It’s about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHIt’s about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHFootball is the ballet of the masses.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHThe 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 SHOSTAKOVICHWhat you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHI 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 SHOSTAKOVICHI don’t know what will become of this piece. Our brave critics will no doubt charge me with imitating Ravel’s Bolero. Too bad – this is how I hear war.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHOur business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHThe majority of my symphonies are tombstones.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHThe real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHMusic is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true!
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHWhat 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 SHOSTAKOVICHI feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin’s orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHThose who have ears to hear, will hear.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHThe most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on to the fugue.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHI write music, it’s performed. After all, my music says it all. It doesn’t need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHA great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH