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Quotation by Anthony Burgess
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Anthony Burgess (14)Additional Sources
Face (London, Dec. 1984)Face (London, December 1984)Guardian (London, Feb. 24, 1989)London Independent (London, Jan. 31, 1990)Observer (London, May 25, 1986)Related Subjects
exile (1) classicism and antiquity (1) decay (1) artists (1) freedom (1) Rome (1) obscenity (1)
It is unjust that Italy should claim musical pre-eminence, even forcing Italian on music as its international language, when Italy's genius is so visual. No nation can build towns as beautiful nor claim a better right to regard nature as a shapeless substance to be redeemed by urbifaction. The Italians are not Wordsworthian. Man fulfils himself in the town. There is too much wild nature in music, and it has to be tamed into simple four-square patterns, as in Verdi and Bellini. The tenor does not proclaim Byronically to the woods and hills: he is a kind of sexy politician for the town piazza. The Italians would listen to Aaron, but not to Moses.
Anthony Burgess (b. 1917), British author, critic. You've Had Your Time, pt. 4 (1990).
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Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by written agreement, the following are prohibited: copying substantial portions or the entirety of the work in machine readable form, making multiple printouts thereof, and other uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws.
