That's good question and we don't know for sure. No doubt being told that a piece of music is good and that one should learn to appreciate it is influential in developing one's appreciation but it seems that things are more complex than just that.

For instance, take Beethoven's Symphony No 5 in C minor, you know the one with the famous opening that repeatedly taps out 'V' for victory in Morse code. Not only are we told that it's by the famous deaf composer Beethoven but also we've become very familiar with it because it's played so often. That's further reinforced when we're told the sad story about how Beethoven 'overcame' his deafness and became the greatest of great composers. It's a well-known story steeped deep within our culture.

However, as one becomes more familiar with the work and or as one's knowledge of music increases something else happens. One begins to see there's something very cleaver and unusual about how Beethoven modulates his themes across and between different instruments. Instead of, say, giving the melody or main theme to just one instrument or a group of them to play in unison one notices that he often breaks it up and shares it across numbers of seemingly disparate instruments in a somewhat illogical fashion; that is until one realizes the remarkable sounds and effects he's produced by doing so.

The first time one picks up a full orchestral score of a Beethoven symphony or piano concerto it'll drive one a little crazy, one's jumping all over the page trying to follow what he's done.

It's only when one begins to get the full gist of what he's on about that one begins to realize and appreciate the true genius of the man - and that what he's done is far from being illogical and contorted - but instead his arrangement has turned out to be about as cleaver as is possible. In fact, what one's witnessing is genius at work.

Eventually, one comes across a composition by Beethoven that one's never been told about let alone one's ever heard before, one's opinions thus have to be made made in comparative isolation. When one again recognizes similar techniques and traits of genius here too then one comes to the inevitable conclusion that there's something very special about the works of this man that no else has ever successfully duplicated.

What happens is that the more one becomes involved with and knowledgeable about music the more one becomes familiar with the reasons for why certain composers and or why certain compositions of theirs have become famous and why they have been repeatedly deemed so over many, many decades.

In the grand schema of things, throughout history these composers and their works have been singled out by many different people from many different cultures and backgrounds and with varying degrees of expertise and for whatever reason they all come to commonly similar conclusions that there's something special about these composers and their works.

The fact that many people from disparate origins have come to similar conclusions and have done so over such a long time suggests there's something more at work than people just thinking these works are good for no particular reason. Clearly, for whatever reason, these works possess some quality that sets them apart; nevertheless, despite that, it's my understanding there's still no general agreement about what that property actually is. Discovering and quantifying that 'essence' ought to be worthy of a Nobel prize, I reckon.

To illustrate the point let's again take Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. During the height of WWII, the British singled out this symphony because its opening bars dramatically and repeatedly rang out 'V' for Victory, it was a great rallying call to British citizens and their allies. Yet nevertheless at no time was Beethoven's German heritage brought into question. Simply, the music spoke for itself, not the background and culture from which it came.

Similarly, Zadok the Priest, a famous British anthem, was composed by the German composer George Frideric Handel, yet in 1953 with WWII still fresh in British minds, it didn't stop it being performed at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Music is mostly valued for what's perceived as its 'intrinsic' quality, its roots and cultural origins play little part in that perception.