Dmitri Shostakovich Quotes

Quotes about:

• When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Music, Believe, Mean

  "Testimony". Book edited by Solomon Volkov, transl. by Antonina W. Bouis, New York: Limelight, P. 175, 2004.

  93 Copy quote

• Music is a means capable of expressing dark dramatism and pure rapture, suffering and ecstasy, fiery and cold fury, melancholy and wild merriment – and the subtlest nuances and interplay of these feelings which words are powerless to express and which are unattainable in painting and sculpture.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Mean, Dark, Feelings

  Translated in Music Journal, p. 37, September, 1965.

  71 Copy quote

• Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Real, People, Revolutionary

  Translated in Music Journal, p. 37, September, 1965.

  84 Copy quote

• If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Cutting, Hands, Teeth

  "Shostakovich: A Life". Book by Laurel Elizabeth Fay, p. 92, 2000.

  70 Copy quote

• In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Music, Running, Long

  "Testimony". Book edited by Solomon Volkov, p. 196, 1979.

  47 Copy quote

• What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Paper, Vessel, Fragile

  "Testimony" by Solomon Volkov, p. 229, 1979.

  41 Copy quote

• Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator...If a work doesnt express the composers own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesnt, in my opinion, even deserve to be born.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Views, Expression, Ideas

  54 Copy quote

• I write music, it’s performed. After all, my music says it all. It doesn’t need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Running, Writing, Long

  49 Copy quote

• Those who have ears to hear, will hear

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Ears

  9 Copy quote

• The best way to hold on to something is to pay no attention to it. The things you love too much perish. You have to treat everything with irony, especially the things you hold dear. There's more of a chance then that they'll survive.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Philosophical, Attention, Pay

  29 Copy quote

• A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at any tempo, with or without rhythmic nuances, and it will still be great music. That's how music should be written, so that no-one, no matter how philistine, can ruin it.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Beautiful, Pieces, Matter

  "Composers on Music". Book by Josiah Fisk, p. 364, 1997.

  44 Copy quote

• A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Inspiring, Artist, Creative

  49 Copy quote

• A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Beautiful, Pieces, Prelude

  Letter to Isaac Glikman, (August 28, 1955) in "Composers on Music" edited by Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols, (p. 364), 1997.

  29 Copy quote

• The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Tombstone, Symphony, Majority

  "Testimony" by Dmitri Shostakovich, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, New York: Limelight, (p. 156), 2004.

  16 Copy quote

• What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in "serious" music.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Laughter, Sadness, Fighting

  "Sovetskoye Iskusstvo", quoted in "Shostakovich: A Life", transl. by Laurel Fay (2000) p. 77, November 5, 1934.

  18 Copy quote

• I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Pain, Order, Suffering

  "Testimony" by Dmitri Shostakovich, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, New York: Limelight, (p. 155), 2004.

  38 Copy quote

• Music is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true!

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Evil, Music Is, Primitive

  11 Copy quote

• We should think more about it, and accustom ourselves to the thought of death. We can't allow the fear of death to creep up on us unexpectedly. We have to make the fear familiar, and one way is to write about it. I don't think writing and thinking about death is characteristic only of old men. I think that if people began thinking about death sooner, they'd make fewer foolish mistakes.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Mistake, Struggle, Writing

  27 Copy quote

• It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Running, Believe, People

  "Testimony" by Dmitri Shostakovich, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, New York: Limelight, (p. 8), 2004.

  29 Copy quote

• The real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Real, Writing, Genius

  "Composers On Music: Eight Centuries of Writings". Book by Josiah Fisk, p. 355. In conversation with Isaac Glikman (July 4, 1966), January 30, 1997.

  26 Copy quote

• Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Worship, Despise, Composer

  27 Copy quote

• Football is the ballet of the masses.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Soccer, Football, Philosophical

  25 Copy quote

• I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth . The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov . It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing," and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Thinking, Sticks, Muttering

  15 Copy quote

• Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Rejoice

  27 Copy quote

• People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Art, People, Broken

  "Testimony". Book by Solomon Volkov, transl. by Antonina W. Bouis, New York: Limelight, p. 159, 2004.

  25 Copy quote

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