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 COPLANDMost 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.
More Aaron Copland Quotes
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To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
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I don’t compose. I assemble materials.
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 -
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
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 -
The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
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 -
Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.
AARON COPLAND -
So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.
AARON COPLAND