Quotes About Music

It's odd to spend your vacation with someone else's music especially when you're alone. You're free to let loose, unobserved, but someone else has chosen the words you belt out in private, the rythms you can dance to like a fool.

Behold the rich farm boy Malachy Burns Who plays his pipe among the churns. He's a coward, he's benighted, He makes everyone feel slighted, And all things but music he spurns.

Music — good music, great music — had a hard, irreducible purity to it. It might be bitter and despairing and pessimistic, but it could never be cynical. If music is tragic, those with asses' ears accuse it of being cynical. But when a composer is bitter, or in despair, or pessimistic, that still means he believes in something.

In Jewish folk music, despair is disguised as the dance. And so, truth's disguise was irony.

What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves - the music of our being - which is transformed by some into real music. Which, over the decades, if it is string and true and pure enough to drown out the noise of time, is transformed into the whisper of history.

You like this stuff?' she asked neutrally. 'Good to dance to,' I replied, a little defensively. 'Do you dance to it? Here? In your room? By yourself?' 'No, not really.' Though of course I did.

All that bothered him was the barking of dogs; that insistent, hysterical sound cut right across the music he heard in his head. That was why he preferred cats to dogs. Cats were always happy to let him compose.

He applauded their idealism. And yes, music might be immortal, but composers alas are not.

Lenin found music depressing. Stalin thought he understood and appreciated music. Khrushchev despised music. Which is the worst for a composer?

Love means never having to say you're sorry (on the contrary, it frequently means doing just precisely that). Then there were all those love lines from all those love songs, with the swooning delusions of lyricist, singer, band.

Khrennikov had an average ear for music, but perfect pitch when it came to power.

From The Noise of Time: What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves--the music of our being--which is transformed by some into real music. Which, over the decades, if it is strong and true and pure enough to drown out the noise of time, is transformed into the whisper of history.

What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves – the music of our being – which is transformed by some into real music. Which, over the decades, if it is strong and true and pure enough to drown out the noise of time, is transformed into the whisper of history.

Wagner had a mean soul, and it showed. He was evil in his anti-Semitism and his other racial attitudes. Therefore he could not be a genius, for all the burnish and glitter of his music.

When all else failed, when there seemed to be nothing but nonsense in the world, he held to this: that good music would always be good music, and great music was impregnable. You could play Bach's preludes and fugues at any tempo, with any dynamics, and they would still be great music, proof even against the wretch who brought ten thumbs to the keyboard. And in the same way, you could not play such music cynically.

Lenin g?sea muzica deprimant?. Stalin credea c? înÈ›elege È™i apreciaz? muzica. HruÈ™ciov dispreÈ›uia muzica. Ce e mai r?u pentru un compozitor?

We're wretches but we're still capable of this - songs rising up inside us.

You must never be embarrassed when you are moved by music?' ["Madame" Lilian Stiles-Allen] counseled. 'It shows that you are a sensitive human being, capable of much feeling.

Dancers can look at a mirror, a writer can look at a page, and a painter can look at a canvas and see their work reflected back at them. But singers can only hear and feel what they are doing. After all the training, technique, use of breath, and placement of sound, it boils down to an emotional response to music and lyrics---and the way they touch one's heart and soul

Poetry was a barrier against raw emotions. It distilled them into bearable music, allowed one to accommodate them a little at a time. Alexander Moncrieffe

But now he understood why someone would write things like 'she walked in beauty like the night' and so forth. Because poetry was a barrier against raw emotions. It distilled them into bearable music, allowed one to accommodate them a little at a time.

Her laugh was wonderful. It was mischief made musical.

there was a sudden easing in him, as if someone had finally played a note that harmonized with the one he sounded every day.

Sorry . . . thank you. Good night," she said finally. She pivoted and headed for the house. He stared blankly. Thank you, good night? Like she was Lynyrd Skynyrd, and he was a San Francisco crowd?