Classical Music

"I have often recurred to a distinction of experience in the zrts that seems to me a genuine one. If we are listening to music on the level of say, Schumann or Tchaikovsky, we are listening to highly skillful craftsmanship by a distinguished and original composer. If then we listen to, say, the 'Kyries' of the Bach B Minor Mass or the Mozart Requiem, a certain impersonal element enters. What we hear is still "subjective" in the sense that it is obviously Bach or Mozart, and could not possibly be anyone else. At the same time there is a sense of listening to the voice of music itself" (Frye, 216).

Always a whiz with the words. Frye makes a valid point later on comparing classical literature to classical music. Hes states that each speak with the voice of their represented medium. When it's good it's because you're not hearing the author or the composer, instead you are hearing drama and music.

It seems to be a very formalist perspective, but I like the lyrical quality from which he says it.