1,636 quotes found
“I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is the language I don't understand.”
“In the Negro melodies of America I find all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.”
“It is the best of all trades to make songs and the second best to sing them.”
“Jazz came to America 300 years ago in chains.”
“Jazz is about the only form of art existing today in which there is freedom of the individual without the loss of group contact.”
“Music is another planet.”
“Music touches places beyond our touching.”
“Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.”
“Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.”
“Nothing is better than music.... It has done more for us than we have the right to hope for.”
“Rests always sound well.”
“Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing did certain persons die before they sing.”
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always graver than its performance - whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is...”
“The devil does not stay where music is.”
“The Sonata is an essentially dramatic art form combining the emotional range in vivid presentation of a full-size stage drama with the terseness of a short story.”
“The sonatas of Mozart are unique they are too easy for children and too difficult for artists.”
“Throughout my career nervousness and stage-fright have never left me before playing. And each of the thousands of concerts I have played at I feel as bad as I did the very first time.”
“Twelve Highlanders and a bagpipe make a rebellion.”
“Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.”
“Who is there that in logical words can express the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate unfathomable speech which leads us to the edge of the Infinite and lets us for moments gaze int...”
