The esthetics of music is not popular. Musicians suspect it of being abstract talk far removed from musical reality; the musical public fears philosophical reflections of the kind one ought to leave to the initiated, rather than plaguing one`s own mind with unnecessary philosophical difficulties.
Understandable as this mistrustful irritation with the sundry chatter of self-proclaimed music esthetics might be, it would be erroneous to imagine that esthetic problems in music are located in the hazy distance beyond everday musical matters. In fact, when viewed dispassionately, they are thoroughly tangible and immediate.
Carl Dahlhaus; The Idea of Absolute Music.
'...an undogmatic theory of art must recognise that the criterion of audibility, of complete realisation by perception, is not a natural law of aesthetics but a postulate of historically limited scope. By rigorously restricting the concept of music or of "music proper" to the perceptible, one curtails historic reality for the sake of dogma not older than the eighteenth century'.
Carl Dahlhaus: 'Analysis and Value Judgement'..., quoted in 'Music, Imagination and Culture': Nicholas Cook
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