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Quotes by Composer
"I have never acknowledged the difference between serious music and light music. There is only good music and bad music."
13
"I have sometimes been told that my music is 'difficult' for the listener."
13
"I have departed from this planet and I have left behind my poor earthly ones with their occupations which are as many as they are useless; at last I am living in the scintillating splendor of the stars, each of which used to seem to me as large as millions of suns."
13
"Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness."
13
"Humanity lives and always has lived on certain elemental provisions."
13
"You reach a certain point in your life where they things you do and say do make a difference."
13
"I think that the basic philosophy was very good. It was just be nice to each other, and don't step on other people's toes and infringe on their freedom."
12
"I cannot say what I think is right about music. I only know the rightness of it."
12
"Musical ideas sprang to my mind like a flight of butterflies, and all I had to do was to stretch out my hand to catch them."
12
"What is a good performance? It lies in the hands and head of a performer... the shortest way between two people is not a straight line."
12
"Friendships that have stood the test of time and change are surely best."
12
"Do you know that my very first experience as a composer was a 'Concerto for Accordion?'"
12
"For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever."
11
"A composer knows that music is written by human beings for human beings and that music is a continuation of life, not something separated from it."
11
"I would wake up in Moscow or somewhere else, my heart beating fast, feeling bitter and helpless."
11
"This new art made a deep impression on me, and I began to study it ardently."
11
"People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words."
11
"I was little impressed with this rough and ready way of persuading people to renew their contracts and decided that I was now quite free of any obligations."
11
"I would find myself, not necessarily always assigning these little bits of music for here or there, but all of a sudden something would fall into place and it would be exactly that."
10
"The result of this union would be, not the fortuitous result of a series of approximations and concessions, but the harmonious synthesis of two aspects of a single thought."
10
"Make new friends, but keep the old; Those are silver, these are gold."
10
"When I don't like a piece of music, I make a point of listening to it more closely."
10
"There is no room in the world, as you say, for second rate work."
10
"People whose sensibility is destroyed by music in trains, airports, lifts, cannot concentrate on a Beethoven Quartet."
9
"The music we made then was so amateurish, compared to the rest of mainstream pop or rock and roll. But what differentiated us from what everybody else was doing in the business was the fact that you could tell that these people came from different reference areas."
9
"You don't have to know anything about music to understand what I write. Mine are simple melodies."
9
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