Category: Composers quotes

  • Joe Hisaishi on the score of The Boy and the Heron

    “I did not want to describe emotions or scenes through music. I wanted to be at a certain distance from the story and the characters, and I wanted to be in between the actual story and what we see on the screen, and the viewers, in terms of writing the music.” — Joe Hisaishi T.…

  • Debussy on impressionism

    What I am trying to do is something ‘different’ – an effect of reality, but what some fools call Impressionism, a term that is utterly misapplied, especially by critics who do not hesitate to apply it to Turner, the greatest creator of mysterious effect in the world of art. — Claude Debussy B. James, Ravel:…

  • Ravel on Debussy

    In a lecture in 1928 in Houston, Texas, Ravel described the differences between Debussy and his approach to composition: For Debussy the musician and the man I have had profound admiration, but by nature I am different from him. Although he may not be quite a stranger from my own personal heritage, I would at…

  • Ravel on Satie

    In 1928, Ravel delivered a lecture in Houston Texas. He mentioned the influence of Satie: Another significant influence – less than unique and derived in part from Chabrier – is that of Satie, who had a notable effect on Debussy, on myself and, to tell the truth, on the majority of modern French composers. Satie…

  • Rachmaninoff on modernity versus his musical style

    I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing, and I cannot acquire the new. I have made intense effort to feel the musical manner of today, but it will not come to me. Unlike Madame Butterfly with her quick religious conversion, I cannot…

  • Debussy on Chopin

    Chopin is the greatest of them all, for through the piano alone he discovered everything. — Claude Debussy P. Kildea, Chopin’s Piano, London, Allen Lane, 2018, p. 40.

  • Schumann on Chopin’s style

    Chopin can hardly write anything now but that we feel like calling out in the seventh or eighth measure, “It is by him!” – Robert Schumann, 1838 P. Kildea, Chopin’s Piano, London, Allen Lane, 2018, p. 43.

  • Tchaikovsky on Arensky

    “Arensky is a man of remarkable gifts, but morbidly nervous and lacking in firmness—altogether a strange man.” Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in a letter to N. F. von Meck, Frolovskoe, July 2nd (14th), 1890. Cited in Modest Tchiakovsky, The Life & Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, np., Outlook Verlag, 2018, p. 477.

  • Music: the product of feeling and knowledge

    Music is at once the product of feeling and knowledge, for it requires from its disciples, composers and performers alike, not only talent and enthusiasm, but also that knowledge and perception which are the result of protracted study and reflection. Hector Berlioz, A Travers Chants. Cited in I. Lipsius, Thoughts of Great Musicians, London, Augener,…

  • Brahms on Schubert

    My love for Schubert is a very serious one, probably because it is no fleeting fancy. Where is genius like his, which soars heavenwards so boldly and surely, where we see the few supreme ones enthroned. He is to me like a son of the gods, playing with Jupiter’s thunder, and also occasionally handling it…

  • Hans Zimmer on the musical experience

    Everybody tells you that the youth of today, whoever they are, have a short attention span, and you can’t give them anything decent. That’s complete crap. The youth of today, just like anyone else, like a good story and want to be transported, and to have an experience. They don’t want to be bored, so…

  • Hans Zimmer on writing pop songs

    Ask him to write a song, though, and he’ll likely turn you down on the basis that he has a problem with “any form of authority, and the authority that is put upon you of writing a song”. “Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight…” he says. “It’s always the same bloody structure. I end up…

  • The importance of melody

    I have never questioned the importance of melody. I love melody, and I regard it as the most important element in music. I have worked on the improvement of its quality in my compositions for many years. To find a melody instantly understandable even to the uninitiated listener, and at the same time an original…

  • Debussy improvising

    Debussy would sit himself down without speaking at the piano of the little study-cum-library and start to improvise. Anyone who knew him can remember what it was like. He would start by brushing the keys, prodding the odd one here and there, making a pass over them and then he would sink into velvet, sometimes…

  • The artist’s soul

    There is, behind the soul and the whole life of the artist, perhaps a suffering soul … The moment one day will come in which perhaps yourself – if you possess a soul as I wish to believe – you will be able to see through feeling without any explanation. – Dimitri Mitropoulos to Leonard…

  • Music in the very heart of noise

    I frequently hear music in the very heart of noise. — George Gerswhin Goldberg, Isaac, and Garson, Edith. George Gershwin: A Study in American Music. United Kingdom, F. Ungar Publishing Company, 1958, p.139.

  • Saint-Saëns on composing

    “I produce music as an apple tree produces apples.” — Camille Saint-Saëns Musical Heritage Review. Musical Heritage Society, volume 1, issues 13-18, p.47.

  • Saint-Saëns on the art of music

    The artist who does not feel completely satisfied by elegant lines, by harmonious colours, and by a beautiful succession of chords does not understand the art of music. — Camille Saint-Saëns Cited in Milton Cross David Ewan, Encyclopedia of Great Composers and Their Music, volume 2. Double Day, 1969, p.819.

  • The meaning of American Pie

    When questioned about the meaning of American Pie, Don McLean would quip. “It means I’ll never have to work again.” Rob Walker, “Don McLean on the tragedy behind American Pie: ‘I cried for two years’”, The Guardian, 22 October 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/22/don-mclean-american-pie-its-meaning-family-deaths-tragedy-60s?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

  • Jan Lisiecki on Chopin

    Schumann described Chopin’s works as “cannons buried in flowers”.  Contained in Chopin’s music are painful moments, suffering, longing and much drama. Similarly to Mozart, the external impression may be one of pure beauty, elegance, exuberance or joy but, deep down, there is something else entirely, a sort of imprecise discomfort, a certain malaise. The contrast…

  • Einstein on Mozart

    Einstein wrote that Mozart’s music “was so pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be discovered by the master.” Lyth, David (2019) The Road to Einstein’s Relativity. Boca Ranton: CRC Press, p.131.

  • Saint-Saens on Bach and Mozart

    “What gives Sebastian Bach and Mozart a place apart is that these two great expressive composers never sacrificed form to expression. As high as their expression may soar, their musical form remains supreme and all-sufficient.” – Camille Saint-Saëns, from a letter to Camille Bellaigue, 1907 Cited in: Fisk, Josiah (ed.) (1997) Composers On Music: Eight…

  • Tchaikovsky on Don Giovanni

    Tchaikovsky, later in his life, reflected on hearing Mozart's Don Giovanni as a boy: The music of Don Giovanni was the first to conquer me completely.  It awoke an ecstasy in me of which the consequences are known.  It gave me the key to the spheres of pure beauty in which the greatest geniuses soar. …

  • I am not highbrow

    After writing his opera Porgy and Bess, producers in Hollywood started to think that Gerswhin was turning “highbrow”.  George and Ira Gerswhin’s agent told Ira :”They think George is too highbrow.  Can’t he write a few words and explain to them?” George wired: “Rumours about highbrow music ridiculous.  Am out to write hits.” – George…

  • Capturing the pulse of the time

    "I try to put the pulse of my times into my music and do it in a lasting way." – George Gerswhin Cited in: Greenberg, Rodney (2008) George Gerswhin.  New York: Phaidon Press, p.216.   '

  • Music is a mysterious form of mathematics

    Music is a mysterious form of mathematics whose elements are derived from the infinite. Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes. There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in…

  • Music acting as a spirit resonance

    My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing.  To attempt what old Chinese painters called "spirit resonance" in melody and sound. – Alan Hovhaness. Cited at The Alan Hovhaness Website: http://www.hovhaness.com/Hovhaness.html

  • You cannot hope for substance

    “You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance.” – Charles Ives, American composer

  • Fightened of ideas

    “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” – John Cage Cited in: Richard Kostelantez. Conversing with Cage (New York : Limelight Editions, 1988).

  • Bernstein’s response to violence

    This will be our response to violence To make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.  – Leonard Bernstein.

  • Writing music is easier than words

    "I would rather write 10,000 notes than one letter of the alphabet."' Beethoven.  Letter, 28 November 1820.  Cited in: Kelly, Henry & Foley, John (1998) Classic FM: Musical Anecdotes.  London: Hodder & Stouhgtan, p.68.

  • A specialized skill set

    “You know I’m a useless kind of man apart from my music.” – Tchaikovsky Cited in: Hanson, Lawrence and Elisabeth (1965) Tchaikovsky: A New Study of the Man and His Music.  London: Cassell & Company, p.179.

  • Inner-most feelings can be expressed in music

    Taneyev was critical of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Tchaikovsky’s response ended with: “I can see you laughing as you read all of this, you sceptic and mocking-bird.  In spite of your great love of music it seems you still can’t believe that a man can express his inmost feelings in his compositions.  You just wait!” Cited…

  • The effect of Tchaikovsky’s music on his patroness

    Nadyezhda Filaretovna von Meck was Tchaikovsky’s patroness.  In March 1877 she wrote of the effect of Tchaikovsky’s music on her.  The work being described is a Marche Funèbre on a theme from Oprichnik (this work is now lost).    It is so superb that, as I had hoped, it elevates and transports me into a…

  • Finding the voice of Piazzolla

    I was writing symphonies, chamber music, string quartets. But when Nadia Boulanger analyzed my music, she complained that she couldn’t find any Piazzolla in there. She could find Ravel and Stravinsky, maybe Bela Bartok or Hindemith, but never Piazzolla. The truth is I was ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician, that…

  • The forgotten aspect of music

    “One of things that’s been forgotten in music for a long time is the ability to be nakedly emotional”. David Lang, composer Cited in “When Opera Is New and Unproved”, Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, 7 September 2008.

  • A hundred violins may play softer than one

    John Holmes “reiterates that only with a large group can you get a truly soft sound. Sure, a solo fiddle can hold its own against a hundred fiddles: a hundred fiddles are never a hundred times louder than a solo at the same dynamic, since there’s no such animal as “a same dynamic,” or even…

  • Underrated and overrated composers

    “Polls of various musical personalities (but not me) in the Times about who’s underrated and who’s overrated.  Naturally Vivaldi is deemed overrated in the light of Bach.  Since everyone knows he’s overrated.  I’d have said he’s the most underrated of overrated composers.” Ned Rorem (2000) Lies: A Diary 1986-1999.  Cambridge: MA: Da Capo Press, p.82.…

  • Adding quality music to the world

    “My music is melodic.  After all, why add to the world’s problem’s with bad music.” Alexander Prior, composer. Source: Classic FM, December 2009, p.9

  • Understanding the world

    “If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying its manifold apparent dissonances.” Jean Sibelius, in conversation with Gustav Mahler, 1907. Cited in: Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas Living Biographies of Great Composers. Garden City (NY): Blue Ribbon, [1940] 1946) p. 309.  [Cited at Wikiquote.]

  • Music is richer than words

    “If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.” Jean Sibelius, in an interview with Berlingske Tidende, 10th June 1919. Cited at: www.sibelius.fi…

  • Waste no note

    “Never write an unnecessary note. Every note must live.” Jean Sibelius, in a radio interview with Kalevi Kilpi, 1948) Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31 Mar 2010]. 

  • Liberation from formalism

    “The present time has to a great extent liberated itself from symphonic form – from formalism. This started when the concert halls became empty, because that form has nothing to do with human beings. I believe that the present time is progressing.” Jean Sibelius, to Jussi Jalas, 17th July 1946 Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31…

  • Life is green

    “All theory is grey, but the precious tree of life is green.” Maurice Ravel to Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, describing Schoenberg’s intellectualism.  Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, Ravel et nous (Geneva, 1945), p. 104.  Cited in:  Nichols, Roger (1987) Ravel Remembered.  London: Faber & Faber., p. 61.

  • Hogarth on Chopin

    “He accomplishes enormous difficulties, but so quietly, so smoothly and with such constant delicacy and refinement that the listener is not sensible of their real magnitude.  It is the exquisite delicacy, with the liquid mellowness of his tone, and the pearly roundness of his passages of rapid articulation which are the peculiar features of his…

  • Mozart’s masterpieces

    “Mozart makes you believe in God – much more than going to church – because it cannot be by chance that such a phenomenon arrives into this world and then passes after thirty-six years, leaving behind such an unbounded number of unparalleled masterpieces.” Sir Georg Solti Source: Kelly, Henry & Foley, John (1998) Classic FM…

  • Why Israel still shuts Wagner out

    Since its establishment in 1948, Wagner’s music has customarily not been played in Israel’s opera houses and concerts halls due to Wagner’s anti-Semitism.    Terry Teachout writes: “The case of Israel is, of course, unique. I don’t think that Wagner’s anti-Semitism would justify removing his works from the repertoire of, say, the Seattle Opera or…

  • Bernstein’s Workroom

    Leonard Bernstein’s children have donated the contents of his main composing studio to Indiana University.   The contents include “Bernstein’s stand-up composing table; a conducting stool that may have been used by Brahms, given as a gift by the Vienna Philharmonic; an electric pencil sharpener; a telephone; an ashtray and disposable lighters; Grammy-nomination plaques; and…

  • Mozart and Beethoven

    “Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each…

  • Ravel’s fine attributes as a composer

    On his tour to America in 1928, Ravel was highly praised by music critics.  In the New York Times, Olin Downeswrote: Never to have composed in undue haste; never to have offered the public a piece of unfinished work; to have experienced life as an observant and keenly interested beholder, and to have fashioned certain…

  • Szymanowski on Ravel

    The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski wrote of the French composer Maurice Ravel in 1925: Whether he writes a “Rapsodie espagnole”, “Mélodies grecques”, or the almost Viennese “La Valse”, he always remains one of the foremost fascinating representatives of the genius of his race.  He assembles all the fundamental elements of that most beautiful culture in…

  • Sondheim on the language of music

    American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has released a book Finishing the Hat: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes.  The following is an extract from interview an article on Sondheim by Emma Brockes: Initially a maths student at Williams College in Massachusetts, the young Sondheim took…

  • Mozart on Clementi

    “Now I need to say a word to my sister about the Clementi sonatas.  – Anyone who plays them can hear or feel that as compositions they aren’t very much. – There are no remarkable striking passages, except the sixth and the octaves; – and even those I am asking my sister not to spend…

  • I do not choose my listeners

    “I do not choose my listeners. What I mean is, I never write for my listeners. I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them, but the audience must also put a certain effort into it. But I never wrote for an audience and never will…

  • Music is for me to play

    “You claim that I write monstrosities which only the composer can play. What if they were meant only for the composer?” Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji to his friend Peter Warlock. Cited at: Wikipedia

  • Reincken on Bach’s playing

    The famous organist Reincken heard Bach play. Bach improvised for half an hour on the hymn “By the Waters of Babylon”.  Reincken said: “I thought such art was dead, but I see it still lives in you.” Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites.  Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 58.

  • Bach’s reputation

    “The difference between the reputation that Bach enjoyed in his lifetime and that which accumulated posthumously is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of music.” Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites.  Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 65.

  • Paul Simon on music today

    Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel) on the future of the “album” concept: I don’t think the album is going to disappear for several reasons … It’s not that people aren’t listening to albums.  They’re just doing it on shuffle.  What that does is it makes albums more eclectic and more interesting.  But if an…

  • Bruckner’s dog

    Some of Anton Bruckner’s students decided to play a trick on him. While he was out to  lunch, they played music on the piano for Bruckner’s dog. As one of them played a motive from Richard Wagner’s music, the others chased the dog around the room and slapped him. But when they played from Bruckner’s…

  • A tribute to Beethoven

    “The Last Master of resounding song, the tuneful heir of Bach and Handel, Mozart & Haydn’s immortal fame is now no more. The harp is hushed. He was an artist – and who shall arise to stand beside him? He was an artist – thus he was, thus he died, and thus he will live…

  • Sondheim on expression

    Mike Brown interviewers musical theatre composer Stephen Sondhiem: When I venture that his songs might suggest that he has a somewhat jaundiced view of love, he momentarily flares into irritation. ‘How can you tell? Every single song I’ve ever written is sung by a character created by somebody else. Some might have a jaundiced view…

  • Tchaikovsky’s output

    “The secret of the vital power of Tchaikovsky’s music lies in the fact that there is virtually not a single province of his music–from the gems of Russian chamber music that issued from his pen to his greatest operas or symphonic poems–in which the appeal and effect of the music was less than in any…

  • Music of the people

    “True music … must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.” — George Gerswhin Edward Jablonski and Lawrence D. Stewart (1926) The Gershwin Years.  Garden City: Double Day.

  • Reich on modernism and tonality

    American composer Steve Reich on Schoenberg and his compositional style: Schönberg is the beginning of the death of German Romanticism. It’s about deciding that we didn’t need harmonic organization. But this was music for a small cadre of listeners. I think Schönberg said, “In fifty years, the postman will whistle my tunes.” Well, it’s been…

  • Reich on the accessibility of his music

    American composer Steve Reich on his compositional process: When I compose, I notice I’m the only one in the room. (laughs) I tend to be a somewhat self-critical person. I use my emotional faculties to judge whether I want to hear something again. Basically I have no one in mind except pleasing myself. And my…

  • The tragedy of music

    “The tragedy of music is that it begins with perfection.” – Morton Feldman, American composer. Cited in a May 1976 interview, Studio International, November 1976, pp. 244-248.

  • Proportion

    “The traditional sense of proportion is a hang-up. The usual Mozartean concept of how long an idea lasts becomes too predictable. Some of the composers who talk the most about avoiding predictability are the ones most victimized by this predictable traditional sense of proportion.” – Morton Feldman, American composer. Cited in: Tom Johnson, Remembrance, September…

  • The construction of music

    It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of 12-tone rows just don’t happen. They must be constructed…. To demonstrate any formal idea in music, whether structure or stricture, is a matter of construction, in which the methodology is the controlling metaphor of the…

  • Delius on the role of music

    “The chief reason for the degeneration of present-day music lies in the fact that people want to get physical sensations from music more than anything else. Emotion is out of date and intellect a bore. Appreciation of art which has been born of profound thought and intensity of experience necessitates an intellectual effort too exhausting…

  • Vaughan Williams’ preparation of Hymns Ancient and Modern

    Vaughan Williams was commissioned to revise the hymn book of the Anglican Church: Hymns Ancient and Modern. This was amounted to a huge task, but beneficial to his compositional outlook. The study of folk music to ensure the “best” versions of tunes was stressed the importance of musical activity in all spheres of music. He…

  • Glinka’s compositional priorities

    “My earnest desire is to compose music which would make all my beloved fellow countrymen feel quite at home, and lead no-one to allege that I strutted around in borrowed plumes.” – Mikhail Glinka Cited in Jerremy Nicholas, “Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka”, Classic FM, April 2012, p.35.

  • Liszt on Beethoven

    Liszt on Beethoven’s music, in a letter to Wilhelm von Lenz in 1852: To us musicians the work of Beethoven parallels the pillars of smoke and fire which led the Israelites through the desert, a pillar of smoke to lead us by day, and a pillar of fire to light the night, so that we…

  • The effects of Brahms’ music

    James Huneker, a critic with the New York Courier, wrote about the impact of Brahms’ music on him: Brahms dreams of pure white staircases that scale the infinite. A dazzling, dry light floods his mind, and you hear the rustling of wings – wings of great terrifying monsters; hippogrifs of horrid mien; hieroglyphic faces, faces…

  • Copland on film music

    American composer Aaron Copland on the role of film music: I was very fascinated by the medium because a composer can be a real help in the making of a film. The way you can prove that, of course, is to see a film before the public has seen it, in the studio room, and…

  • The importance of good texts

    Mozart described the importance of good operatic texts in a letter regarding The Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) in a letter to his father in 1781: …the Poesie is totally in tune with the character if this stupid, coarse, and malicious Osmin [the servant character] – and I am well aware…

  • Gillparzer’s tribute to Beethoven

    …He who lies here was possessed. Seeking one goal, caring only for one result, suffering and sacrificing for one purpose, those did this man go through life… If there are some of us who can still feel a sense of total dedication in these fractured times, let us meet at his grave. Has it not…