In 1952, [John Cage] scandalized a crowd at Black Mountain College by saying that Beethoven had misled generations of composers by structuring music in goal-oriented harmonic narratives instead of letting it unfold moment by moment. At a New York gathering, he was heard to say, "Beethoven was wrong!" The poet John  Ashberry overheard the remark, and for years afterward wondered what Cage had meant.  Eventually, Ashberry approached Cage again. "I once heard you say something about Beethoven," the poet began, "and I've always wondered—" Cage's eyes lit up. "Beethoven was wrong!" he exclaimed. "Beethoven was wrong!" And he walked away.

—Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century