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Quotes by Composer
"Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been put up to a critic."
61
"After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes."
61
"There's something inimical about the camera and song."
61
"What I think of as style - and I've gotten to this over years of really thinking about it - is that style is the unconscious choices I make."
60
"There is no doubt that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead."
60
"What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds."
60
"The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention."
60
"We appropriately compared the lifestyle to that of drug addiction and alcoholism - lifestyles that one would be encouraged to seek help to leave - never encouraged to stay in."
60
"For me it's the instrument. If I want to think of a flute and the state of the arts I hear a vibrato; I don't know what a flute is unless the person plays it for me."
60
"Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes."
60
"Almost every one of my various zero numbered birthdays has had a big concert in London and often in Paris."
60
"The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics."
60
"Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift."
60
"As I sit down and start to work, I often panic. I stare at the empty piece of music paper. How can I say that my piece will be ready for performance next January when I do not have a recipe for making it happen?"
59
"When I was in Paris, all of the German refugees began to flow in and it was a very sad time."
59
"I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it."
59
"What that book does for me is give me the tools in the same way that I had the tools when I learned the regular scales or the alphabet. If you give me the tools, the syntax, and the grammar, it still doesn't tell me how to write Ulysses."
59
"The project which we developed, however, was for a sound piece and I was initially curious that a sculptor should be interested in working with a musician, especially on a project for radio."
59
"Then, in 1983 I went on a very long concert tour all over Europe."
59
"It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces."
58
"I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results."
58
"Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn."
58
"The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution."
58
"Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries."
58
"The impressionists, Debussy, Faure, in France, did take a few steps forward."
57
"Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass?"
57
"If you come from Paris to Budapest you think you are in Moscow."
57
"Unending was the stream, unending the misery, unending the sorrow."
57
"I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment."
57
"I frequently compose out the entire metric structure of a piece in modified cyclic form, where each cyclic revolution undergoes some form of 'variation' much as if measure lengths were concrete musical 'material.'"
57
"Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way."
57
"Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel."
56
"When I got finished, Gershwin paid me the ultimate compliment. He said, 'Boy, even I couldn't do that.'"
56
"Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour."
56
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