Igor Stravinsky Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• My music is best understood by children and animals.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Children, Animal, Pet

  In Observer 8 Oct. 1961

  16 Copy quote

• I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Should Have, Talent, Born

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• The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one

  Igor Stravinsky

  Freedom, Precision, Constraints

  Igor Stravinsky (1970). “Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons”, p.65, Harvard University Press

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• I am an inventor of music.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Inventor

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• Revolution means turning the wheel.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Mean, Revolution, Wheels

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• The true creator may be recognized by his ability always to find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Perception, May, Attention

  Igor Stravinsky (1970). “Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons”, p.54, Harvard University Press

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• To continue in one path is to go backward.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Path

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• Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Inspiring, Art, Architecture

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  28 Copy quote

• The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Hands, Creating, Given

  Igor Stravinsky (1970). “Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons”, p.54, Harvard University Press

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• I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Religious, Exercise, Years

  Igor Stravinsky, Robert Craft (1981). “Expositions and Developments”, p.75, Univ of California Press

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• I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. 'That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific'.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Age, Abstract Painting, Negative

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• I live neither in the past nor in the future. I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Music, Past, Today

  Igor Stravinsky “An Autobiography”, Library of Alexandria

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• To be deprived of art and left alone with philosophy is to be close to Hell.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Art, Philosophy, Hell

  Igor Stravinsky, Robert Craft (1969). “Retrospectives and Conclusions”

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• I wonder if memory is true, and I know that it cannot be, but that one lives by memory nevertheless and not by truth.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Memories, Live By

  "Expositions and Developments".

  7 Copy quote

• What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Real, Artist, Giving

  17 Copy quote

• The profound meaning of music's essential aim... is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the Supreme Being

  Igor Stravinsky

  Inspiration, Men, Profound

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• It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism--Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique concrete--opposes. But instead of bringing art and reality closer together, the new movement merely thins out the distinction.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Art, Reality, Self

  Igor Stravinsky, Robert Craft (1969). “Retrospectives and Conclusions”

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• A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street any more without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Zoos, Animal, Royal

  Igor Stravinsky, Robert Craft (1982). “Dialogues”, p.62, Univ of California Press

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• The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Starting Over, Principles, Becoming

  Igor Stravinsky (1970). “Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons”, p.62, Harvard University Press

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• We have a duty towards music; namely to invent it. ...Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. For the act of invention implies the necessity of a lucky find and of achieving realization of this find. What we imagine does not necessarily take on concrete form and may remain in a state of virtuality; whereas invention is not conceivable apart from its actually being worked out.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Confused, Imagination, Doe

  Igor Stravinsky (1970). “Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons”, p.53, Harvard University Press

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• Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Relationship, Drama, Book

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• Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being?

  Igor Stravinsky

  Love, Success, Essence

  Igor Stravinsky “An Autobiography”, Library of Alexandria

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• Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Long, May, Kindles

  Igor Stravinsky, Robert Craft (1969). “Retrospectives and Conclusions”

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• We cannot describe sound, but we cannot forget it either.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Sound, Forget, Forget It

  Igor Stravinsky, Robert Craft (1963). “Dialogues and a Diary. [With Plates, Including Portraits.].”

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• An audience is an abstraction; it has no taste. It must depend on the only person who has (pardon, should have), the conductor.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Should Have, Taste, Pardon

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