makes this interesting and enduring. I find the same or similar thing with other favourite composers of mine like Janacek. His two string quartets have banal material as springboards but what he does with that mundane or banal, maybe potentially cliched folkish material, is quite sublime, imo. These are the quartets that got me really into the genre, esp. in music of the c20th, and maybe this "dichotomy" is partly the reason.

I think that to separate the two, banal and sublime, maybe a false dichotomy anyway, and very hard to do at times. Of course it's also in the eyes or ears of the beholder. I agree with Rossini's jest that Wagner's music "has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour." Obviously, many people think otherwise (but it was a joke, Rossini was a very whimsical guy), but it's all based on experience which is individual in any case...


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## Scarpia (Jul 21, 2010)

I guess what interests me is not that music is a combination of mundane and sublime, but the way that a "genius" (another undefinable term) can transform what is overtly "mundane" into something "sublime." I would cite Mozart as the most obvious example. His music is full of gestures which are so simple, but seem be be imbued with some undefinable magic.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

This thread is a good example of why normal people can't stand talking about classical music - too abstract! :lol:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Ravellian said:


> This thread is a good example of why normal people can't stand talking about classical music - too abstract! :lol:


Well it could be applied to any type of music, eg. discussing the statement I put in my opening post. I was thinking of asking it in relation to all music but I thought it would be more simpler or whatever to just limit it to the classical area.

But it can apply to anything and that's why I asked for examples later. Eg. Ravi Shankar has moments of genius (if you will?) and also moments of noodling or less interesting things going on. Same with J. S. Bach, his music happens at different levels. Or Mozart as people said above. Or with lots of non-classical I listen to, a whole variety of things go on, from surface to deep. It's all subjective of course, what we label this all with, what we value in music, etc...


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## Guest (Dec 14, 2011)

I get this now: the 'mundane' might be unpromising thematic material, as one example, which has been transformed into an amazing piece of music. This is what the cellist was referring to when he talking about the Bach Suits for Cello, based as they were on dance suits of the baroque. Yes, we can all think of trite little tunes which have ended up as masterpieces. What about the "Diabelli Variations" by Beethoven? What did he do with a very ordinary (mundane) little tune by Diabelli? I think would be a good springboard for further discussion.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Quite a philosophical answer. Can you kindly give practical examples using well known pieces to support your thoughts?


I'm not sure if I can, I was talking on a quite general level. But I can try to put some of it in other words. Nature, or the phenomenal world, can be seen as random, meaningless or mundane. The world "within us", the world of ideas, can be seen as the world of reason, of patterns, of the sublime, perhaps; sublime is not a bad word for it because it transcends our senses, goes beyond them.

Then I made an analogy to music: if you play just random notes on a piano, the "composition" is indeed random - not very pleasant to listen to. It might amuse the listener for a very short while, while he's looking for a pattern in the noise. But because the listener's mind cannot follow it at all, it has no lasting musical value. This kind of music might be described as "mundane" - you can hear similar sounds in nature. It's just noise.

Whereas, if you play, say, the 8 notes of the C major scale in order from one C to another C octave higher, you're playing a very structured and predictable "composition". Once listener hears the first couple of notes, he can guess where it's going - not a very pleasant listening experience, either. The playing fulfills the listener's expectations completely, too completely. This kind of music might be described as "sublime" - it transcends the randomness of nature into a pattern that originates from the human mind, the world "within us".

Then, where we get art, true music, is where these two principles are harmoniously mixed: we can follow the music with our mind, but cannot completely guess where it's going.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Xaltotun said:


> I for one like dialectic/dualistic decriptions of things. To my mind at least, they are great tools and help me hammer some sense into difficult concepts. Sergei Eisenstein wrote that art is born at the point where "industry" and "nature" meet. This is somewhat analogous with "law" and "chaos"; it's about the presentation of the form of art. I could try to hammer "sublime" and "mundane" into it, but now that think of it, it seems more analogous with pairs such as "spirit and matter" and "content and form"; i.e. art as an object and art as a experience; the truth in the work and the truth beyond the work.
> 
> If we look at it like that, then "sublime" means the experience, and "mundane" means the tones as they're played, or the notes on the partiture. Thus, the "mundane" always exists with any music, but the "sublime" only exists if the listener had any thoughts or emotions about the music. It's quite rare that the listener does not feel anything at all; thus, the "sublime" is practically omnipresent - but it cannot exist without the "mundane" that sort of gives birth to it.
> 
> ...


I think I might well go mad---but I'm glad you told me all that!!


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## CameraEye (Nov 18, 2011)

My idea of the "sublime" and "mundane" in music is practically the same as in any other art. I don´t know where the exact limit between both concepts lies but there is a point in the creative process of a composer where the sublime trascends the mundane. The composer makes use of his technical habilities to accomplish the plan he had initially conceived. In all this process he is following his will but there´s a point where his intention may vanish to be replaced by inspiration/imagination. The moments where the music is most alive are the moments where the composer´s imagination is most engaged and where he will be expressing his deepest art (sublime). His imagination is less at work in those parts of music which are much more laboured (mundane), where he is following his intention. And of course, a work of art may be technically perfect but with no inspiration at all. It is inspiration what most appeals to me though the "mundane" is also part of the process.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

> I'm not sure if I can, I was talking on a quite general level. But I can try to put some of it in other words. Nature, or the phenomenal world, can be seen as random, meaningless or mundane. The world "within us", the world of ideas, can be seen as the world of reason, of patterns, of the sublime, perhaps; sublime is not a bad word for it because it transcends our senses, goes beyond them.
> 
> Then I made an analogy to music: if you play just random notes on a piano, the "composition" is indeed random - not very pleasant to listen to. It might amuse the listener for a very short while, while he's looking for a pattern in the noise. But because the listener's mind cannot follow it at all, it has no lasting musical value. This kind of music might be described as "mundane" - you can hear similar sounds in nature. It's just noise.
> 
> ...


A very interesting idea. You just blew my mind.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

CameraEye said:


> ...The moments where the music is most alive are the moments where the composer´s imagination is most engaged and where he will be expressing his deepest art (sublime). His imagination is less at work in those parts of music which are much more laboured (mundane), where he is following his intention...


Which reminds me of Thomas Edison's quote -

"Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."

He was talking of his own work as a scientist and inventor, of course, so it's not exactly the same for composers, perhaps.
Source here


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