Composer Quotes - Page 16

• To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again.

  Arturo Toscanini

  Men, Hats, He Man

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• Wherever there’s a conductor, you’re sure to find a dead composer!

  Daniel Handler

  Conductor

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• Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas.

  George Gershwin

  Ideas, Use, Strange

  1930 'The Composer in the Machine Age'.

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• The field of the novel is very rich. If you're a composer, you're well aware of the history of composition, and you are trying to make your music part of that history. You're not ahistorical. In the same way, I think, if you write now, you are writing in the historical context of what the novel has been and what possibilities it has revealed.

  Salman Rushdie

  Writing, Thinking, Historical

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• Composers are influenced by all the important music in their lives - and I suppose that since radio started playing popular music, that's as likely to be The Beatles or Aphex Twin as it is to be Verdi or Ravel.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Music, Important, Ravel

  "Music (For A Film): Jonny Greenwood Of Radiohead Interviewed". Interview with Chris Woolfrey, thequietus.com. February 18, 2014.

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• If I were to die tomorrow, I think they'd say Newman 56, composer of the hit song, Short People. Jumped off a mountain today.

  Randy Newman

  Song, Thinking, People

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• It’s really strange, but they speak to me — the notes and the chords. So when I hear other people’s music, I can feel the composer. Whoever created that, I can see in their soul.

  Yanni

  People, Soul, Strange

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• Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.

  Jean Sibelius

  Water, Hue, Cocktails

  "Sibelius: The Symphonies" by Cecil Gray, London: Oxford University Press, (p. 56), 1935.

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• I have to say I owe my career to the master composers of the Great American Songbook who have written such high-quality songs - the best popular music ever composed.

  Tony Bennett

  Song, Careers, Quality

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• 'Jazz Artist of the Century' would have to be a distinctive soloist and ensemble player, a composer, an arranger, a bandleader, and a driver; would have to span all the genres and periods of jazz; would have to have run her own label; [would] possess a deep spirituality, with grace and a sense of humor; and would have to have succeeded against all odds. Who else? Mary Lou Williams.

  Dave Douglas

  Running, Artist, Player

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• I'm a person of the arts. I love the arts very, very, very much. And ah, I'm a musician, I'm a director, I'm a writer, I'm a composer, I'm a producer, and I love the medium. I love film very, very much. I think it's the most expressive of all of the art mediums.

  Michael Jackson

  Art, Thinking, Musician

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• Our life as consumers seems light years away from that of our grandparents. But you don't change human nature. Optimism, for me, is the belief that we can spread the opportunity for everyone to be fully human. Sustainability, like music, is an impulse to make sense of the world around us. It is core to our humanity. If you only like one composer, or think all the best music has already been written, you have reason for pessimism. If not, it is within us to have good reason for hope

  Ed Mayo

  Future, Thinking, Opportunity

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• You know creators, composers, need a palette for life, a color for life.

  Mstislav Rostropovich

  Color, Needs, Creator

  "Cellist, Human Rights Crusader Mstislav Rostropovich Dies at 80", www.foxnews.com. April 27, 2007.

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• Salieri was a pupil of Gluck. He was born in Italy in 1750 and died in Vienna in 1825. He left Italy when he was 16 and spent most of his life in Vienna. He's the key composer between classic music and romantic music. Beethoven was the beginning of romantic music, and he was the teacher of Beethoven and Schubert.

  Cecilia Bartoli

  Teacher, Keys, Romantic Music

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• Our interpretations through the years and generations have always changed, but the emotions, ideas, and the thoughts of the composers are still with us, and these are the premise of the music. The time factor has little to do with it because, after all, it is about human feeling, the Universe and who we are as people.

  David Finckel

  Ideas, Years, People

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• To make good films, you have to have a good relationship and good collaboration as composer-director, composer-editor, composer-production designer-actor because you're working with the actors on screen.

  Howard Shore

  Editors, Good Relationship, Directors

  Source: collider.com

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• Each composer has their own language, and I try to meet the challenges, even if at first sight, they appear impossible.

  Michala Petri

  Sight, Challenges, Trying

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• I have always personally preferred to think of what is more difficult for my instrument, and not what is the most natural or the easiest. I enjoy the challenges - especially those that come with composers who have written contemporary music for the recorder.

  Michala Petri

  Thinking, Challenges, Natural

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• Composers often think in terms of music and not of an instrument itself.

  Michala Petri

  Thinking, Instruments, Term

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• Songs give you incredible opportunity to convey a tremendous amount in a relatively short period of time. The first thing that John Powell, our composer, says is, "Is the song engaging you to tap your toe?" If you're not tapping your toe, it doesn't matter what you're doing in the song, it's not going to work. But, if you can get the audience to be engaged by the song, then it gives you the opportunity to accomplish so much, in a very concise way.

  Christopher Meledandri

  Song, Opportunity, Giving

  Source: collider.com

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• Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

  Giuseppe Verdi

  Mean, Past, Seriousness

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• Deep Listening is listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, or one's own thoughts as well as musical sounds. Deep Listening represents a heightened state of awareness and connects to all that there is. As a composer I make my music through Deep Listening

  Pauline Oliveros

  Musical, Listening, Matter

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• The public want actresses, because they think all actresses bad. They don't want music or poetry because they know that both are good. So actors and actresses thrive and poets and composers starve.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Thinking, Want, Actresses

  "Love Among the Artists". Book by George Bernard Shaw, 1900.

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• I always wanted to be a film composer. So very early on I started collecting soundtracks and paying attention to how movie music works. Actually I'd like to have the opportunity to conduct for the rest of my life.

  Alexandre Desplat

  Opportunity, Attention, Film

  Source: collider.com

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• Criticism will survive even if no one's paying for it. Obviously it's better if people are paying for it. But the fact that artists weren't able to make a living from their work hasn't detracted from the quality of that work. Charles Ives was the second greatest composer in American history and he worked in insurance his whole life.

  Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

  Artist, People, Criticism

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