black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Composers combine notes, that’s all.

Igor Stravinsky

An audience is an abstraction; it has no taste. It must depend on the only person who has (pardon, should have), the conductor.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Abstraction Audience Person Taste
We cannot describe sound, but we cannot forget it either.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Forget Music Sound
Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Instrument Live Music Play Silence
Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Artist Greatness Potential Steal
I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Artistic Oneself Pride Reason Talent
Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Possible Right Save Silence Wrong
Mediocrity borrows, genius steals.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Average Genius Steal
In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Creation Force Love Order Reproduction
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Knowledge Learning Life Mistake Pursuit Wisdom
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Freedom Impose Oneself Precision Service
I never am sea sick, never. I am sea drunk!
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Myself Sea Sick
Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody’s piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Drama Live Music Reading Relationship
Silence, which will save from shame, will also deprive me of fame.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Deep Fame Myself Risk Save Shame Silence
I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Feeling Life Music Myself Understand
What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Artist Himself Imitation Reality
I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Criticism Day Dreams Music Painting Small

Composers combine notes, that’s all.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Composers combine notes, that’s all.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Igor Stravinsky Quotes