“These grow worse yearly, but never will I give them
up. For one thing, they compel me to attend no wool-gathering or thinking
myself clever here – and they drain off all non-musical matter. For another
thing, they teach me a little about construction. I see what becomes of a
phrase, how it is transformed or returned, sometimes bottom upward, and get
some notion of the relation of keys. Playing Beethoven, as I generally do, I
grow familiar with his tricks, his impatience, his sudden softnesses, his
dropping of a tragic theme one semitone, his love, when tragic, for the key of
C minor, and his aversion to the key of B major. This gives me a physical
approach of Beethoven which cannot be gained through the slough of
‘appreciation.’ Even when people play as badly as I do, they should continue:
it will help them to listen.”—E. M. Forster (1879-1970), “Not Listening to
Music,” in Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
The portrait of British novelist-essayist E.M. Forster (1879-1970) was painted by
Dora Carrington around 1924 or 1925.
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