Stravinsky Quotes

• The fact that Stravinsky used the classics as a major influence is obvious. What is interesting is how he used them, how he turned Bach into Stravinsky.

  Lukas Foss

  Interesting, Facts, Influence

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• Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Way, Harmony

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• The first music I was exposed to was Stravinsky and I loved it but I don't remember it.

  Leo Kottke

  Firsts, Remember, Exposed

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• Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Mean, Expression, Two

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• I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Ravel, I've Learned, Masters

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• Even Stravinsky does not evoke the same public affection as Verdi.

  Charles Rosen

  Doe, Affection, Evoke

  Charles Rosen (2002). “Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist”, p.231, Simon and Schuster

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• Bernard Herrmann used to write all his scores by himself. So did Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky. I dont understand why this happens in the movie industry.

  Ennio Morricone

  Writing, Used, Score

  "Mozart of film music" by Adam Sweeting, www.theguardian.com. February 22, 2001.

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• Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Mother, Used, Geese

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• New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky.

  Duke Ellington

  Hell, New Music

  1970 Quoted in D Jewell Duke (1977).

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• The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece with a difficult violin passage. After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it. Stravinsky said, 'I understand that. What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.'

  Thomas Powers

  Sorry, Play, Trying

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• Since I didn't have any kind of formal training, it didn't make any difference to me if I was listening to Lightnin' Slim, or a vocal group called the Jewels ... , or Webern, or Varèse, or Stravinsky. To me it was all good music.

  Frank Zappa

  Jewels, Differences, Listening

  Frank Zappa, Peter Occhiogrosso (1990). “Real Frank Zappa Book”, p.34, Simon and Schuster

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• There is this tremendous amount of arrogance and hubris, where somebody can look at something for five minutes and dismiss it. Whether you talk about gaming or 20th century classical music, you can't do it in five minutes. You can't listen to 'The Rite of Spring' once and understand what Stravinsky was all about.

  Penn Jillette

  Spring, Arrogance, Looks

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

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• If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other. Remind us of Stravinsky. Know the names of plants and flying creatures. Hunt gauzy wings with snares of gauze. Make science pay tribute. Have a butterfly known by your name.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Life, Country, Butterfly

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• We might as well swing boys, because Stravinsky cuts us all.

  Woody Herman

  Music, Cutting, Boys

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

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Worship, Despise, Composer

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• Composers can do things that weren't allowed in the 17th century. Until we had composers like Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff to break the rules.

  Aaron Zigman

  Break, Century, Rachmaninoff

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• I had no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this.

  Ernest Newman

  Ideas, Debussy, No Idea

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• You may not be aware of this but Leonard Bernstein won another award, for explaining the music of Igor Stravinsky... to Igor Stravinsky!

  Victor Borge

  Awards, May, Explaining

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• I've got a very wide taste in art. I like Russian icon painters. I like Salvador Dali. It's like music. Sometimes you want to hear Led Zeppelin, and sometimes you want to hear Stravinsky. It just depends.

  Peter Webber

  Art, Icons, Zeppelins

  Source: www.aboutfilm.com

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• I came up in the '60s; that was a time when there was a revolution going on in music. Stravinsky had become a twelve-tone composer; even Aaron Copland was writing twelve-tone pieces at that time!

  Paul Lansky

  Writing, Twelve, Pieces

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I'm not Stravinsky, I never will be.

  Terry Bozzio

  Source: beintheloopchicago.com

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• If we think today the way TV is ordering us to think, we think of Einstein as someone modern. Stravinsky is modern music, but it came at the time of Birth of a Nation, which is an old movie.

  Jean-Luc Godard

  Thinking, Today, Way

  Source: cinemagodardcinema.wordpress.com

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• People are interested in certain ideas, in certain periods, and then that moves, and okay, now people are more interested in studying this, and there is no perfect balance, and how would you know what the perfect balance is? I mean, what does it mean to have too many Beethoven chairs and too few Stravinsky chairs? I mean, that's kind of a value judgment that isn't really based on humility. We don't know what the optimum number is, so let people figure this out on their own. People are more interested in Beethoven than Stravinsky? Great! Why would that bother me?

  Charles Koch

  Moving, Mean, Humility

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I'm not the kind of actor who runs around and insists on being called Stravinsky by everybody, and my family has to call me Igor. I'm not that kind of actor. I think that's pretentious.

  Mads Mikkelsen

  Running, Thinking, Actors

  Source: collider.com

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• It's something he used to say when he was happy. It could be a very, very simple day. We might be sitting out on the front lawn. Dad loved classical music and we might be listening to some Stravinsky or something and having some tea and eggs. And he'd say, 'Oh, good stuff, isn't it?'

  Jennifer Grant

  Dad, Simple, Eggs

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

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