Classicism and False Values

Extract

I would like to say a few words on a subject that may appear, at first consideration, to be highly controversial. To those whose appreciation of the classical in music is perfectly sincere, who feel that a large proportion of it is irrevocably established as a fully adequate expression of the beautiful, with the beauty that brooks no denial, my view of the matter may possibly savour of the irreverent, not to say impertinent. I desire to be neither irreverent nor impertinent, but merely venture to suggest that we place an unduly high value on much musical work that has come into the category of the classical, either by reason of its remoteness from our current thought and methods, or by reason of its historical position in revealing definite points of development and expansion in an art that is still seeking an approach to maturity.