Julian Johnson Quote

Classical music is at odds with contemporary culture precisely because of its insistence on the tension between the bodily and intellectual, the material and the spiritual, the thinglike and its transcendence in thought. A culture that is merely sensuous and that denies the activity of the mind within sensuous materials risks becoming pornographic.

Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value (ed. Oxford University Press, 2011) - ISBN: 9780199831197