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Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

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

Flow Great Irresistibly Long Men Mississippi Symphony
I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
AARON COPLAND

Abhor Adore Extravagance Waste
The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
AARON COPLAND

Great Human May Moment Spirit
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
AARON COPLAND

Cow Fifth Listening Ralph Vaughan Symphony Time
Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.
AARON COPLAND

Assuming Enough Love Music Surprise Tend
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

Alive Compose Feeling Live Permanent Today
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
AARON COPLAND

Flow Inconceivable Incredible Music Stop Time
Someone once asked me… whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: “Every day!”
AARON COPLAND

Answer Everyday Inspiration Life Once Positive
Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
AARON COPLAND

Breathtaking Express Flow Mozart Source Spontaneity Tap
If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
AARON COPLAND

Know Music Play Sixties The Beatles Want
The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
AARON COPLAND

Generally Melody Piece
I don’t compose. I assemble materials.
AARON COPLAND

Assemble Compose Material
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

Couch Music People Relax Stress Wisdom
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

Art Ask Music Problem Quite State
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

Art Inspirational Perhaps Self Subconscious Super
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 COPLAND

Comment Country Creativity Figure Music

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

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Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

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