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Music Quotes Homepage
Music Quotes about & from Musicians & Composers - Page 3
Commentary © 2007 Richard J. Chandler & Bonnett Chandler
It seems that prodigies have always enamored us humans. In an interview for London Magazine in 1967, Igor Stravinsky, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century - who wasn’t recognized for having much talent at all until he was almost thirty years old - weighed in on this issue as follows:
“I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. ‘That’s different. For a monkey, it’s terrific’.”
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
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Arthur Schnabel championed Beethoven’s piano compositions at a time in musical history when they were seldom heard in concert. He believed that musicality was much more important than technical virtuosity. I resonate with this quote because, for me, the most engaging way to listen to music is by reverberating within the space between the notes, as if I am the body of a musical instrument.
“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides!”
- Arthur Schnabel (1882-1951)
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Three sharp barbs regarding music...
“There are some experiences in life that should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.”
- George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)
“A gentlemen is a man who can play an accordion but doesn’t”
- Anonymous
“Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.”
- Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
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This Swiss-American composer, whose early works were influenced by Debussy and Strauss, drew inspiration for his later works from Jewish liturgical and folk music.
“Debussy is like a painter who looks at his canvas to see what more he can take out; Strauss is like a painter who has covered every inch and then takes the paint he has left and throws it at the canvas.”
- Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)
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One paradox in art, music and much of life, is that what seems like a limited medium is in reality, unlimited.
“I know that the 12 notes in each octave and the varieties of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.”
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
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From the blind organist who recorded the complete organ works of JS Bach from 1966 – 1971:
“Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him people feel there is meaning to life after all.”
- Helmut Walcha (1907-1991)
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An expression of gratitude from a 1946 song by composer and lyricist Irvin Berlin…
“Got no checkbooks, got no banks,
Still I’d like to express my thanks…
I got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night."
- Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
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Because Igor & Vera Stravinsky had parrots in their home for many years, and these pet birds are so much like children in temperament and intelligence, it is not surprising that the birds actually understood his music best, as they had heard his pieces from inception to completed compositions.
"My music is best understood by children and animals."
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
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Consciousness quote from 'Grateful Dead' band leader...
"I think consciousness has a place in the cosmic game, the atoms and universe game, the big game. I can’t imagine that it’s mindless – there’s too much organization, and the organization is too incredible."
- Jerry Garcia (1942-1996)
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Sting quote about American music evolution, jazz & rock. While I initially wanted to share this more lengthy quote by Sting with you - based on the last sentence, which seemed surprising to me, as it comes from the most famous member of one of the dominant rock bands of all time - I was also struck the Sting’s lucidity and brevity within this one paragraph as he shows how a polyphonic style of playing carried through from early jazz to bebop and through to the music that he played as a young musician.
“Trad, or traditional New Orleans-style jazz, was raw and authentic, closer to its blues roots than the sophisticated dance music that followed it. This quest for authenticity led many musicians to the smaller band format, usually comprising a rhythm section and three front-line players, trumpet, clarinet, and trombone. More often than not the trumpet would take the melody while the other two improvised fugue. (This music would evolve and eventually reach its apogee in the bebop improvisations of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Theolonious Monk, but this development was to a large extent ignored by enthusiastic British amateurs who were trying exclusively to re-create a music that belonged to a bygone era.) These small bands thrived in the pubs and clubs of Newcastle, the tradition kept alive in the music of the River City Jazzmen, The Vieux Carre Jazzmen and the Phoenix Jazzmen. I would play in all of these combos at one time or another and developed a deep fondness for the raucous polyphony of these bands in full flight. It was every bit as exciting and visceral as rock and roll.”
- Sting
(Gordon Sumner) from Broken Music – a memoir. First published in 2003 by The Dial Press, a Random House subsidiary.
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Quote Based on experiencing the work of Gurdjieff
Gurdjieff, who lived and studied in middle Asia and the mid-east in the late 1800's & early 1900's, was an esoteric philosopher, businessperson, musician and choreographer of sacred dance. One of his students wrote this description while immersed in Gurdjieff's dance and music. It mirrors my experience as a musician, and perhaps that of yours, while engaged in your chosen art form.
“There can come a moment when one is really aware that this movement is in us wholly and that we are at one with it. It is an extraordinary experience. When this first began to happen to me, it taught me more than almost anything else. I realised how it is possible to be quite at one with what one is doing, yet feel oneself wholly free. The feeling of ‘I’ disappears and when it disappears, in that state - that state of real doing - there is something much greater than this that comes... There is an awareness that this is what it really means to be.”
- J.G. Bennett
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