Composer Quotes - Page 31

• I'm not a frustrated concert composer, and the concert pieces I've done have been a small part of my work. What I've sought there is instruction, variation from the demands of film and relief from its restrictions.

  John Towner Williams

  Frustrated, Relief, Variation

  "The force is with him". Interview with Stephen Moss, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2002.

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• One of my heroes is a composer named James Bernard, and oh my God... I can still listen to his music today and be stirred and moved by it. But I think that you fall in love with... Well, again, when you're young, it really is more powerful. Much more terrifying.

  John Carpenter

  Falling In Love, Powerful, Hero

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• I have a team, the same team of filmmakers I worked with on 'Pi' and 'Requiem'. Which is my cameraman, and my composer, and my producer. We've all worked together for a number of films.

  Darren Aronofsky

  Team, Numbers, Together

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. November 21, 2006.

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• Around eighth grade I decided I wanted to be a composer and that's what I went to college for. Just a few years back, I switched out of composition and into creative writing so I could work with words.

  Joanna Newsom

  Writing, College, Years

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I think a lot of people get intimidated by the language of music, but everyone owns music. I think there's nothing standing in between a composer and her audience. I think a lot of people feel that way because they feel it's rarefied, but it's really not. You should feel the impact of it without being able to name it because it's ultimately a primal thing.

  Jeanine Tesori

  Thinking, Impact, Names

  "Composer Jeanine Tesori on Her Artistic Process and Rewarding Female Ambition". Interview with Victoria Myers, www.indiewire.com. March 27, 2015.

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• Every philharmonic orchestra merely interprets the composer. My goal was to create new music by that composer. In doing so, I wanted to find the painter's creative center and become familiar with it, so that I could see through his eyes how his paintings came about and, of course, see the new picture I was painting through his eyes - before I even painted it.

  Wolfgang Beltracchi

  Eye, Goal, Creative

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• I've been very fortunate as a composer to be involved with projects that have really propelled my scores forward. I'm very proud of it.

  Alan Menken

  Proud, Projects, Score

  Source: collider.com

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• There's always been good and bad music. Many composers hide behind modern music in order to not make music.

  Pepe Romero

  Order, Modern, Good And Bad

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• I would prefer to listen to a French classical composer like Olivier Messiaen than to the pop hits of the day.

  Matt Groening

  Pops, Classical Composers

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. April 26, 2006.

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• The ability to understand and deliver comedy and tragedy is extremely rare in one composer.

  Signe Baumane

  Tragedy, Comedy, Ability

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• In my study I can lay my hand on the Bible in the pitch dark. All truly inspired ideas come from God. The powers from which all truly great composers like Mozart, Schubert, Bach and Beethoven drew their inspirations is the same power that enabled Jesus to do his miracles.

  Johannes Brahms

  Jesus, Inspiration, Dark

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• I am a composer in search of oblivion; and I'm always slightly ashamed to admit that I compose.

  Alexander Borodin

  Oblivion, Ashamed

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• One day I'll be able to relax a bit, and try and become a good composer.

  Benjamin Britten

  One Day, Trying, Relax

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• That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a big head of steam while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of versimilitude.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, People, Seductive

  Robertson Davies (1986). “The papers of Samuel Marchbanks”, Viking, 1986

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• What gives Bach and Mozart a place apart is that these two great expressive composers never sacrificed form to expression.

  Camille Saint-Saens

  Expression, Two, Giving

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• Händel is the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him I can still learn.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Stills, I Can

  Ludwig Van Beethoven (2004). “Beethoven: The Man and the Artist”, p.58, 1st World Publishing

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• If a composer could state in words what being a composer means, he would no longer need to be a composer.

  Ned Rorem

  Mean, Needs, States

  Ned Rorem (1970). “Critical Affairs: A Composer's Journal”, George Braziller

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• I think the tendency to paint composers or styles of music with too broad a brush - for example, identifying composers as writers of "simple" or "complex" music - has become increasingly problematic and is almost never productive.

  Michael Hersch

  Simple, Thinking, Style

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• A mission that comes from the heart to promote these things and to encourage composers to write, then of course they should do it. And there are more than a few pianists these days who do this, fortunately.

  Marc-Andre Hamelin

  Writing, Heart, Should

  Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. November 8, 2013.

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