- Audience reception
- Composers
- General
- Performance practice
- Performers
- Style
- Symbolism
- Teaching methods
- The creative process
- The experience of art
- The purpose of the arts
- Work ethic
- Works
See also: ANECDOTES
Adequate musicians
How do you rate your music? We’re not good musicians. Just adequate. Then why are you so popular? Maybe people …
Reactions to classical music
The only way to take classical music out of the museum is to stop playing it in a museum. The …
Sondheim on audiences
“I do think audiences become more sophisticated. You try something out on them and they say, “Ugh”. You try it …
Steering the audience’s taste
The following advice appeared in the British Journal the Musical Times in January 1879: A young student wishes us to …
Stokowski and his audience
The conductor Leopold Stokowski had a love hate relationship with his audience:He wooed them and cajoled them, flattered them and …
The demise of the music critic
“…Moon, a 20-year veteran of the Philadelphia Inquirer before he left to write his new book, “1,000 Recordings to Hear …
The English and music
“The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.” – Sir Thomas Beecham Cited in: …
The power of critics
“Critics sometimes say, about this or that new work – it should betaken up by all our major orchestras and …
Quick links
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 …
A specialized skill set
“You know I’m a useless kind of man apart from my music.” – Tchaikovsky Cited in: Hanson, Lawrence and Elisabeth …
A tribute to Beethoven
“The Last Master of resounding song, the tuneful heir of Bach and Handel, Mozart & Haydn’s immortal fame is now …
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 …
Bach’s reputation
“The difference between the reputation that Bach enjoyed in his lifetime and that which accumulated posthumously is one of the …
Bernstein’s response to violence
This will be our response to violence To make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. – …
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 …
Brahms on Schubert
My love for Schubert is a very serious one, probably because it is no fleeting fancy. Where is genius like …
Bruckner’s dog
Some of Anton Bruckner’s students decided to play a trick on him. While he was out to lunch, they played …
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." – …
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 …
Debussy improvising
Debussy would sit himself down without speaking at the piano of the little study-cum-library and start to improvise. Anyone who …
Debussy on Chopin
Chopin is the greatest of them all, for through the piano alone he discovered everything. — Claude Debussy P. Kildea, …
Debussy on impressionism
What I am trying to do is something ‘different’ – an effect of reality, but what some fools call Impressionism, …
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 …
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 …
Fightened of ideas
“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” – John Cage Cited …
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 …
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, …
Glinka’s compositional priorities
“My earnest desire is to compose music which would make all my beloved fellow countrymen feel quite at home, and …
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 …
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 …
Hogarth on Chopin
“He accomplishes enormous difficulties, but so quietly, so smoothly and with such constant delicacy and refinement that the listener is …
I am not highbrow
After writing his opera Porgy and Bess, producers in Hollywood started to think that Gerswhin was turning “highbrow”. George and …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Liberation from formalism
“The present time has to a great extent liberated itself from symphonic form – from formalism. This started when the …
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. …
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 …
Mozart and Beethoven
“Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms …
Mozart on Clementi
“Now I need to say a word to my sister about the Clementi sonatas. – Anyone who plays them can …
Mozart’s masterpieces
“Mozart makes you believe in God – much more than going to church – because it cannot be by chance …
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 …
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: …
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 …
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 …
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 of the people
“True music … must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and …
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, …
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 …
Proportion
“The traditional sense of proportion is a hang-up. The usual Mozartean concept of how long an idea lasts becomes too …
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, …
Ravel on Debussy
In a lecture in 1928 in Houston, Texas, Ravel described the differences between Debussy and his approach to composition: For …
Ravel on Satie
In 1928, Ravel delivered a lecture in Houston Texas. He mentioned the influence of Satie: Another significant influence – less …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Saint-Saëns on composing
“I produce music as an apple tree produces apples.” — Camille Saint-SaënsMusical Heritage Review. Musical Heritage Society, volume 1, issues …
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 …
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 …
Sondheim on expression
Mike Brown interviewers musical theatre composer Stephen Sondhiem:When I venture that his songs might suggest that he has a somewhat …
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 …
Szymanowski on Ravel
The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski wrote of the French composer Maurice Ravel in 1925:Whether he writes a “Rapsodie espagnole”, “Mélodies …
Tchaikovsky on Arensky
“Arensky is a man of remarkable gifts, but morbidly nervous and lacking in firmness—altogether a strange man.” Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, …
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 …
Tchaikovsky’s output
“The secret of the vital power of Tchaikovsky’s music lies in the fact that there is virtually not a single …
The artist’s soul
There is, behind the soul and the whole life of the artist, perhaps a suffering soul … The moment one …
The construction of music
It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of …
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 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 …
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 …
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 …
The importance of melody
I have never questioned the importance of melody. I love melody, and I regard it as the most important element …
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.” …
The tragedy of music
“The tragedy of music is that it begins with perfection.” – Morton Feldman, American composer. Cited in a May 1976 …
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 …
Understanding the world
“If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying its manifold apparent dissonances.” …
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 …
Waste no note
“Never write an unnecessary note. Every note must live.” Jean Sibelius, in a radio interview with Kalevi Kilpi, 1948) Cited …
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 …
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, …
You cannot hope for substance
“You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance.” – Charles …
Quick links
A result of education
“The highest result of education is tolerance.” – Helen Keller, Optimism (1903) …
A successful day
“If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if …
Be a work of art
“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.” Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for …
Bugs Bunny can save classical music
“The future of classical music lies with the younger generation, which must be weaned away from the cacophony of rock …
Determination not to be hurried
“Nothing can be more useful to a man than the determination not to be hurried.” – Henry David Thoreau …
Each day, according to Goethe
Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and–if at …
Einstein as a musician
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my …
Figaro and an egg
“I always have a hard-boiled egg. A three-minute egg. Do you know how I time it? I bring it to …
Growth by dreams
We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring …
Happiness
“Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life”— Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161-180Marcus Aurelius (translated by George …
Harmony
“You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.” Doug Floyd, editorial editor of The Spokesman Review …
Hope
“Hope is the dream of a soul awake.”— French proverb.R. A. Krieger, Civilization’s Quotations: Life’s Ideal, New York, Algora Publishing, …
Individuality
“I may not be better than other people, but at least I’m different.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Franco-Swiss philosopher and writer …
It is who you are
“Face the facts of being who you are, for that is what changes what you are.” Søren Kierkegaard, Danish writer …
Knowledge of truth
This knowledge of truth, combined with proper regard for it, and its faithful observance, constitutes true education. The mere stuffing …
Knowledge represents inner strength
“Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigor and power …
LA no longer the center for film scoring
“…a panel of experts warn that film, TV and videogame scoring continues to leave L.A. because producers are unwilling to …
Learning
“Learning makes a man fit company for himself.” — La HarpeDay, E. P. (1884) Day’s Collacon: An Encylopaedia of Prose …
Loneliness versus solitude
“Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the …
Look under your feet
The lesson which life constantly repeats is to ‘look under your feet.’You are always nearer to the divine and the …
Mastery
“Mastery passes often for egotism.”— Johanne Goethe, German authorJohanne Goethe (1906) The Maxisms and Relfections. Translated by Bailey Saunders. New …
Men of genius
“Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is …
Music and identity
“The more anonymous music is, the less likely people will be to feel attached it and to feel the need …
NAXOS and the recording industry
“There was a time, not so long ago, that Klaus Heymann was accused of trying to destroy the classical music …
Opportunities
No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.— …
Patience
An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains— Dutch proverbHenry Bonn. A polyglot of foreign proverbs. London, Henry …
Personality
“Personality is to a man what perfume is to a flower.” – Charles M. Schwab, The Ten Commandments of Success …
Philosophy
“Philosophy is doubt.”- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, French writerRosenberg, Max (1955) Introduction to Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library, p. 14 …
Quiet minds
“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like …
Skepticism
“Great intellects are skeptical.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Antichrist, 54. Digitally archived at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19322/19322-h/19322-h.htm, accessed 12 September 2021 …
Success is a staircase
“Success is not a doorway, it’s a staircase.” — Dottie Walters …
The best of every man
“I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man …
The current state of the recording industry
Founder Klaus Heymann, founder of the successful NAXOS label, on the current state of the classical music recording industry:“We can’t …
The decentralization (or de-hallification) of classical music
For generations, the main places to hear contemporary classical music have been the big institutions, primarily at downtown and university …
The greatest applause
“The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson”An …
The health benefits of tuning a piano
“Tuning a piano also tunes the brain, say researchers who have seen structural changes within the brains of professional piano …
The here and now
“It is a mark of soulfulness to be present in the here and now. When we are present, we are …
The illiterate of the future
“The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write. They are those that can not learn, …
The importance of rejuvenation
"Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden." Johann Wolfgang Goethe, German writer, philosopher and scientist …
The land knows of its own beauty
What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows …
The making of heroes and cowards
“Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men.” – Brooke Westcott, …
The prerequisites of a genius
“Of the three prerequisites of genius; the first is soul; the second is soul; and the third is soul.” – …
The significance of the individual
“You are an extremely valuable, worthwhile, significant person even though your present circumstances may have you feeling otherwise.” – …
The value of education
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” Derek Bok, American lawyer and educator Cited at: QuotationsBook …
The work of the individual
“The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind forward.” – Igor Sikorsky, Russian aviator …
There’s a crack in everything
There is a crack, a crack in everythingThat’s how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen, “Anthem Related: “There is a …
They who dream
“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”— Edgar Allan …
Trust yourself
All this, my friend, will time provide, And of itself, itself will give; Soon as you in yourself confide, You …
Understanding the rules
“We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experience is a narrowing of the …
Uniqueness
“The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.”— Walt DisneyL. Howes, “20 …
Weeds
But weeds have this virtue: they are not easily discouraged; they never lose heart entirely; they die game. If they …
Wisdom is perishable
"Wisdom is perishable. Unlike information or knowledge, it cannot be stored in a computer or recorded in a book. It …
A democratic orchestra
In 1920s Soviet Russia, musicians experimented mirroring the political state: “Just as the government didn’t need a tsar, so the …
A new take on the harpsichord sound
Harpsichordist Jane Chapman performs both early music and Avante music, including using techniques to use distortion on the harpsichord! “Many …
An artist’s job is not for small talk
Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter, once told me a story about a reception she was at where Bob Dylan was in …
Berlioz on editorial license
“You musicians, you poets, prose-writers, actors, pianists, conductors, whether of third or second or even first rank, you do not …
Context and beauty
“When you’re young, you can be taken with the impulse of the moment and the beauty of a phrase, but …
Debussy on Metronome markings
You know what I think about metronome marks: they’re right for a single bar, like “roses, with a morning life” …
Debussy on pedalling in Chopin
Despite my respect for Saint-Saëns’ age, what he says about Chopin’s pedalling isn’t entirely true. I have very clear memories …
Form your own interpretation
I have often made the point in masterclasses that students should not listen to lots of recordings of a piece …
It’s two-four … It’s three-four
Chopin had a free sense of rhythm. In 1842, Chopin was giving a lessen to Wilhem von Lenz when Meyerbeer …
Leif Ove Andsnes on Beethoven
“I feel a real need for Beethoven now. It’s such important and spiritual music: it gives you strength, it gives …
Mattheson on the courante
“The passion or affection which should be performed in a courante is sweet hopefullness.” – Johann Mattheson. Siblin, Eric (2009) …
Mozart on rubato in adagios
In 1777, Mozart visited Heir Stein in Ausburg (1). According to Mozart, Stein had stated that no-onehas ever played his …
Pavel Kolesnikov on historical instruments
For me, one of the ultimate goals of a performance is to make pieces come across as something new, something …
Performance anxiety
“There is no anxiety in the present. Anxiety is either in the past, worrying about what was just played, or …
Rachmaninoff and phrasing
A student of Rachmaninoff, Ruth Slenczynska, recalled: I remember how Rachmaninoff explained to me the problem of phrasing: he showed …
Rafal Blechacz on interpretation
Most of all, I give myself plenty of time to get familiar with the composition, to “grow into” its concepts …
Ruth Slenczynska’s advice on musical lines
Make your musical lines as long as possible. Rachmaninoff said, “Small musician, small ideas; big musician, big ideas.” After an …
Technique is not music
“Technique is not music. Music is the thousandth of a millisecond between one note to the other—that’s where the music …
The art of pedalling
The one bee in my bonnet is over-pedalling, and I give my students a hard time about that. It’s the …
The development of keyboard technique
Before the time of Bach, keyboardists would often only use the middle three fingers of each hand and tended to …
The ideal and the played performance
Some conductors put all the emphasis on the melodic line, while others are fanatics about rhythm, but there are very …
The logic of opera in English
“Opera in English, is about as sensible as baseball in Italian.”- H. L. Mencken, twentieth century American journalist, critic, and …
The musical memory
“Of course, almost anybody can memorize things, especially music. It’s like the ABCs and, for most, fun to do. I’ve …
The piano, as distinct from the harp
Beethoven on the development of the piano as an instrument in its own right:There is no doubt that so far …
Vaughan Williams on an authentic performance of Bach
Vaughan Williams gave a broadcast talk on Bach entitled “Bach the Great Bourgeois.” It was later published in The Listener …
When precision isn’t enough
Debussy was well known for wanting precision in performance. However, it was not always quite enough:Some time in 1917 Debussy …
A conductor’s hair style
In Halina Rodzinski’s book Our Two Lives she describes how on the very first day Artur Rodzinski came to assist …
A good performance
A good performance is one that moves me. But it is not only the passion and emotion expressed in a …
A performance can be greater than them
I remember a few years ago being at a summer academy in the south of France, with Dominique Merlet. The …
Any room for me?
“Arthur Rubinstein was standing in the lobby of a concert hall proudly watching the audience filing in to hear one …
Applause
“Applause is a receipt, not a bill.” – Artur Schnabel, pianist Cited at Aphorism.ru. Cited 30 March 2013. …
Arthur Schnabel
“Artur Schnabel is a pianist unlike any other. One is conscious in listening to him of a powerful and original …
Ashkenazy on Richter
Pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy on his colleague Sviatoslav Richter:Richter magnetized me, like he did so many others, and I …
Bernstein on immersive performance
It happens because you identify so completely with the composer, you’ve studied him so intently, that it’s as though you’ve …
Born for music
“I was born with eyes closed listening to my heartbeat from my mother’s womb… There, without knowing it, I discovered …
Bringing classical music to the people
“Most performers pretty much ignore the audience – they play and go off … Don’t get me wrong. I worship …
Chopin’s pianistic style
While in London, Chopin frequently gave performances at soirées and matinées where he performed Nocturnes, Waltzes, Mazurkas and the Berceuse …
Dee-da-dee-da-dee-da-splat
“I also like to play the famous tunes because there’s nothing like inspiring a whole bunch of kids who are …
Difficult music is the easiest to play
Scriabin’s fiery D#-minor Etude, with its relentless triplets and huge leaps, used to just fall under my fingers, while the …
Everything affects music making
‘”…turning 40 and new fatherhood have other effects: ‘It opens things up emotionally’, he says. ‘I find that my whole …
Give music to those who love it
“Music must be given to those who love it. I want to give free concerts; that’s the answer.” -Sviatoslav Richter, …
Glenn Gould on recording
Pianist Glenn Gould discussed the recording process with Yehudi Menuhin completing the playback of a Bach gigue:Now, Yehudi, you’ve got …
Golden rules for an orchestra
‘”There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what …
Half a sonata
Sergei Prokofiev was once asked to give a piano recital. He declined, offering this explanation: “It would cost me half …
Hilary Hahn on technique, practise mentality, and performance
Violinist Hilary Hahn on practice and technique:I’ve always worked hard at my technique … But I’ve worked hard at my …
Hilary Hahn on the “story” behind the music
I think the back stories [behind the creation of a work] are interesting … But for me the first aim …
Hoffman on technique
Technic represents the material side of art, as money represents the material side of life. By all means achieve a …
Hogarth on Chopin
“He accomplishes enormous difficulties, but so quietly, so smoothly and with such constant delicacy and refinement that the listener is …
Jan Lisiecki on interpretation
My approach is to sit with the score and make my decisions about what Andante means or what piano means …
Julius Asal on interpretation
On the one hand, I believe that to connect tradition and innovation is the most important thing to me personally …
Julius Asal on pairing Scriabin with Scarlatti
In 2024, Julius Asal released an album that interwove works of Scriabin and Scarlatti. He stated: …in finding a composer …
Julius Asal on the exploring darker emotions
When I was younger I read a lot of Kafka and Büchner: I’ve always been drawn to the darker side …
Liszt’s account of a performance by Chopin
Franz Liszt described one of Chopin’s concerts in the Gazette musicale, May 2 1841.Last Monday, at eight o’clock in the …
Love your music
When I was 19 years old I joined Columbia Artists in New York. It was my first management and a …
Many an Orpheus and Arions make up a Bach
Johann Matthias Gesner was a colleague of Johann Sebastian Bach at St. Thomas’ School, Leipzig. He later worked on a commentary …
Music and time
“There is also in this [nineteenth-century romantic] music an extraordinary sense of control over the passage of time; a moment …
Music better than it can be performed
Now I am attracted only to music which I consider to be better than it can be performed. Therefore I …
Never use a score
I never use a score when conducting my orchestra. Does a lion tamer enter a cage with a book on …
Nikolaj Zainder performs Elgar’s Violin Concerto on the original violin
In 2010, Violinist Nikolaj Znaider performed Elgar’s Violin Concerto on the same 1741 violin in which Kriesler premiered the work …
On Artur Schnable’s playing
Artur Schnabel is a pianist unlike any other. One is conscious in listening to him of a powerful and original …
Part of the bigger picture
Leopold Stokowski conducted the American premier of Berg’s opera Wozzeck in 1930 (a joint effort of The Philadelphia Orchestra, the …
Pavarotti
“Pavarotti is like someone who has swalled a Stradivarious.” – Peter Ustinov Cited in: Jarski, Rosemarie (2005) Great British Wit. …
Perahia on Beethoven
Murray Perahia initially found Beethoven hard to understand: “I was always working on Beethoven, but I couldn’t feel close to …
Pieces to belong to performers
“That’s what I find wonderful about music: there is always a secret left, pieces don’t belong to performers, you rent …
Piotr Anderszewski on interpretation
To me it’s all about how you read and translate the music you play: the most important thing is to …
Popular classical music is great too
“A lot of what you call the great repertoire is popular, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great work …
Practice slowly
“One must practice slowly, then more slowly and finally slowly.”– Camille Saint-SaënsCited in: The Piano Quarterly, 1974, p. 24 …
Rachmaninoff on interpretation
As the talented student grows older he must seek within himself his interpretation. Does he wish to know how to …
Rachmaninoff on the culminating point in performance
This culmination may be at the end or in the middle, it may be loud or soft; but the performer …
Rachmaninoff practising slowly
Abram Chasins visited Rachmaninoff in Hollywood: Arriving at the designated hour of twelve, I heard an occasional piano sound as …
Remembering J. S. Bach
Carl Philip Emanuel Bach recalled his father’s (Johann Sebastian) talents as a musician: The exact tuning of his own instruments, …
Review of Pablo Casals
A Review written in El Alcance of the cellist Pablo Cassals: His bow, sometimes sweet as a voice from heaven, …
Richter on small concerts
“Put a small piano in a truck and drive out on country roads; take time to discover new scenery; stop …
Ringo Starr
Is Ringo Starr the best drummer in the world? He’s not even the best drummer in the Beatles.Reporter and John …
Saint-Saëns defending virtuosity
It is virtuosity itself that I want to defend. It is the source of the picturesque in music, it gives …
Schiff on Schumann
"I know of no work by Schumann that is not wonderful and inspiring. One must leave every note just as …
Schnabel on recording
Having spent five days recording five Beethoven sonatas and two concertos, Schnabel wrote to his wife: This week was an …
Seeking challenges
Pianist Artur Schnabel was asked at a public forum why his repertoire was so restricted: My answer is that now …
Start from scratch every time
Benjamin Appl on working with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: When people ask me about what I learned from Fischer-Dieskau, that’s what I …
Stokowski as a sound engineer
The conductor Stokowski (who was the conductor of Disney’s Fantasia) was a pioneer of orchestral recording. This was not without …
Stokowski rebukes
The conductor Stowkoski was always in complete control of his orchestra: He never lost his tempoer with the orchestra, never …
Stokowski’s first rehearsal with the Philadelphia Orchestra
On Stokowski’s first rehearsal with the Philadelphia Orchestra: From Oscar Schwar, a fellow faculty member at Curtis who became my …
Stokowski’s rehearsal process
Abraham Chasin performed the premier of his Second Piano Concerto with the Philharmonic Orchestra in March 1933. It was conducted …
The delicate nature of Chopin’s pianism
Chopin gave a recital in the Gentlemen”s Concert Hall, Manchester, on 28 August 1848. The audience of 1,200 people was …
The importance of reading
“Whoever wishes to play well must not only practice a great deal, but must also read a great many books.” …
The juggling jazz musician
“A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.”– Benny Green, British saxophonistBenny Green (1975) A Reluctant …
The life of a pianist
My life involves endless hours of repetitive and frustrating practising, lonely hotel rooms, dodgy pianos, aggressively bitchy reviews, isolation, confusing …
The musician’s quest
The violinist Ivan Galamian describes the musician’s quest for a goal greater than mere technical accomplishment:A complete technique .. implies …
The orchestra as a symbol of unity
“You see behind me a symphony orchestra. Every single one of the instruments has an entirely different background and history; …
The role of an interpreter
The interpreter is really an executant, carrying out the composer’s intentions to the letter. He doesn’t add anything that isn’t …
The soloist will get his way
Pianist Freddy Kempf on the recording process:Solo recording is the most indulgent type … it’s 90 per cent down to …
The technique of conducting
“Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.” – Leonard Bernstein, conductor, composer and pianist. Cited at QuotationsBook …
Up close and personal with Glenn Gould
A film has been made of the personal side of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould:During his lifetime Gould was often portrayed …
‘Real’ instruments in popular music
“We’re seeing a big evolution of production, of recording techniques, and of the actual sounds. Everything’s getting sampled and synthesized …
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 …
Against Gregorian
In Anglican England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was considerable opposition to the Roman Catholic Gregorian chant …
American Western Film Soundtracks
“Morricone brought the electric guitar to the western. The great thing, though, about the electric guitar in the western is …
Beethoven our artistic brother
It is the function of art to bring to us emotions, thoughts, states of mind and heart which are larger …
Copland on the integration of jazz into art music
American composer Aaron Copland discusses the influence of Jazz on his musical style:was a very important influence at one time …
Eighteenth century aesthetics
Mozart was not at all a purely instinctive, intuitive artist. His remarks to the effect that he “loved to plan …
George Gershwin on American music
George Gershwin, a pioneer of the fusion of jazz, musical theater and classical idioms, wrote two essays on the significance …
I write for all ears
When Mozart was writing his opera Idomeno, his father warned him to make sure it was accessible to all the …
In critique, then in praise of Bach
The dilemma of “old” versus “new” style is evident in the comments of the Johann Adolf Scheibe in reference to …
It must be worth the effort
Martinu on creating beautiful music: “It must be beautiful, or it wouldn’t be worth the effort.” Cited in: Calum MacDonald, …
Mattheson on the allemande
An allemande is a stately processional couple dance. The dances formed lines of couples, extended their hands, and moved forward …
Mozart on aesthetics
Mozart’s musical aesthetics are revealed in a letter to his father about Osmin’s first aria in The Abduction of the …
Mozart on melody
“Melody is the essence of music”, continued he; “I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to …
Mozart’s musical aesthetics
Mozart’s comments on the musical style of his piano concertos (K. 413-415) portray his underlying aesthetic principle that music should …
Murray Perahia
“It’s a very reactionary viewpoint and I’m slightly ashamed, but I find it very difficult to access contemporary music. I …
Parry on choral music
Hubert Parry, who taught Vaughan Williams composition, instructed the composer to “write choral music as befits and Englishman and a …
Ravel’s influence on Vaughan Williams
In 1908, after a period of intense period of immersion in English music due to his role as editor of …
Rorem’s affinity with French music
“Bartók’s music as a whole is a music I never think about when its not around. It’s impeccable, it’s theatrical, …
Smooth jazz finds new way to reach audiences
With shifts in the commercial music industry away from smooth jazz, musicians are finding new niches for smooth jazz such …
The evolution of the jazz tradition
American jazz music is, in many ways, rooted in its “traditional” repertoire – the American “Songbook” of “standards”. There are, …
The framework of a symphony
The framework of a symphony must be so strong that it forces you to follow it regardless of the environment …
The shelf life of popular art
“The fact is popular art dates. It grows quaint. How many people feel strongly about Gilbert and Sullivan today compared …
Vaughan Williams on sense of musical citizenship
Vaughan Williams wrote a series of articles for the Royal College of Music magazine entitled “Who Wants the English Composer?” …
Music as a metaphor … or not
“Most music is metaphor, but Wolff is not. I am not metaphor either. Parable, maybe. Cage is sermon.” – Morton …
Schumann on music
As to what concerns the knotty question in general of how far instrumental music may go in the representation of …
The key of E-flat
“[The key of E-flat] was reserved mostly for moments of sublime seriousness, appropriate for dying thoughts, or of love unto …
A great teacher
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Ward, author …
Bach’s method of keyboard teaching
The teaching methods of Johann Sebastion Bach are recounted by his son, Philip Emanuel Bach: The first thing he did …
Can you teach resourcefulness
Young musicians will need resourcefulness to make their way in the world. Music “jobs” in the future are likely to …
Chopin and touch
If a student played with excessive tone, Chopin would say “What was that? A dog barking?” Source: Carter, Gerard (2008) …
Encouraging talent
“What greater pleasure is there is life than giving young and beautiful talent a little lift in the direction of …
Entertaining to educate
“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.”— Walt DisneyL …
Jazz apprenticeships
“Why are jazz apprenticeships so vital in the first place? For one thing the music essentially models a community, with …
Knowledge and Wisdom
“Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.” Martin H. Fischer, German born American physician …
Rachmaninoff and colour
A student of Rachmaninoff, Ruth Slenczynska: was practising one of Rachmaninov’s preludes when he asked her to join him at …
Schoenberg’s composition class
An account of Arnold Schoenberg teaching a composition class:Well, first of all there was composition class, in which he analyzed …
Searching for expression
When my students compose, I prefer them to be mistaken if they must make mistakes, but to remain natural and …
Study music profoundly
“The advice I am giving always to my students is above all to study the music profoundly. Because the music …
Teaching in Kabul
Emma Ayres, a violist and former ABC Classic FM radio presenter, discusses her experience in teaching in Kabul at the …
The creative learning process
“Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.” — Arthur …
The fire of knowledge
“When teaching, light a fire, don’t fill a bucket.” – Dan Snow, television presenter. Cited at QuotationsBook …
The purpose of education
“The purpose of education is to keep a culture from being drowned in senseless repetitions, each of which claims to …
The role of schooling
You go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits, for the habit of …
The status of classical music in Australia
“I would like to see the emphasis in teaching shift from the performer to the three elements necessary for satisfying …
Vaughan Williams on Hubert Parry
Vaughan Williams studied composition with Dr. Hubert Parry at the Royal College of Music, London. Vaughan Williams recalled:Many … entirely …
A hunch
Logically, a hunch makes as much sense as saying, horses have tails; therefore, all tails have horses.” But in the …
A man’s money
“Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything is always a portrait of …
A musician’s canvas
“A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” -Leopold Stokowski, conductor …
A pen and a hen
“A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.” John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, in an interview with …
A task no longer
“Set me a task in which I can put something of my very self, and it is a task no …
Accomplishing great things
“To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize, then plan… believe… act!” – Alfred Montapert, Author Cited at: …
Achieving great things
“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein …
An artist can change his perspective
An artist groping his way forward can open a secret door and never understand that this door hid an entire …
An artist’s personal growth
Funnily, my deep conviction is that no idea or concept of true artistic importance can be imparted or transferred. The …
An author’s perogative to be critical
“A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.”— Marianne Moore, American poetDonoghue, Denis …
Anxiety
“Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity”.— Chuck Jones, animatorGoleman, D., Kaufman, P., & Ray, M. (1993) The Creative Spirit. New …
Application of talent
“…all talent, all application will not suffice if one’s whole life is not directed towards being a mediator of great …
Art is an immense forest
In the world, in life, and in nature, there is nothing but beautiful tales, and when the door opens, enter …
Art isn’t your pet
"Art isn't your pet – it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you." Joss Whedon, screenwriter …
Art to be virtuous
Any artist knows that the space between the stage where the work is too unformed to have committed itself and …
Artists and originality
Is genius original? What is original? Originality wasn't a must in Mozart's day. He was like everyone else, only more …
Bacall on imagination
“Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.” – Lauren Bacall, American actress Cited at: QuotationsBook …
Beauty
The academic teaching on beauty is false. We have been misled, but so completely misled that we can no longer …
Beethoven’s compositional process
Beethoven was revising Fidelio when he wrote to Georg Freiedrich Treitschke (who was helping to revise the libretto) (1):Now, of …
Bernstein on composing
“There is something very satisfying about composing…you are letting yourself go, you write in a kind of trance, feeling you …
Bernstein’s television appearances
Bernstein is intent on demonstrating that the inevitable doesn’t just happen. It comes from intense work.To show this, he restores …
Brahms on inspiration
Johannes Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann. whom he greatly admired:It is from you that I am constantly learning that one …
Britten on composing
“Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house – …
Busoni on invention
I came to think that every notation is already the transcription of an abstract invention. From the instant the pen …
Chopin and counterpoint
With regard to counterpoint in Chopin’s music, you might be interested in the conversation that Chopin had not long before …
Content of art
How can you expect a beholder to experience my picture as I experienced it? A picture comes to me a …
Creative people produce being
“Creative people, as I see them, are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a …
Creativity
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”— Mary Lou Cook, American community activist …
Creativity between now and Tuesday
“Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.” – Ray Kroc, founder …
Discovery
“Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.” Albert Szent-Györgyi , American bio-chemist …
Doing what I can’t do
“I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it”. – Van Gogh, …
Einstein on creativity
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein …
Empty pockets
“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.” – Norman Vincent Peale, American …
Escaping the every day world
“Those around me refuse to accept that I could never live in the everyday world of things and people. Hence …
Evolving recordings
Gwilym Gold has released an album that never plays the same way twice. Developed in collaboration with Lexxx and scientists …
Feed the inner beast
Lou Dorfsman, design chief for CBS Radio and later the CBS Television Network for over 40 years, once said, “In …
Feeling a bond with your instrument
“Research in Finland has uncovered the benefits of feeling a bond with your instrument. 51 per cent of musicians surveyed …
Following the crowd
“The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is …
Freedom for music
“In order for music to free itself, it will have to pass over to the other side – there where …
George Sand on Chopin’s compositional process
“His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it without seeking it, without forseeing it. It came on his piano …
Goldsmith on film scoring
“Working to timings and synchronising your musical thoughts with the film can be stimulating rather than restrictive. Scoring is a …
Guiding concepts of artistic creation
“…few of us talk and write about the bigger picture of how our musical and tactical efforts are guided by …
Habit is stronger than willpower or inspiration
In writing, habit seems to be a stronger force than either willpower or inspiration. Consequently there must be some little …
Harmann on orchestration
“To orchestrate is like a thumbprint. I can’t understand having someone else do it. It would be like someone putting …
How caffeine can cramp creativity
(250, 308, ‘How Caffeine Can Cramp Creativity’, ‘how-caffeine-can-cramp-creativity’, ‘ Caffeine can boost energy, reduce fatigue, and increase short term concentration …
I dream …
“I dream, therefore I exist.” —August Stringberg, A Madman’s Defence (Le plaidoyer d’un fou) …
I live in a world of my imagination
I confess that I live only in my surroundings and in myself. I can conceive of no greater pleasure than …
Imagination
“Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world’s supreme good.” – Pascal Blaise, French mathematician, …
Imagination plus innovation
“You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization.” Denis Waitley, …
Is it worth writing?
“Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.” Gustav Holst Cited in: Classic …
Language at its most powerful
Language is at its most powerful when it disturbs, not by arriving at insights/understandings, but by creating possibilities.- Thomas Ogden …
Learn the rules like a pro
“Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” Attributed to Pablo Picasso, painter …
Misprints remain
“Some misprints remain on my scores, because for some reason I have always been in a rush to get the …
Mood lighting to boost creativity
A study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology has concluded that the level of lighting in a room can …
Motion and art
“The statue is concentrated in one moment of perfection. The image stained upon the canvas posses no spiritual element of …
New art and the old formulae
An art gathers new material usually by an original rejection of old formulae, a gesture of negation. At the beginning, …
Nick Cave on the creative process
Worry less about what you make — that will mostly look after itself, and is to some extent beyond your …
Nick Cave on the creative process
What makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is …
Nino Rota on happiness and music
“When I’m creating at the piano, I tend to feel happy; but – the eternal dilemma – how can we …
Obedience and liberty in creativity
A great work, I believe, is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty. Such a work satisfied the …
Old into new
An old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it.— Robert Bresson, French filmmakerJ. Butler, Star …
Playing with fantasy
“Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the …
Positive change through creativity
You need something like Sesame Street to sort of increase the volume of good in the world. And also to …
Problem solving with creativity
“Creativity can solve almost any problem — the creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.”— George Lois, …
Put creativity into everything
“When you put creativity into everything, everything becomes available to you.” – Robert Rodriguez, filmmaker Cited in: Nathalie Sejean, “30 …
Ravel’s compositional process
Robert de Fragny recalled a conversation with Ravel about his compositional process: The G major Concerto took two years of …
Relationship with the muse
I need time to be idle in order to experience and romance my muse, Music, my lifelong partner. In some …
Salvation by imagination
“An idea is salvation by imagination.” – Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect …
Self expression
“My interest lies in my self-expression — what’s inside of me — not what I’m in.” – John Turturro, American …
Shedding light on what is invisible
When we create something, whether it’s a one-woman show, a video animation, a poem, a song, whatever—we’re taking what’s inside …
Simon on improvisation
“Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.” -Paul Simon, singer & composer Cited at Aphorism.ru. Accessed 31 March 2013. …
Spontaneity and art
Alexander Gow, musician in the band Oh Mercy on spontaneity of artistic creation: [Spontaneity is] when art is expression, and …
Start with one note
Ravel in conversation with Mme André Bloch:”I don’t have ideas. To begin with, nothing forces itself on me.” “But if …
Stravinsky on composition
“For me, as a creative musician, composition is a daily function that I am compelled to discharge. I compose because …
Tchaikovsky’s compositional process
“You ask if in composing this symphony I had a special programme in view. To such questions regarding my symphonic …
Technology and the future of music
The future direction of music demands that musicians today lose themselves in technology and learn from their mistakes. In the …
The addictive nature of song writing
“You know it’s sort of addictive because there is all this gold just floating in the ether around you. The …
The art within
“Only art experienced within, in which the personality plays a creative role can be of interest …To achieve this, those …
The artist should not be shabbily treated
“I like honesty and sincerity; and I maintain that an artist should not be shabbily treated.” – Beethoven, in a …
The career of a musician compared to other arts
The career of a musician out to be — it is, actually, and in many ways — different from the …
The creative person
The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all that there is to it.— …
The creative urge
“The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.”—Agnes de Mille (1905-1993), American dancer and choreographer.Gardner, …
The cycle of masterpieces
“Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than …
The double life of an artist
People are mistaken thinking that the creative artist uses art to express what he feels at the very moment of …
The effect of audience reception on Stravinsky’s compositional process
Stravinksy on the public not particularly liking his music: Their attitude certainly cannot make me deviate from my path. I …
The effort is better than rest
“Writing music is seventy-five per cent an intellectual activity. This effort is often more pleasant for me than having a …
The essential part of creativity
“The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” Edwin Land, American scientist and inventor …
The excitement of all possibilities
“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of all possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of …
The experience of composition
“I am not suited to ‘writing music’. All has to be experienced.” -Jean Sibelius Cited in:Goss, Glenda (2009) “Sibelius”. Chicago: …
The healing power of creativity
So creativity helps us to be seen, expressed, and healed. This is fantastic! But I just recently had a bit …
The importance of music in pantomime
“In pantomime every single episode, each movement in each episode (its plastic modulations)—as well as the gestures of every character …
The inner drama of man
It is not what the artist does that counts. But what he is. Cézanne would never have interested me if …
The limits of imagination
You’re travelling to another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound… but of mind. A journey into a …
The musical mosaic
“Music is for me like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his …
The nature of music
“A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.”- W …
The necessity of the serial method
Boulez declares: “Any composer of our time who has not felt the necessity of the serial method is worthless.” Omit …
The path of an artist
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead …
The possibilities of creativity
“The possibilities of creative effort connected with the subconscious mind are stupendous and imponderable. They inspire one with awe.” – …
The potential of an artist
“How important is it to catch up with yourself? There are enormous forces lurking in each person, but many people …
The progress of an artist
What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable …
The pros and cons of imagination
“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from …
The reach of art
“Art — reaches out to one specific person (even and especially if that person is imaginary.” Todd Brison, “A Warning …
The source of inspiration
For me, inspiration comes from a bunch of places: desperation, deadlines… A lot of times ideas will turn up when …
The subject of art
Abstract art is only painting. And what’s so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin …
The true success of the journey
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.— Robert Louis Stevenson, …
The worker and his object
“In all types of creative work the worker and his object become one, man unites himself with the world in …
Tips for composers
Rob Deemer highlights several aspects needed for a composer to survive in the artistic community: – ability to accept “failure” …
Transformation of art
“Art does not progress – it transforms itself.” – François-Joseph Fétes Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites. Crows Nest: Allen …
Trombone Shorty on writer’s block
Sometimes, I’ll work through it, and sometimes, you know, you might have to make a couple of test bottles or …
Waiting for inspiration
The composer does not sit around wait wait for inspiration to walk up and introduce itself … Making music is …
We can’t all play first violin
“If all would play first violin, we could not obtain an orchestra. Therefore esteem every musician in his place.”— Robert …
What is imagination?
What is Imagination? We talk much of Imagination. We talk of Imagination of Poets, the Imagination of Artists &c; I …
Whatever we are faced with, people will continue to create
Gus Fairbairn (aka Alabaster dePlume) on the challenges of the 2020 pandemic: There is an invitation for me to respond …
Work joyfully and peacefully
If you will become possessed of this faith you will not need to bother about your success or failure, for …
World order
“The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize …
Write over improvise
If Heaven has bestowed on you a fine imagination, you will often be seated at your piano in solitary hours, …
You don’t need permission to create
Gus Fairbairn (aka Alabaster dePlume) on the success of his album, To Cy & Lee: I was not expecting that …
A musical solution
“Every disease is a music problem, its cure a musical solution.” Novalis, 18th century German author, mystic and philosopher. Cited …
A world of emotions
“We find a world of emotions and ideas created with only the simplest of materials.” – Laurence Lesser, cellist Cited …
Active listening
Listening to music should always be an active process, and those who attend – pregnant verb – concerts, who listen, …
Appreciating beauty
Music exists only in a passing of time, racing past us like the mid-nineenth-century trains Ruskin so hated. It is …
Bad effects of music
“By and large, though, there are few, if any, bad side effects of music, and music can often work where …
Beauty captivates the flesh
Beauty captivates the flesh, seeking permission to pass directly to the soul.— Simone Weil S. Weil, G Panichas (ed.) The …
Beyond the comfort zone
I believe one shouldn’t be too comfortable when listening to really great music. To appreciate good music, one must be …
Communicating one’s dreams
“Whoever communicates to his brothers in suffering the secret splendour of his dreams acts upon the surrounding society in the …
Diderot on good music
“Good music is very close to primitive language.” Denis Diderot (Elements of Physiology, 1875) …
Feel creates thought
Feeling creates thought, men willingly agree; but they will not so willingly agree that thought creates feeling, though this is …
Form and content
“I think that one way toward a more intelligent and involved appraisal is through a connection with the pieces, and …
Fresh ideas of building arts communities
"Music is its own language, and, while that language is universal, it is also intensely personal. There are many ways …
It is cruel that music should be so beautiful
“It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: …
Music and health
“Musical instruments are aids to the maintenance of health, and to the restoration of health once lost, according to the …
Music as a means of common meditation
“There is also in this music an extraordinary sense of control over the passage of time; a moment will be …
Music as an emotional science
Music sets up a certain vibration which unquestionably results in a physical reaction. Eventually the proper vibration for every person …
Music stirred him
“Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not …
Music which never leaves
‘”Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves …
Silence, expression, and music
From pure sensation to the intuition of beauty, from pleasure and pain to love and the mystical ecstasy and death—all …
The best music
“The best music is the music that persuades us that there is no other music in the world.” – Alex …
The cleansing power of music
“Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is …
The effect of art
“There’s a phrase I’ve often heard from audience members at popular musicals (but, oddly, never anywhere else): the show, they’ll …
The experience of beauty
“The experience of beauty … consists of finding a spiritual value (truth, happiness, moral ideals) at home in a material …
The inexpressible depth of music
The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and …
The line and the harmony
Phrases have their own topography—they move forward with the line but also remain wedded to the ground with each change …
The need for books
We wouldn’t need books quite so much if everyone around us understood us well. But they don’t. Even those who …
What an artist can do for another
The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an …
A poet is a nightingale
A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his …
Abstract art
“The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.” Paul Klee, Swiss painter Cited at QuotationsBook …
Arnold on culture
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the …
Art and humanity
“Writing and performing an opera, creating any work of art in a world of violence and ease, hunger and obesity, …
Art and the strength of the former times
In 1824, Schubert wrote a letter to his friend Schober concerning a general complacency about the role of art at …
Art cannot change events. But it can change people.
“The point is, art never stopped a war and never got anybody a job. That was never its function. Art …
Art constructs, not deconstructs
“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.” Simone Weil, French …
Art is a crucial, dangerous operation
If a man teaches composition in a university, how can he not be a composer? He has worked hard, learned …
Art is meant to be uplifting
“Art,” announces Pat Buchanan to Charlie Rose, “is meant to be uplifting.” What a relief! After all these years I’d …
Arthur Schopenhauer on music
Now the nature of man consists in this, that his will strives, is satisfied and strives anew, and so on …
Beethoven on music
“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which …
Beethoven our artistic brother
It is the function of art to bring to us emotions, thoughts, states of mind and heart which are larger …
Capturing the experience of being alive
In attempting to capture something of the experience of being alive, the words themselves must be alive. Words, when living …
Communication with the audience
Igor Stravinsky contemplates the ultimate goal of an artist versus reality: “Art postulates communion [between the artist and the audience], …
Convey to others what we are
There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And …
Culture is our fuel
“‘Culture is our petrol,’ says Toumani Diabaté, the Malian kora player who has collaborated with Damon Albarn and Björk, to …
Dostoyevsky on beauty
“Beauty will save the world.”– The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky …
Emerging from suffering
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” – Kahlil Gibran, Broken …
Entertaining to educate
“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.”— Walt DisneyL …
Environmental soundscapes
In the 1960s, the Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer founded the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University. The research …
First we make music
“…the nature of music is inherently social. Blackburn argues, ” … we need to remind ourselves that music in itself …
From the heart
“What comes from the heart, goes to the heart.”— Samuel Coleridge Taylor, English poet, critic and philosopher.Coleridge, Samuel (1856) Seven …
Greatness
Greatness means the construction of an inner world, and the communication of this inner world to the physical world of …
Heard but not seen
In 1926, conductor Leopold Stokowski inserted the following into the Philadelphia Orchestra programs:The great conviction has been growing in me …
How we decorate space and time
“Art is how we decorate space; music is how we decorate time.” Jean-Michel Basquiat, street artist …
Imagination disposes and creates
“Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything in this world.” — Blaise Pascal, French …
Inspiration
“Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are able to inspire.” – Duchess Prazlin Cited at QuotationsBook …
It is imperative to learn music
The philosopher Nietzsche noted:”Our emotional life is least clear to ourselves.” For this reason, it is imperative to listen to …
Joyous art
Art that feels like a duty is probably bad art. But most of the art industry is geared towards foisting …
Life experience
“Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your …
Luther on music
“I am not satisfied with any man who despises music. For music is a gift of God. It will drive …
Menken on the the strength of music
“It’s like, why move to Florida if you don’t like the sun?” says Menken when I visit his home in …
Music education helps to encourage empathy
“In an age when many children experience music alone on iPods and computers, especially students at the upper elementary level, …
Music is a moral law
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and …
Music is the real life
In modern life electricity plays a great part. Sometimes it is used destructively – sometimes creatively – but there is …
Musicians’ response to violence
This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. — …
Nietzche on Art
“We have art in order not to die of the truth.” Friedrich Nietzsche, notebook from the Spring-Summer of 1888, 16 …
No art is equal to music
“I firmly believe, nor am I ashamed to assert, that next to theology no art is equal to music; for …
Ode to Music and Moonlight
We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; …
On thinking
“If you make people think they’re thinking they’ll love you: but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.” …
Our modernized world needs music
“Our modernized minds need to be musicalized. We have defied the intellect … and developed only half of man’s possibilities …
Pablo Casals’ obligation
“I am a very simple man. I am a man first, an artist second. My first obligation is to the …
Practising an art
Practising an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake …
Rachmaninoff on music
“What is music? How can one define it? Music is a calm moonlit night, a rustling of summer foliage. Music …
Real genius
“Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.” Simone Wells, French philosopher …
Shostakovich on music
“There can be no music without idealogy … We, as revolutionaries, have a different conception of music from the composers …
Structure and disharmony
“I need to start from the assumption that the world of spirit is ordered, structured by its very nature, that …
Teaching in Kabul
Emma Ayres, a violist and former ABC Classic FM radio presenter, discusses her experience in teaching in Kabul at the …
Tears in art
In art there are tears that do often lie too deep for thoughts.– Louis KronenbergerL. Kronenberger, Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry …
The Anecdote to Distraction is Art
“If you are on a mission to discover what you have to offer, and to bring it out into the …
The art of listening
“It’s a challenge, for me at least, to do nothing but listen. You need to set aside time for it. …
The benefits of musical instruments
Many studies are now discovering that learning a musical instrument is something positive in itself – a discipline that helps …
The cleansing power of music
Each art endeavors to isolate itself, to remain independent of all others. But a play without music is like a …
The code of honor in great art
“In higher art, only that is worth being presented which has never before been presented. There is no great work …
The essence of music
I believe that there is no one the world so insensitive, so leaden, that he is not moved by song …
The influence of music
Conductor Leopold writes:There are millions who find solace in music – it opens for them the sun-bathed gates of inspiration …
The most powerful drugs
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kipling, British author and poet. Quoted in …
The musician’s contribution to the world
“As musicians, we are already doing something for the world … We make it more flowing? … Through music”. Pianist …
The musician’s role: maintain our trust in the world
“I feel that tolerance, love and social harmony can and should be the by-products of an artist’s way of life …
The nature of music
“A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.”- W …
The Poet and the Muse
Poet, you are no liar. The world that you imagine is the real one. The melodies of the harp alone …
The political function of music
“There can be no music without an idealogy. The old composers, whether they knew it or not, were upholding a …
The potential of music to spread peace
A German proverb says: Bose Menschen haben keine Lieder (bad men don't sing) . It is not impossible that out …
The power of music
“Music is a readily available, highly effective tool that you use to improve both your cognitive and physical abilities.” Arthur …
The purpose of the theater
“Do you know why I abandoned all my personal affairs and took up the theater? Because the theater is the …
The role of the arts in society
The Eighteenth Weimar Classicists’ (e.g., Goethe, Shiller) conception of art expanded past the arts themselves, but also embraced all elements …
The sole purpose of art is infinite
E. T. A. Hoffmann wrote in 1813 that instrumental musicis the most romantic of all the arts – one might …
The soul and speech
“There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a …
The spice of music
“Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must …
The two faces of an art work
“Every great work of art has two faces: one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.” …
The two faces of art
“Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.” …
The voice of life
“Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of …
The weird people
“Blessed are the weird people–poets, misfits, writers, mystics…painters & troubadours–for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.”— …
To burn with desire
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”— Federico García …
Two paths for the future of classical music
Greg Sanders ponders the position of classical music and describes the need for it to catch up with culture, without …
Valley of shadows
“When walking through the valley of shadows, remember, a shadow is cast by a Light.” – H. K. Barclay Cited …
Vassily Primakov on the role of the arts
“[Art] certainly takes us some place unobtainable. We can go on to say that it enriches our lives – as …
What is an artist?
“What is an artist? An artist is a tortured being who, when he opens his mouth to scream, only beautiful …
What we play
“What we play is life.” Louis Armstrong, Jazz musician Cited at: Satchmo, “Louis Armstrong Quotes and Tributes.” https://www.satchmo.com/louisarmstrong/quotes.html, accessed 6 …
Why we read
We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel—or …
Without music
“Without music, life would be a mistake.”— Friedrich Nietzsche, in Twilight of the Idols …
A man is not a failure until …
What is luck? Is it being in the right place at the right time? I think it is something more. …
A practice regime
After a year’s sabbatical in 1953, the pianist Horowitz found a routine and rebuilt his technique:I realized I had to …
Achieving your aims
“Those who have achieved all their aims probably set them too low.”- Herbert von Karajan, conductorHerbert von Karajan – Official Homepage …
Aim above the mark
“If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; Every arrow that flies feels the attraction …
Art and patience
“Good art is nothing more than infinite patience.” William Wallace Kimball, founder of Kimball Piano Company Cited in: Cited in: …
Attaining great heights
“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, …
Baudelaire on inspiration
“Inspiration is merely the reward for working every day!” – Charles Baudelaire (French poet). According to Roland-Manuel, Ravel would often …
Be a dreamer
“Be a dreamer. If you don’t know how to dream, you’re dead.” – Jim Valvano, American basketball coach …
Believe in Luck
“I am a great believer in luck and the harder I work the more of it I have.”— Stephen Leacock, …
Do everything promptly
“During a very busy life I have often been asked, How did you manage to do it all? The answer …
Don’t loaf and invite inspiration
Don’t dash off a six-thousand-word story before breakfast. Don’t write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than …
Encouraging progress
“I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth …
Energy from work
“The more work that you make, the more energy you have to make work.” – Garry Stewart, artistic director of …
Focus
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.- …
Focus on solutions
Focus 90% of your time on solutions and only 10% of your time on problems. Anthony J. D’Angelo, author Cited …
Go for long walks
Rachmaninoff once urged Horowitz to go for long walks. “If you don’t walk, your fingers will not run.” Abram Chasins, …
Hilary Hahn on technique, practise mentality, and performance
Violinist Hilary Hahn on practice and technique:I’ve always worked hard at my technique … But I’ve worked hard at my …
Inspiration exists
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” -Pablo Picasso Cited at WikiQuote …
It is best to do it well
“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.” – Henry Wadsworth …
It’s not hard work
“Talent labors, genius creates.” Florestan (one of Schumann’s characters) Robert Schumann,Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Muisker (Leipzig, 1854), IV. Cited …
Knowing is not enough
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet …
Man’s capacity
“There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.” Henry Ford, American …
Moving mountains
“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Chinese proverb …
Mozart on Craft
“People are mistaken, if they think that my art has come easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, no …
Mozart: the myth versus the man
We often focus too much on the myth of Mozart, the myth of the prodigy and the myth of the …
Perseverance
“Edison failed 10, 000 times before he made the electric light. Do not be discouraged if you fail a few …
Preparation
“Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” — John Wooden, American basketball player. Wooden, John (1988) Modern Practical Basketball. Macmillan, …
Quantity of practice
In the matter of practice, I never urge a student to work so many hours a day. One may be …
Recipe for success
“A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.”— Charles M. Schwab, American businessmanPeale, Norman (2003) …
Richard Bach on perseverance
“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”— Richard Bach, American writerApplewhite, Ashton; William R. Evans, Tripp Evans, Andrew …
Rising after we fall
“Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Oliver Goldsmith (1762) The …
Silence, slowness, clarity, reinvigorate
“No matter if you’re an artist, a desk jockey, or anything in between – give yourself permission to include regular …
Steps
“There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps.”— Peter A. CohenFord Saeks, Superpower! …
Stravinsky on composition
“For me, as a creative musician, composition is a daily function that I am compelled to discharge. I compose because …
Success
“Success is not the place one arrives but rather the spirit with which one undertakes and continues the journey.” Alex …
Talent is best used
“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. – …
Tchaikovsky’s Work Ethic
We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not …
That which precedes success
“I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls …
The beginning and the end
“Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.”– Joseph Joubert, French writerJoubert, J. (1983) The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A …
The length of a rehearsal
Rachmaninoff completed his Third Piano Concerto at his summer estate at Ivanovka in September-October 1909. He then toured America, learning …
The potential of man
“It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when …
The power of enthusiasm
“Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money, power and influence.” Henry Chester …
The true success of the journey
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.— Robert Louis Stevenson, …
The value of preparation
“Be ready when opportunity comes…. Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet.”— Roy D. Chapin Jnr., Chariman American …
There is no failure
“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard, American author, artist, and philosopher …
True greatness
Life is made up of little things. It is very rarely that an occasion is offered for doing a great …
Try, try, try
“Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.” …
What drives the wise
“There is hardly any treatise which could be too learned for me. I have not the slightest pretension to what …
Work joyfully and peacefully
If you will become possessed of this faith you will not need to bother about your success or failure, for …
Work so that you don’t have to work
Herr Richter, the pianist, is going on a tour that will take him back to Holland, his native country – …
Working hard for music
“Now we know that you are gifted, very gifted, but you must work very hard, because someone who is gifted …
(no title)
We arrived here safely yesterday morning at 9 o’clock. – We spent the first night at Vögelbruck; – on the …
(no title)
At the core of Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations, an esoteric and astonishing piano piece lasting some 50 minutes, is one of …
A “small” concerto
“I don’t mind telling you that I have written a tiny, tiny pianoforte concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp of …
Accessibility for kids
Benjamin Britten wrote the score to Instruments of the Orchestra, which would become the concert work, Young Persons Guide to …
An insight into the “Happy Birthday” tune
“Happy Birthday to You” is not an accidental success. It is not a traditional song nor did it appear ex …
Ashman’s directions for “Something There”
While writing the lyrics to songs in Beauty and the Beast, Howard Ashman’s health was deteriorating. The composer, Alan Menken, …
Boyd Neel on Vaughan William’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
Boyd Neel was the first conductor to record Vaughan William’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis in 1935. He …
Britten on The Rake’s Progress
“I liked everything about the opera but the music.” – Benjamin Britten on Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress Cited in: Jarski, …
Composing for elephants
Igor Stravinsky’s Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant to be performed by young elephants (a collaboration with American choreographer George …
Elgar on his Violin Concerto
“It’s good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional, but I love it…”Edward Elgar on his own Violin ConcertoJeremy Pound, “First Violin”, BBC …
First impressions of Schindler’s List
When renowned composer John Williams first watched a rough cut of Schindler’s List at director Steven Spielberg’s home in Los …
Harbouring doves and crocodiles
Beethoven, who is often bizarre and baroque, takes at times the majestic flight of an eagle, and then creeps in …
I need a better razor
Haydn reached London in the opening days of 1791. He passed his first night at the house of Bland, the …
It’s Oh So Quiet
In 1995, Bjork released a big band jazz cover of Betty Hutton’s 1948 hit “Blow a Fuse”. This was a …
It’s two-four … It’s three-four
Chopin had a free sense of rhythm. In 1842, Chopin was giving a lessen to Wilhem von Lenz when Meyerbeer …
James Levine on Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin
Conductor James Levine on Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin:Eugene Onegin is very special, an incredibly successful piece; there is nothing quite …
Kreutzer’s Wanderlieder and Schubert
Schubert was familiar with Kreutzer’s Wanderlieder song cycle (written in 1817). Spaun twice told the following anecdote of his friend’s …
Mack the Knife
Bobby Darin’s 1959 recording of “Mack the Knife” from The Threepenny Opera (Lyrics: Bertolt Brecht; Music: Kurt Weill) not only …
Malcolm Sargent on Vaughan Williams’ Sixth Symphony
Conductor Malcolm Sargent on Vaughan Williams’ Sixth Symphony:A frightening symphony. For a symphony to be frightening is perhaps a good …
Memory
Andrew Lloyd Webber originally composed the melody that is now known as “Memory” from Cats for a miniature opera about …
My tempo must be followed
Ravel was very particular about how his works were performed. Ravel always insisted that the tempo for Boléro should be …
O Danny Boy
Long before the tune Danny Boy even had words the tune existed as an Irish folk melody. A study in …
Older version of Molly Malone discovered
A tiny 18th-century book has turned up in Hay-on-Wye containing the earliest known version of Sweet Molly Malone, almost a …
Part of Your World
“Any Broadway musical would be lucky to include a single number this good.” — Janet Maslin, in The New York Times …
Pavel Kolesnikov on the Goldberg Variations
“Like climbing an infinite stairway, one step at a time.”—Pavel Kolesnikov, working on Bach’s Goldberg Variations.Jeal, Erica, “Pavel Kolesnikov, the …
Pierrot Lunairre
A performance of Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire was given by Artur Schnabel (piano), Boris Kroyt (violin), Gregor Piatigorsky (cello), Paul Bose …
Playing by the mood of the audience
Rachmaninoff sent fellow composer/pianist Medtner his Corelli Variations. He wrote: I played them here about fifteen times, but of these …
Puccini’s hangout
Puccini was a very sociable man, quote often putting this before his composing. Even when he was working hard, he …
Ravel’s compositional process
Robert de Fragny recalled a conversation with Ravel about his compositional process: The G major Concerto took two years of …
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, from The Wizard of Oz, is now a classic, inspiring song, but its had to believe …
Stravinsky on Verdi’s Rigoletto
“I say that in the aria ‘La donna è mobile’, for example, which the elite thinks only brilliant and superficial, …
Teddy Bear’s Picnic
American composer John Bratton wrote the music for “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” in 1907. It was first published by M. Witmark …
The background to Bolero
Ravel’s infamous Boléro was somewhat created by chance:Shortly before Ravel left for America, the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein had asked him for …
The James Bond theme
John Barry did not get the chance to see any footage and he had not read any of Ian Fleming’s …
Transforming Bach’s Cantatas into an opera
Theatre director Herbert Wernicke has taken six of Bach’s Cantatas dealing with the frailty of the human condition and presented …
Wagner’s observations on the English and oratorios
Wagner attended a performance of Messiah at Exeter Hall in London with a chorus of 700 voices. He recorded in …
White Christmas
Accounts vary on where Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas”. Berlin himself even recall differing circumstances on when it was penned …