Jocelyn Wang replies to me replying to Walter:

>>>Can you explain why you would not be able to listen to Mozart's g minor
>>>quintet (K516) "without giving credit to the fact that we listen to a
>>>musical testimony of the past", assuming that you, like me, consider the
>>>work a sublime masterpiece?
>>
>>One reason is because through continual exposure, we've become very
>>familiar with Mozart's and Bach's musical language.
>
>But at some point, before we were exposed to it frequently, it was new
>to us, regardless of when it was composed.  With great art, one is not
>reminded of its time, but of its timelessness.

Not "exposed to it," but "exposed to them" -- not only to Mozart and Bach,
but also to their contemporaries.  There's also the problem that this
assumes that great art, once it "makes it," remains untouched, invincible
from mundane things as changeable fashion and so on.  Historically, this
has not been the case.  Great works go in and out of notice all the time.
We sometimes collectively forget how to listen to them and have to somehow
find our way back, either through the sweat of our brow alone or through
the help of performers and, God save us, of critics.

Steve Schwartz