Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHThe majority of my symphonies are tombstones.
More Dmitri Shostakovich Quotes
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I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don’t succeed, I consider it my own fault.
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When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.
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Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.
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What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.
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I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
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.
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Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.
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The real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity.
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It’s about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.
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The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.
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A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.
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Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator. If a work doesn’t express the composers own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesn’t, in my opinion, even deserve to be born.
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He fell like a chicken into the soup.
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In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.
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The best way to hold on to something is to pay no attention to it. The things you love too much perish. You have to treat everything with irony, especially the things you hold dear. There’s more of a chance then that they’ll survive.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH






