A work of art is the creation by a human being for other human beings; the maker, the work itself, and the human being at the receiving end all belong to the same system of signals and communication and hence, of meaning. The material side of this system is only instrumental to meaning but not part of it — it is a means to an end and not an end to itself. Understanding the means is thus something different from understanding the end, it is the difference between the understanding of the gynecologist and the lover.

—John Borstlap, The Classical Revolution: Thoughts on New Music in the 21^st Century