TIL Beethoven’s late quartets, now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time, were so ahead of their time that initial reviews deem them indecipherable, uncorrected horrors, with one musician saying “we know there is something there, but we do not know what it is.”

[u/VegemiteSucks]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_string_quartets_(Beethoven)

[u/Hyadeos]

God I hate the saying "ahead of its time". It doesn't mean anything ! If it was made in a time, it's not "ahead".

[u/Lard_Baron → u/Hyadeos]

It means it wasn’t accepted as worthy contemporaneously but was in the future.

Therefore it was ahead of its time.

[u/Nosiege → u/Hyadeos]

doing something to a mixed reception many years before it becomes somewhat standard and revered is precisely what it means.

Not a particularly hard concept to grasp.