Musicking Quotes

“The corps of Great Composers who provided the works that are played here are all dead; living musicians may have their works played here from time to time, as a kind of courtesy, but it is the dead who command the loyalty of audiences, and it is their works that are played here over and over again with loving note-for-note accuracy.”
― Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening

“The reverence accorded to the composer’s score suggests that it is a sacred object, which is not to be tampered with, whose authority over the actions of all the musicians playing here tonight is absolute, which commands absolute stillness and silence from those devotees who have assembled to hear it performed.”
― Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening

“In a word, a concert hall is a place where middle-class white people can feel safe together.”
― Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening