Symphony Quotes - Page 13

• [On being asked how it felt to be the first female conductor of the Boston Symphony:] I've been a woman for a little more than fifty years, and I've gotten over my original astonishment.

  Nadia Boulanger

  Music, Women, Years

  11 Copy quote

• My mother was the concert master of the symphony. Absurdity and eccentricity were not criticized.

  Martin Short

  Mother, Masters, Concerts

  9 Copy quote

• Now what is history? It is the centuries of systematic explorations of the riddle of death, with a view to overcoming death. That's why people discover mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves, that's why they write symphonies.

  Jon Krakauer

  Writing, Views, People

  Jon Krakauer (2011). “Into the Wild”, p.186, Pan Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A cap of good acid costs $5, and for that you can hear the Universal Symphony, with God singing solo and the Holy Ghost on drums.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Singing, Dollars, Cost

  "The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time".

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The framework of a symphony must be so strong that it forces you to follow it, regardless of the environment and circumstances.

  Jean Sibelius

  Strong, Environment, Framework

  Jean Sibelius' remarks to Jussi Jalas, October 1, 1939.

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't think that either self-deprecation or self-aggrandizement is among the defining qualities of an artist... Beethoven could have been forgiven if his symphonies had gone to his head. Gretchaninoff could also be forgiven if his Dobrinya Nikititch went to his head. But neither one could be forgiven for writing a piece that was amoral, servile, the work of a flunky.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Writing, Artist, Thinking

  "Composers on Music". Book edited by Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols, p. 354, letter to Isaac Glikman (February 26, 1960), 1997.

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Men, Artist, Piano

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “Counsels and Maxims”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life is horrible, but it is not relentlessly black from wire to wire. You can sit down and hear a Mozart symphony, or you can watch the Marx Brothers, and this will give you a pleasant escape for a while. And that is about the best that you can do.

  Woody Allen

  Brother, Giving, Black

  "Woody Allen's World: Whatever Works". Interview with Robert E. Lauder, www.commonwealmagazine.org. April 15, 2010.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Loneliness is the theme, and I play it like a symphony, in endless variations.

  Jonathan Tropper

  Loneliness, Play, Variation

  4 Copy quote

• These are thy glorious works Parent of Good, Almighty, thine this universal Frame, Thus wondrous fair; thy self how wondrous then! Unspeakable, who sitst above these Heavens To us invisible or dimly seen In these thy lowest works, yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine: Speak ye who best can tell, ye Sons of light, Angels, for ye behold him, and with songs And choral symphonies, Day without Night, Circle his Throne rejoicing, ye in Heav'n, On Earth join all ye Creatures to extoll Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.

  John Milton

  God, Song, Angel

  'Paradise Lost' (1667) bk. 5, l. 164

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When asked by a grumpily puzzled professor what "rules" he followed, Debussy is said to have retorted, mon plaisir "whatever I please" and he further claimed that more was to be gained by watching the sun rise than by listening to the Pastoral Symphony. Although such remarks were intended to shock, they contain a core of Debussyan verity.

  Claude Debussy

  Past, Listening, Sun

  56 Copy quote

• every artist is both male and female, and ... sometimes, the two great elements are in conjunction with him, so that all by himself he suddenly gets the melody and the burst of feeling of a great symphony without any external stimuli.

  Ruth St. Denis

  Artist, Two, Feelings

  7 Copy quote

• Soccer and sports are entertainment ... You can't call Beethoven's 9th Symphony or a work of Shakespeare `entertainment.' It's not `entertainment.' It's culture.

  Riccardo Muti

  Soccer, Sports, Culture

  8 Copy quote

• Without "Louie Louie" a symphony is not quite so grand.

  Frank Zappa

  6 Copy quote

• That is what they call being reconciled to die. They call it reconciled when pain has strummed a symphony of suffering back and forth across you, up and down, round and round you until each little fibre is worn tissue-thin with aching. And when you are lying beaten, and buffeted, battered and broken - pain goes out, joins hands with Death and comes back to dance, dance, dance, stamp, stamp, stamp down on you until you give up.

  Marita Bonner

  Death, Giving Up, Pain

  Marita Bonner (1987). “Frye Street & environs: the collected works of Marita Bonner”, Beacon Press (MA)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Many consider that Shostakovich is the greatest 20th-century composer. In his 15 symphonies, 15 quartets, and in other works he demonstrated mastery of the largest and most challenging forms with music of great emotional power and technical invention...All his works are marked by emotional extremes - tragic intensity, grotesque and bizarre wit, humour, parody, and savage sarcasm.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Sarcasm, Emotional, Challenges

  11 Copy quote

• Art lives on the mental plane (the real painting is not the set of dry pigments on the canvas nor is a symphony the sequence of sound waves that convey it to our ear) but, as the post-modernists insist, is reinterpreted in new contexts by each appreciator. As for gossip, which includes the vast majority of our thoughts, its essence is its relation to a unique local part of time and space.

  David Mumford

  Art, Real, Unique

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Writing, Waiting, Oh Well

  4 Copy quote

• There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.

  Helen Keller

  Eye, Light, Self

  Helen Keller (2015). “The Story of My Life: Top Biography”, p.72, 谷月社

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• At every moment, each instrument knew what to play. Its little bit. But none could see the whole thing like this, all at once, only its own part. Just like life. Each person was like a line of music, but nobody knew what the symphony sounded like. Only the conductor had the whole score.

  Janet Fitch

  Play, Lines, Littles

  4 Copy quote

• A work of art... is not a living thing... that walks or runs. But the making of a life. That which gives you a reaction. To some it is the wonder of man's fingers. To some it is the wonder of the mind. To some it is the wonder of technique. And to some it is how real it is. To some, how transcendent it is. Like the 5th Symphony, it presents itself with a feeling that you know it, if you have heard it once.

  Louis Kahn

  Running, Art, Real

  "My Architect", www.imdb.com. 2002.

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• Im like any other composer. If you give me five years to write a symphony, Im still going to be asking for more time two days before its due.

  Darren Criss

  Writing, Years, Two

  9 Copy quote

• The symphony orchestra had played poorly, so the conductor was in a bad mood. That night he beat his wife--because the music hadn't been beautiful enough.

  George Carlin

  Beautiful, Night, Wife

  George Carlin (1998). “Brain Droppings”, Hyperion

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Blood Dazzler is Patricia Smith's impassioned lyric chronicle of a beloved city in peril, a city whose people were left to die before us all, a people who were the heart of our country and lifeblood of our culture. After rising water, winds and abandonment, after our failure and neglect, comes this symphony of utterance from the ruins: many-voiced, poignant, sorrowful and fierce. This is poetry taking the full measure of its task.

  Carolyn Forche

  Country, Heart, Wind

  4 Copy quote

• A visionary company is like a great work of art. Think of Michelangelo's scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or his statue of David. Think of a great and enduring novel like Huckleberry Finn or Crime and Punishment. Think of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Shakespeare's Henry V. Think of a beautifully designed building, like the masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. You can't point to any one single item that makes the whole thing work; it's the entire work-all the pieces working together to create an overall effect-that leads to enduring greatness.

  John C. Maxwell

  Art, Greatness, Thinking

  John C. Maxwell (2003). “Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work”, p.15, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source