The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.
IGOR STRAVINSKYMusic is given to us specifically to make order of things, to move from an anarchic, individualistic state to a regulated, perfectly concious one, which alone insures vitality and durability.
More Igor Stravinsky Quotes
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To continue in one path is to go backward.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Composition is selective improvisation.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody’s piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
I am an inventor of music.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
The more controlled, limited and tormented art is, the freer it is.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Music is the sole domain in which man realizes the present.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Mediocrity borrows, genius steals.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
To be deprived of art and left alone with philosophy is to be close to Hell.
IGOR STRAVINSKY