Quartets Quotes - Page 4

• Part of me is probably more conservative than people realise. I like my old string quartets, I don't like music that's trippy for trippy's sake.

  Bjork

  People, Sake, Conservative

  "'Maybe I'll be a feminist in my old age'". Interview with Liz Hoggard, www.theguardian.com. March 12, 2005.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.

  Elvis Costello

  Writing, Opportunity, Years

  Interview with Brian Wise, www.elviscostello.info. April 10, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.

  Virginia Woolf

  Art, Mean, Wool

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.4186, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat.

  John Cheever

  New York, Light, Cities

  John Cheever, Blake Bailey (2009). “John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings”

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• In spite of all the refinements of civilization that conspired to make art--the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Fragonard's canvases--beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden.

  Anne Rice

  Art, Men, Garden

  Anne Rice (2003). “The vampire Lestat”

  52 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, Symphony

  11 Copy quote

• Music just runs in my family. My dad and my uncles are a gospel quartet, Latimore Brothers. They've been doing their thing ever since I was a kid, so I just kind of grew up around that.

  Jacob Latimore

  Running, Brother, Uncles

  "World Faire". Interview with Tariq Johnson, theruss.net. May 22, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't know that I make a big distinction between the big pieces and the little pieces, because I don't experience them in that way. I mean, by the same token, you're out touring with a band and then you're writing string quartets, and in a funny way, isn't it all the same, in a way? It's all just music.

  Philip Glass

  Writing, Mean, Band

  Interview with Bryce Dessner, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 3, 2014.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Beethoven's last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened to by a deaf man.

  Thomas Beecham

  Music, Men, Lasts

  25 Copy quote

• Shantaram is the second in the series of a quartet of novels that I have planned about my life but is the first to be written. The third book is a sequel to Shantaram, the first a prequel.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Book, Firsts, Shantaram

  5 Copy quote

• Industry, economy, honesty and kindness form a quartet of virtue that will never be improved upon.

  Jamie Oliver

  Honesty, Kindness, Improvement

  14 Copy quote

• Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Writing, Piano, Novelists

  4 Copy quote

• I love working with the quartet. I have more freedom and flexibility.

  Boz Scaggs

  Flexibility

  7 Copy quote

• It seems to me the structure of the Quartets is too imposed.

  Paul Muldoon

  Structure, Seems

  Interview with John Redmond, www.poetrymagazines.org.uk. November 2, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whether a listener absorbs this music or rebels against it is at least partly a matter of how the performers put it across. It would be hard to imagine an ensemble playing it with greater virtuosity than the JACK Quartet, which seemed not merely earnest but also completely comfortable with, and passionate about, the strange sound worlds at hand.

  Allan Kozinn

  Hands, Sound, Rebel

  4 Copy quote

• A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms; but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.

  William James

  Horse, Cat, Science

  William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.51, 谷月社

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every small town has its dramatic group, its barber-shop quartet, every home has music in one form or another.

  Kate Smith

  Home, Groups, Towns

  19 Copy quote

• The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece.

  Elliott Carter

  Two, Different, Pieces

  7 Copy quote

• The Quartets have been a major part of my work.

  Elliott Carter

  Has Beens, Majors

  4 Copy quote

• My family was very encouraging, and both of my grandparents were both beautiful singers. My grandmother was a coloratura soprano, and my grandfather was an Irish tenor in a barbershop quartet.

  Clare Bowen

  Beautiful, Grandmother, Grandparent

  7 Copy quote

• As an improviser I'm now pretty comfortable with trios, so I'm thinking of working up to quartets.

  Fred Frith

  Thinking, Trios, Comfortable

  54 Copy quote

• I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.

  Al Jarreau

  Song, Years, Needs

  7 Copy quote

• I would give my best quartet for a good razor.

  Joseph Haydn

  Giving, Razors

  28 Copy quote

• I am touring in Europe. I am putting together a trio and a quartet. I am playing solo concerts with my symphonic sounds. I am very much engaged back to playing and recording and everything.

  Miroslav Vitous

  Europe, Together, Sound

  6 Copy quote

• When I was drawing this, I thought I’d put together Sailor Saturn and Sailor Chibi-Moon in a pair. Then I followed it with the Sailor Quartet. One of these days I’m going to put this team together into the manga. What a weird thing that would be. Anyway, here’s the six.

  Naoko Takeuchi

  Team, Moon, Drawing

  12 Copy quote