If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
AARON COPLANDThe greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
More Aaron Copland Quotes
-
-
When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.
AARON COPLAND -
Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
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 -
The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
AARON COPLAND -
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer would be, “Yes”, And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be “No.”
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 -
I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
AARON COPLAND -
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
AARON COPLAND -
Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.
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 -
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
AARON COPLAND -
If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
AARON COPLAND -
A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.
AARON COPLAND -
A melody is not merely something you can hum.
AARON COPLAND -
I don’t compose. I assemble materials.
AARON COPLAND