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 COPLANDComposers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.
More Aaron Copland Quotes
-
-
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 -
Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.
AARON COPLAND -
The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
AARON COPLAND -
A melody is not merely something you can hum.
AARON COPLAND -
I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
AARON COPLAND -
Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
AARON COPLAND -
The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
I don’t compose. I assemble materials.
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 -
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 -
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