Composer Quotes - Page 4

• It is conceivable that what is unified form to the author or composer may of necessity be formless to his audience.

  Charles Ives

  May, Form, Audience

  Charles Ives (2004). “Essays Before a Sonata”, p.36, 1st World Publishing

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• I dream of a collaboration that would finally be total, in which the librettist would often think as a composer and the composer as a librettist.

  Jacques Ibert

  Dream, Thinking, Collaboration

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• A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Music, Jazz And Life, Doe

  In Peter Yates Twentieth Century Music (1967) pt. 1, ch. 8. Cf. T. S. Eliot 76:8, Lionel Trilling 218:1

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• The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.

  Ansel Adams

  Art, Way, Negative

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• Music is at once the product of feeling and knowledge, for it requires from its disciples, composers and performers alike, not only talent and enthusiasm, but also that knowledge and perception which are the result of protracted study and reflection.

  Alban Berg

  Reflection, Feelings, Perception

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• I am not so complicated or intelligent a composer, nor am I very interested in becoming so. I am much more happy doing what I know I can do than what I am not sure I could do.

  Giorgio Moroder

  Intelligent, Becoming, Complicated

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• Music is a continuum and the modern and avant-garde composers of today will be part of the standard repertoire 30 years from now.

  Neville Marriner

  Years, Avant Garde, Today

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• It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.

  Benjamin Britten

  Strength, Music, Beauty

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• The public doesn't want new music; the main thing it demands of a composer is that he be dead.

  Arthur Honegger

  Funny, Music, Humor

  1951 I Am a Composer.

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• I just have to take my chances like any other composer.

  Gordon Getty

  Chance, Reincarnation

  "'I want to make the world better'". Interview with Vadim Prokhorov, www.theguardian.com. July 14, 2005.

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• It's understanding the intention of a composer that allows a producer and an arranger to make those moments speak

  Michael Bolton

  Understanding, Speak, Moments

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• The modern composer builds upon the foundation of truth.

  Claudio Monteverdi

  Foundation, Modern

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• I think that one of the things that influences me most as a composer is to what extent I can deconstruct and reconstruct the material that I'm working with.

  Fred Frith

  Thinking, Influence, Reconstruction

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• You become a great composer when you win a Pulitzer. But I think that now it's a completely meaningless award.

  John Corigliano

  Winning, Thinking, Awards

  "The Gospel According To John Corigliano". Interview with Frank J. Oteri, www.newmusicbox.org. February 1, 2005.

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• The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.

  Charles Kettering

  Inspirational, Science, Opportunity

  Charles Franklin Kettering (1961). “Prophet of progress: selections from the speeches of Charles F. Kettering”

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• It's not a special taste. An American composer should have something to say to a cab driver.

  Morton Gould

  Should Have, Special, Taste

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• I was meant to be a composer and will be I'm sure. Don't ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football - please.

  Samuel Barber

  Music, Football, Destiny

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

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• I've always been a composer dependent on texts.

  David Del Tredici

  Dependent

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• I think a composer is always interested in his last work.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Thinking, Lasts

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• Remember always that the composer's pen is still mightier than the bow of the violinist; in you lie all the possibilities of the creation of beauty.

  John Philip Sousa

  Beauty, Lying, Bows

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• Any subject is good for opera if the composer feels it so intently he must sing it out.

  Gian Carlo Menotti

  Opera, Feels, Subjects

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

  Johannes Brahms

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Music

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• Would you have your songs endure? Build on the human heart.

  Robert Browning

  Song, Heart, Endure

  Robert Browning (1994). “The Works of Robert Browning”, p.117, Wordsworth Editions

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• I write songs about things that I'm simultaneously trying not to think about.

  Warren Zevon

  Song, Writing, Thinking

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• Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.

  Alberto Moravia

  Perfect, Trying, Problem

  "The New Yorker" Interview, May 7, 1955.

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