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Topic: Quotes from Composers  (Read 2149 times)

Offline justinjalandoni

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Quotes from Composers
on: July 12, 2008, 02:22:06 PM
Here are some quotes from various composers. Feel free to add some more

Schubert

    * No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine that they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by.

    * When I wished to sing of love, it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow, it was transformed for me into love.

    * When all hopes of recognition or honor have faded into distant memory, when purity of heart meets sorrow of mind, when all the world seems to walk in blindness and yet a man works without wearying for that which he loves...only in this moment is passion truly understood.

Liszt
    * Any chord can follow any chord.
         
    * Génie oblige! (Genius obliges!)
     
    * "le piano concentre et résume en lui l'art tout entier..." (the piano concentrates and sums up art in him entirely.)


Offline schartmanovich

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Re: Quotes from Composers
Reply #1 on: July 13, 2008, 09:59:29 PM

Liszt
    * Any chord can follow any chord.
         

Liszt is completely right...it's too bad that so many people misinterpret what he said.

Offline eastman_grad

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Re: Quotes from Composers
Reply #2 on: July 18, 2008, 01:32:29 PM
Liszt is completely right...it's too bad that so many people misinterpret what he said.

You're right on the money. What Liszt meant was that, yes, any chord can follow any other; the third chord is where it becomes difficult. Roger Sessions once made a great remark:

"Anyone can write two measures of Mozart, but only Mozart can write three."

Offline pianowolfi

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Re: Quotes from Composers
Reply #3 on: July 18, 2008, 08:15:20 PM
Music is born only in the heart and it appeals only to the heart. Sergej Rachmaninoff


I shall seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely.
-- Ludwig van Beethoven, letter to F G Wegeler, 1801

Offline dnephi

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Re: Quotes from Composers
Reply #4 on: July 19, 2008, 07:36:44 AM
Liszt is completely right...it's too bad that so many people misinterpret what he said.
Actually, that was Reger.
For us musicians, the music of Beethoven is the pillar of fire and cloud of mist which guided the Israelites through the desert.  (Roughly quoted, Franz Liszt.)

Offline oscarr111111

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Re: Quotes from Composers
Reply #5 on: July 20, 2008, 10:37:32 PM
You're right on the money. What Liszt meant was that, yes, any chord can follow any other; the third chord is where it becomes difficult. Roger Sessions once made a great remark:

"Anyone can write two measures of Mozart, but only Mozart can write three."

I would have interpreted it as an observation that the 'rules' of music theory are just guidelines, and that they can be broken willingly at the judgment of the composer.

Offline tanman

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Re: Quotes from Composers
Reply #6 on: July 20, 2008, 11:36:39 PM
isn't there another thread like this somewhere?

anyway...

"I'm hungry"
- Rachmaninoff  8)
Remember, imitation is the sincerest form of identity theft.

Offline thalberg

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Re: Quotes from Composers
Reply #7 on: July 21, 2008, 05:07:38 AM
If you are not interested in scales, work on them until you become interested.

---I forgot who...perhaps Rachmaninoff

Offline 0range

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Re: Quotes from Composers
Reply #8 on: July 22, 2008, 10:38:12 PM
I recently saw a performance by Marc-Andre Hamelin in which he played a wonderful Villa-Lobos piece "Rudepoema". After the recital I had a few questions for him regarding his interpretation and here is what he had to say:

"Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?"

-Marc-Andre Hamelin

 ;D
"Our philosophy as New Scientist is this: science is interesting, and if you don't agree, you can *** off."
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