“‘To talk about music’ is a miserable paradox, and contains in four words an admission of incongruity. I remember the embarrassed feeling I had when I read Kierkegaard’s somber theological speculations on Mozart and Don Giovanni. Is Don Giovanni not just a ‘charming’ opera which has a place on the repertoire somewhere with Carmen and The Barber of Seville? Or is it something entirely different, opening up the fathomless abyss of human existence? There is a hierarchy of values, the validity of which cannot be proved by what one calls ordinary means. In this respect, as in others, the Good and the Beautiful are intimately related. To me Mozart’s quartets and Bach’s Well-tempered Clavichord are in essence much more closely akin to Saint Thomas’ Summa than to Wagner’s G
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
