“These facts make the creator of music a being like the gods, and make music itself the supreme mystery of human knowledge.” HumansFactsMysteryCreatorSupremeHuman Knowledge Author:Claude Levi-Strauss
“The work of the painter, the poet or the musician, like the myths and symbols of the savage, ought to be seen by us, if not as a superior form of knowledge, at least as the most fundamental and the only one really common to us all; scientific thought is merely the sharp point more penetrating because it has been whetted on the stone of fact, but at the cost of some loss of substance and its effectiveness is to be explained by its power to pierce sufficiently deeply for the main body of the tool to follow the head.” IfsHas BeensFactsBodyFormLossCommonPoetOughtCostMusicianToolsStonesFundamentalsMythSuperiorsPainterSymbolsSubstanceSavagesEffectivenessPierce Book:Tristes Tropiques Source: Tristes Tropiques
“Music is a language by whose means messages are elaborated, that such messages can be understood by the many but sent out only by few, and that it alone among all the languages unites the contradictory character of being at once intelligible and untranslatable - these facts make the creator of music a being like the gods.” MeanCharacterFactsLanguageMusicMessagesMusic IsUnderstoodCreatorContradictory Author:Claude Levi-Strauss
“The musical emotion springs precisely from the fact that at each moment the composer withholds or adds more or less than the listener anticipates on the basis of a pattern that he thinks he can guess, but that he is incapable of wholly divining. . . .” ThinkingMomentsFactsEmotionSpringBasesAddMusicalPatternsComposerListenersIncapableAnticipate Author:Claude Levi-Strauss
“The musical emotion springs precisely from the fact that at each moment the composer withholds or adds more or less than the listener anticipates on the basis of a pattern that he thinks he can guess, but that he is incapable of wholly divining. If the composer withholds more than we anticipate, we experience a delicious falling sensation; we feel we have been torn from a stable point on the musical ladder and thrust into the void. When the composer withholds less, the opposite occurs: he forces us to perform gymnastic exercises more skillful than our own.” IfsThinkingFeelsHas BeensMomentsFactsFallForceEmotionMusicExerciseSpringOppositesBasesAddMusicalPatternsSensationsVoidComposerStableListenersIncapableTornDeliciousLaddersAnticipateThrustSkillful Author:Claude Levi-Strauss
“There is one fact that can be established. The only phenomenon which, always and in all parts of the world, seems to be linked with the appearance of writing” WorldWritingFactsSeemsSocietyAppearancePhenomenonLinked Author:Claude Levi-Strauss
