"Harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees."
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Symphony quotes
Symphony
245 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Symphony quotes (page 3 of 13)
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"The critics say that Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony has no form. They are wrong; it has the form of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony."
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"Mozart, striving for perfection, wrote the same symphony forty-one times. In his case, it worked. He wrote a perfect symphony."
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"Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. He failed."
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"Our biological rhythms are the symphony of the cosmos."
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"A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors."
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"I hear entire symphonies, oratorios, in my head, but I can't write a note."
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"A man of intellect is like an artist who gives a concert without any help from anyone else, playing on a single instrument--a piano, say, which is a little orchestra in itself. Such a man is a little world in himself; and the effect produced by various instruments together, he produces single-handed, in the unity of his own consciousness. Like the piano, he has no place in a symphony; he is a soloist and performs by himself--in soli tude, it may be; or if in the company with other instruments, only as principal; or for setting the tone, as in singing."
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"When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience."
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"I don't work with an outline, except a vague one in my head, a general idea of character, place, arc... I'm like a composer with a symphony in their head: I can hear the music, I just have to figure out how to put it down on paper. But I don't always know where my stories are going when I begin."
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"I never want projects to be finished; I have always believed in unfinished work. I got that from Schubert, you know, the 'Unfinished Symphony.'"
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"I am lucky to have the greatest band and when you add a symphony orchestra to the mix it brings all of my songs to a whole new level. I wouldn't say I really change what I do but, having those talented musicians behind me, along with my band, really makes the songs so much bigger and more fun to sing."
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"I really love performing with an orchestra and am very excited to do so with the Kalamazoo Symphony."
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"With ticket prices, do you ask yourself, why I'm paying $70 to see the arts? You say, "No, that's what the symphony is costing me.""
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"I'm often surprised by classical music and musicians. I've met a large number of them because my wife works for the Boston Symphony, and I'm in that world a lot now. I'm surprised at how difficult it is for people who are classically trained to read music or to memorize music, how difficult it is for them to improvise, to just go off and play. It's sort of, it's like terra incognita. They just, (makes noise) they don't get it."
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"A friend of mine tells me that a Beethoven symphony can solve for him a problem of conduct. I've no doubt that it does so simply by giving him a sense of the tragedy and the greatness of human destiny, which makes his personal anxieties seem small, which throws them into a new proportion."
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"I say the same thing about the death of James Wait. "Oh, well -- he wasn't going to write the Beethoven's Ninth Symphony anyway."
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