Arthur V. Berger commenting on the music of Aaron Copland: Here is at last an American that we may place unapologetically beside the great recognized creative figures of any other country.
AARON COPLANDComposers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.
More Aaron Copland Quotes
-
-
Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
AARON COPLAND -
The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It’s useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.
AARON COPLAND -
This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.”
AARON COPLAND -
Someone once asked me… whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: “Every day!”
AARON COPLAND -
I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
AARON COPLAND -
You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.
AARON COPLAND -
If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
AARON COPLAND -
Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific.
AARON COPLAND -
Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness – I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.
AARON COPLAND -
You may feel depressed, but it can’t be so depressing that you can’t move. No, I would say that people create in moments when they are elated about expressing their depression!
AARON COPLAND -
I hope my recordings of my own works won’t inhibit other people’s performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn’t always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.
AARON COPLAND -
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
AARON COPLAND -
Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.
AARON COPLAND -
Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.
AARON COPLAND -
A melody is not merely something you can hum.
AARON COPLAND






