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 COPLANDA great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.
More Aaron Copland Quotes
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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 -
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 -
If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.
AARON COPLAND -
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
AARON COPLAND -
Someone once asked me… whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: “Every day!”
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 -
If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
AARON COPLAND -
Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.
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 -
Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.
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 -
The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
AARON COPLAND -
I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
AARON COPLAND -
The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
AARON COPLAND -
If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
AARON COPLAND