This, I guess, is not so much of my own ramble as a little collection of thoughts from some of the great players and composers of the last century or so.
Each made me smile, or laugh, or reconsider, or question, or think more deeply about something and I’ve put them together in the hope that they might do the same for you.
I considered commenting on each of these, but in the end decided that they all speak best for themselves! I hope you find something new to ponder in one of these pearls of wisdom.
”Put a small piano in a truck and drive out on country roads; take time to discover new scenery; stop in a pretty place where there is a good church; upload the piano and tell the residents; give a concert; offer flowers to the people who have been so kind as to attend; leave again.”
- Sviatoslav Richter
“Everyone goes to the forest; some go for a walk to be inspired, and others go to cut down the trees.”
- Vladimir Horowitz
“A good conductor ought to be a good chauffeur; the qualities that make the one also make the other. They are concentration, an incessant control of attention, and presence of mind; the conductor only has to add a little sense of music.”
- Sergei Rachmaninoff
“There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major.”
- Sviatoslav Prokofiev
”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
“To be alive, to able to see, to walk...it's all a miracle. I have adapted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.”
- Arthur Rubinstein
”For me, art, and especially music, exist to elevate us as far as possible above everyday existence.”
- Gabriel Fauré
”Music dignifies human experience by giving voice to thoughts and feelings. The individual encounter through music with joy, sadness, nostalgia, oppression, hope, or love presents opportunities to recognize one’s own humanity, dignify others by respecting their personal experiences, and contemplate our collective humanity.”
- Hélène Grimaud
“One of the things that touches me most when I play for an audience is that although we may be unable to communicate in words or have diametrically opposed views on hot-button issues, while the music sounds we can be at peace, we can be friends. The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided.”
- Stephen Hough
”The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.”
”This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
- Leonard Bernstein
I’d like to finish with a favourite quote of mine, by the inimitable cellist Pablo Casals, given in response to being asked why he was still practising at the age of 90.
”Because,” he said, “I think I’m making progress.”
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