Charles Rosen Quote

If getting used to music is the essential condition for understanding, it is hard to see just what purpose is served by writing about it. A few experiences of listening to a symphony or nocturne are worth more than any essay or analysis. The work of art itself teaches us how to understand it, and makes the critic not merely parasitical but strictly superfluous.

Ch. 1 : The Frontiers of Nonsense - The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994)