Doesn't apply to music, I feel. A great musician goes deeper and deeper into a work. Same with composers: early/middle Beethoven is perfect, glorious - and then he goes into other worlds.
This is a profoundly pessimistic assessment. If we cannot learn from our past -- if not even the most sedulous and prolonged study of our predecessors' achievements can enable us to see farther than they -- then we are in the nightmarish position of Sisyphus. Why go on at all?
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We are reflecting on the difference between knowable and unknowable. Certain physical truths are in the former category, whereas many of us - fancifully perhaps - put beauty is in the latter. The fact finite 'progress' is impossible in art is not depressing, but inspiring.
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To me this just seems patently absurd. Who but an arrogant ignoramus would insist that great past artists contribute nothing lasting to the practice of their art? Do cellists today learn nothing from Casals and Rostropovich? Do pianists learn nothing from Rubinstein and Richter?
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