Hilary Hahn Quotes

Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Berg imply a type of pianist who is intellectual. That's not always associated with female soloists.

Well, Mozart is extraordinary not only in that he became virtuoso along the lines of his father, but that he had that compositional gift, that melodic gift. By the time he was four, he was doing piano concertos with harmony in the background.

Mozart has written opera, symphony, sacred and chamber music - not to mention his piano and violin concerti.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

To my mind and ear, there is simply nothing that compares to the musical sophistication of a late Beethoven, Bartok, Schubert or Brahms work for minimal forces.

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

Beethoven's symphonies are not 'relaxing.' They are the most exciting things that have ever been created by a human being.

Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

I want to be the most melodic artist. 'His music ability, the way he write, his creativity is undeniable.' I want people to say that about me.

Mozart combined high formality and playfulness that delights as no other composition in any other medium does.

If you look back, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven were mixing music and humor all the time.

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.

I'm not musically inclined. It blows my mind that people can write music. I don't have that talent; I look up to the people that do.

Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power.

Beethoven's fourth and seventh symphonies have a certain amount in common. Well, of course they're both written by Beethoven, but besides that, I would say their overall effect and idea is to provide the listener with an incredible sense of joy.

Although, I am proud of all my Symphonies as they all have something special to say, my particular favourite is the Fifth. As the great Mahler expert Donald Mitchell said that if Mahler had written another Symphony, it would have been my Fifth!

Menuhin was playing Bach on a fantastic spiritual level when he was a teenager.

What drew me to the violin was mastering the instrument technically, which I'm continuing to do.

Well, American composers are the best composers. At this time in the world, we are where the energy is. We are the most diverse, the most iconoclastic, the most maverick, and the most skillful.

If they had Mozart today, they couldn't work with him, although he was a very adaptable man.

Because essentially Schoenberg was an extremely gifted man. And in spite of many of his theories and so on, when he really began to write music, he still was guided very much by his internal hearing, by what we call your internal ear.

I think there have to be Bachs and Beethovens. We may have - there are so many more people. Musical training is available to so many more, but it may be that we've hit a right wall in terms of accessible styles and since we demand innovation as a criterion of genius, there may not be more innovative styles to be found.

Beethoven's importance in music has been principally defined by the revolutionary nature of his compositions. He freed music from hitherto prevailing conventions of harmony and structure.

There used to be a certain condescension to Mozart. His music was regarded as pleasant. He was a porcelain figure playing a porcelain harpsichord.