Classical Music Quotes - Page 2

• I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

  Leonard Bernstein

  Sound, Orchestra, Want

  24 Copy quote

• All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

  Louis Armstrong

  Funny, Music, Song

  Quoted in N.Y. Times, 7 July 1971

  90 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

  Johann Sebastian Bach

  Music, Keys, Play

  197 Copy quote

• There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

  Thomas Beecham

  Funny, Music, Two

  In Harold Atkins and Archie Newman Beecham Stories (1978) p. 27

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

  Nina Simone

  Music, White, Racism

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

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.

  Mark Twain

  Music, Witty, Humorous

  Autobiography (published in 1924).

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• If classical music is the state of the art, then the arts are in a sad state.

  Frank Zappa

  Music, Art, States

  15 Copy quote

• I've outdone anyone you can name - Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500.

  James Brown

  Music, Names, Tunes

  11 Copy quote

• Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories.

  Oscar Wilde

  Music, Art, Memories

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.88, Wordsworth Editions

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Music, Jazz And Life, Doe

  In Peter Yates Twentieth Century Music (1967) pt. 1, ch. 8. Cf. T. S. Eliot 76:8, Lionel Trilling 218:1

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Music, Appreciation, Humorous

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

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.

  Jascha Heifetz

  Writing, Play, Two

  1961 In Life.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• My music is best understood by children and animals.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Children, Animal, Pet

  In Observer 8 Oct. 1961

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• A musicologist is a man who can read music but cannot hear it.

  Thomas Beecham

  Music, Men

  In H. Proctor-Gregg Beecham Remembered (1976) pt. 2, p. 154

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass?

  Michael Torke

  Funny, Music, Listening

  65 Copy quote

• Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Life, Way, Music Is

  7 Copy quote

• To sing is to pray twice.

  Saint Augustine

  Catholic, Praying

  81 Copy quote

• I had to listen to the classical music because it calms me down, calms my nerves down.

  Novak Djokovic

  Nerves, Calm

  32 Copy quote

• I was born out of classical music.

  Mika

  Born

  "Mika meets Dita Von Teese: 'I've had to work hard to stay like this'". Interview with Paul Lester, www.theguardian.com. October 11, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• On horseback you feel as if you're moving in time to classical music; a camel seems to progress to the beat of a drum played by a drunk.

  Walter Moers

  Horse, Moving, Drunk

  9 Copy quote

• The tradition of classical music and the opera is such that it used to be the place where social intercourse could take place between all parts of society: politicians, industrialists, artists, citizens, etc. That tradition, I think, still exists, but it's much, much more diluted.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Artist, Thinking, Citizens

  Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. January 7, 2013.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Music has always been transnational; people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  People, World, Influence

  12 Copy quote

• I love hip-hop; I love Sleigh Bells. I also love classical music and musical theater.

  Tatiana Maslany

  Hip Hop, Musical, Hips

  "Meet Tatiana Maslany of TV's Newest Thriller, 'Orphan Black'". Interview with Lorraine Cwelich, www.elle.com. March 29, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I definitely want to act, but I also want to score movies, and I have this idea to fuse classical music with other styles that would give it a different perception.

  Alicia Keys

  Ideas, Giving, Perception

  "Soul sister number one". Interview with Stephanie Merritt, www.theguardian.com. March 21, 2004.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I hate Christmas. Everything is designed for families, romance, warmth, emotion and presents, and if you have no boyfriend, no money, your mother is going out with a missing Portuguese criminal and your friends don't want to be your friend anymore, it makes you want to emigrate to a vicious Muslim regime, where at least all the women are treated like social outcasts. Anyway, I don't care. I am going to quietly read a book all weekend and listen to classical music.

  Helen Fielding

  Mother, Hate, Book

  Helen Fielding (2013). “The Bridget Jones Omnibus: The Singleton Years: Bridget Jones's Diary & The Edge of Reason”, p.175, Pan Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

  Show source