To be a good player

Bach was once complemented on his organ playing:
“There is nothing remarkable about it.  All one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself.”

Quoted by Johann Friedrich Köhler, Leipzig, after 1776.  Hans-Joachim Schulze, ed. Dokumente zum Nachwirken Johann Sebastian Bachs, 1750-1800. Bach-Dokumente, III. 1972, no. 848.

Cited in: Wolf, Christoph (1998) The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters in Documents.  New York: Norton, p.412.

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Music is for me to play
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At the 1905 premiere of La Mer, one of whose movements is called “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea”, Debussy received the usual post-performance congratulations. Satie’s deflating comment was, “Ah, my dear friend, there’s one particular moment between half past ten and a quarter to eleven that I found especially stunning.” Levison, B. (2015). […]