What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICHEvery piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator. If a work doesn’t express the composers own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesn’t, in my opinion, even deserve to be born.
More Dmitri Shostakovich Quotes
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Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.
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He fell like a chicken into the soup.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.
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The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator. If a work doesn’t express the composers own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesn’t, in my opinion, even deserve to be born.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don’t succeed, I consider it my own fault.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn’t laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in “serious” music.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
The best way to hold on to something is to pay no attention to it. The things you love too much perish. You have to treat everything with irony, especially the things you hold dear. There’s more of a chance then that they’ll survive.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin’s orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH -
It’s about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.
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Music is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true!
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I don’t know what will become of this piece. Our brave critics will no doubt charge me with imitating Ravel’s Bolero. Too bad – this is how I hear war.
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A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH