Quote collection
60 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Einstein said that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious." So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?"
"I believe that from that Earth emerges a musical poetry, which is by the nature of its sources tonal. I believe that these sources cause to exist a phonology of music, which evolves from the universal known as the harmonic series."
"The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning."
"I believe in people. I feel, love, need and respect people above all else, including natural scenery, organized piety and nationalistic superstructures. One human figure on the slope of a mountain can make the mountain disappear for me, one person fighting for truth can disqualify for me the entire system which had dispensed it."
"When the thunder rumbles, Now the age of gold is dead. When the dreams we've clung to Trying to stay young, Have left us parched and old instead. When my courage crumbles, When I feel confused and frail, When my spirit falters on decaying altars And my illusions fail -- I go on right then. I go on again. I go on to say I will celebrate another day. I go on. If tomorrow tumbles And everything I love is gone, I will face regret all my days, and yet I will still go on."
"What [Louis Armstrong] does is real, and true, and honest, and simple, and even noble. Every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips, even if only to practice three notes, he does it with his whole soul."
"When the study of the arts leads to the adoration of the formula (heaven forbid), we shall be lost."
"Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages."
"Even experimental composers, revolutionary composers, self-styled radicals are, in writing revolutionary music, recognizing the music that preceded them precisely by trying to avoid it."
"Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer; that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts, however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor's existence."
"If you're a good composer, you steal good steals."
"Wine snobbery, of course, is part showmanship, part sophistication, part knowledge, and part bluff"
"Conducting is like making love to a hundred people at the same time."
"Success is all very well as long as you don't inhale."
"It is hard to think of another composer who so perfectly marries form and passion."
"I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees."
"I have two answers to everything and one answer to nothing."
"Which of my Jewish roots do I follow?"
"...we can all shut-up and go back to our caves."
"Bernstein has been disclosing musical secrets that have been well known for over 400 years."