Study music profoundly

“The advice I am giving always to my students is above all to study the music profoundly.  Because the music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees, or the contrary.”

Andrés Segovia, guitarist. 

Cited in: Cited in: Kimball, K., Petersen, R., Johnson, K. (1990) The Music Lover’s Quotation Book. Toronto: Sound and Vision, p. 84.

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Music which never leaves
‘”Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty.  Magical music never leaves the memory.” Sir Thomas Beecham Speech, c.1950, quoted in The Sunday Times, 16 September 1962
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He was a wonderful teacher. He is extremely articulate and very demanding. He made no concessions to my age. In my first lesson, I was playing a Schubert piano sonata, and the first chord took 20 minutes. I played it again and again, and Brendel wandered around the room saying: “No, balance of sound wrong […]
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 […]
A monkey on his shoulder
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Quasi Dance II
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Arthur Schopenhauer on music
Now the nature of man consists in this, that his will strives, is satisfied and strives anew, and so on for ever. Indeed, his happiness and well-being consist simply in the quick transition from wish to satisfaction, and from satisfaction to a new wish. For the absence of satisfaction is suffering, the empty longing for […]