What's the meaning of "There's no great pretension" in this context?
"There is no great pretension in the work as a musical composition other than that which aims at the representation of a national peculiarity and the reproduction, in a quasi-classical form, of things that are in their origin popular"

What does this phrase mean: "There is no great pretension"? Does it mean there's nothing better than?
I find this sentence rather complicated :(

Question

What's the meaning of "There's no great pretension" in this context?
"There is no great pretension in the work as a musical composition other than that which aims at the representation of a national peculiarity and the reproduction, in a quasi-classical form, of things that are in their origin popular"

What does this phrase mean: "There is no great pretension"? Does it mean there's nothing better than?
I find this sentence rather complicated :(

Answer

Well you are not the only one who is confused by this sentence. There certainly is great pretension in the sentence!

In my opinion what it is trying to say is that the piece of music it is referring is just a piece of popular music and is not trying to be anything more than that (it has no "pretension" to be great art, for example).

That is my reading of the sentence, but others may have different opinions.

Answers · 1

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