Quotes About Polyphony

Listen to the triple fugue in 'Magnificat' - the first subject is seven voices, the second one has 52 different voices, the third uses five; then I combine all together. Such textures you cannot call primitive.

The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action.

In my piano concerto I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity.

The guitar is a small orchestra. It is polyphonic. Every string is a different color, a different voice.

An authentic updating of sacred music can take place only in the lineage of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and of sacred polyphony.

All the senses awaken and fall into harmony in poetic reverie. Poetic reverie listens to this polyphony of the senses, and the poetic consciousness must record it.

Heinrich Zimmer: 'Myth is the sole and spontaneous image of life itself in its flowing harmony and mutually hostile contrarieties, in all the polyphony and harmony of their contradictions.

With Orff it is text, text, text - the music always subordinate. Not so with me. In 'Magnificat,' the text is important, but in some places I'm writing just music and not caring about text. Sometimes I'm using extremely complicated polyphony where the text is completely buried. So no, I am not another Orff, and I'm not primitive.

Polyphonic painting is superior to music in that there, the time element becomes a spatial element. The notion of simultaneity stands out even more richly.

In a soundtrack, you are in a way always relating with... a combination of different languages. It has to have the same path and same rhythm. Sometimes it's a polyphony of languages that have to work together in some way. With musical projects alone, you can be more free.

I've never had a band with more than 3 people (meaning only two string players), so I love having the ability for 3-part polyphony.

As for sacred polyphony, there is no reason to be afraid of it.

All modern MIDI synthesizers are capable of polyphony, which means they can play more than one note at a time and more than one instrument at a time.

For me, anything can be music! I can get huge enjoyment and be moved totally by the purity and perfection of some Renaissance polyphony, but equally I can feel emotion in the expectant hum of a big old guitar amp just before the strings are hit.