Classical Composers Quotes:

Everything we do is music." (Classical Composer)(From: 4'33")

- John Cage

topic: Composer, Classical Composers

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

- Matt Groening

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

topic: Pops, Composer, Classical Composers

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

- Ludwig van Beethoven

topic: Music, Knowledge, World, Music Theory, World Music

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

- Leopold Stokowski

source: Leopold Stokowski's address to an audience at Carnegie Hall, as quoted in The New York Times, May 11, 1967.

topic: Music, Silence, Canvas, Jazz And Life, Music Life

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

- Ludwig van Beethoven

source: Ludwig Van Beethoven, John Trie (2017). “Ludwig Van Beethoven for Classical Guitar - Tablature: Arranged for Guitar by John Trie”, p.36, BoD - Books on Demand

topic: Music, Wisdom, Philosophy, Music Life, Musical Life

Simplicity is the final achievement.

- Frederic Chopin

source: "If Not God, Then What? Neuroscience, Aesthetics, and the Origins of the Transcendent". Book by Joshua Fost (p. 93), November 16, 2007.

topic: Simplicity, Design, Achievement, Life Is Simple, Notes Music

Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.

- Claude Debussy

source: "Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought". Book by John Paynter, 1992.

topic: Art, Musician, Classical Music, Classical Composers, Famous Musician

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

- Leonard Bernstein

topic: Time, Stress, Humor, Not Enough Time, Stress And Life

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

source: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Metropolitan Opera (New York, N.Y.) (1971). “Chagall at the Met”, Leon Amiel Publisher

topic: Love, Marriage, Flower, Composing Music, Lofty

Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.

- Johannes Brahms

topic: Inspirational, Inspiring, Wind, Craftsmanship, Composing Music

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

topic: Music, Appreciation, People, Composing Music, Classical Composers

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.

- Robert Schumann

topic: Inspiring, Art, Men, Inspiration And Art, Inspirational Artist

Music is the social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.

- Malcolm Arnold

topic: Inspiring, Communication, People, Classical Composers

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

- Yo-Yo Ma

topic: Musician, Jazz, Force, Classical Composers

Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.

- Brian Greene

topic: Avant Garde, Composer, Mathematician, Classical Composers

I tend to listen to the classical composers: Rachmaninov, Satie.

- Enya

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

topic: Listen To Your Heart, Composer, Classical Composers

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

- Leonard Bernstein

topic: Sound, Orchestra, Want, Classical Composers

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

- Richard Strauss

topic: Inspiring, Class, May, Classical Composers, Second Rate

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

source: 1961 In Life.

topic: Writing, Play, Two, Classical Composers

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

- Igor Stravinsky

topic: Inspiring, Art, Architecture, Great Artist, Classical Composers

Competitions are for horses, not artists.

- Bela Bartok

topic: Inspiring, Horse, Artist, Classical Composers, Pianist

You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow. (Oscar trying to talk his way out of a speeding ticket)

- Oscar Levant

topic: Trying, Movement, Oscars, Speeding Tickets, Speeding

The only love affair I have ever had was with music.

- Maurice Ravel

topic: Inspiring, Affair, Love Affair, Classical Composers

Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

- Ludwig van Beethoven

source: Letter to Ferdinand Ries, 20 Dec. 1822

topic: Music, Writing, Thank God, Writing Music, Composing Music

Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.

- Giacomo Puccini

topic: Inspiring, Inspiration, Men, Classical Composers, Quickening

You think about, like, [20th-century classical composers] Alban Berg, Schoenberg, and Webern sitting around in some living room in Vienna and being like, "We are the end of music. We are the end of this tradition. Music is done."

- David Longstreth

source: "Dirty Projectors". Interview with Brandon Stosuy, pitchfork.com. July 2, 2012.

topic: Thinking, Sitting, Done, Schoenberg, Webern

A great ancient poet was blind. A great classical composer was deaf. Many of us are dumb. What have we to show for it?

- Vera Nazarian

topic: Dumb, Ancient, Blind, Classical Composers

But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging. ... Recording at home enables one to eliminate the demo stage, and the presentation stage in the studio, too. ... And I think it's safe to say that the single very impressive figure to me was Merle Haggard. ... Dylan can do no wrong. ... Glenn Gould was my hero. Glenn Gould was my idol. I loved him. ... I loved Hendrix. I mean, really, really loved him. As if he were one of the great classical composers. And he was. That's how I saw him.

- Warren Zevon

topic: Hero, Home, Mean, Demos, Haggard

When I was 20, Shostakovich was my favorite composer. I still find his Fifth Symphony wonderful, with its outstanding themes and rhythms. That's the piece that made me want to be a classical composer.

- Dave Brubeck

topic: Symphony, Pieces, Want, Shostakovich, Classical Composers

[Phil wood] put on some [Igor] Stravinsky and say to follow the score, tell me to play me the opening to the Rite of Spring. Or, "I'm going to play you some 20th century obscure classical composer you don't know". Or, "Let's listen to some Charles Ives, let's sight read some Bartok violin duets", etc.

- Jon Gordon

topic: Spring, Sight, Play, Classical Composers, Stravinsky

... Andres Segovia literally created the genre of classical guitar, which hadn't existed before around 1910. There was flamenco, which he borrowed from, but he actually arranged the works of Mozart and other classical composers for guitar, something that had never been done before ... Segovias' style is not slick or contrived, but it's still very clean and his timing is impeccable ... it's got a feeling of casual elegance, as if he's sitting around the house in Spain with a jug of wine, just playing from the heart.

- Roger McGuinn

topic: Music, Heart, Wine, Borrowed, Classical Composers

I am a ham. I've no business being rock 'n' roll. I've said it over and over again that I'm a classical composer, dishevelling my personality by dabbling in rock 'n' roll.

- John Cale

topic: Rocks, Personality, Ham, Dabbling, Classical Composers