Stephen Hough Quotes

Music is a continuum and the modern and avant-garde composers of today will be part of the standard repertoire 30 years from now.

Composers dialogue - and obsessively, bitterly argue - with other composers, often over the span of several centuries.

New music is absolutely integral to classical music.

I love traditional music. But in any culture around the world, there is the historic and cultural music and everything that's been passed down and passed down, and hopefully you take that, and then you take it, you know, the next distance, and then somebody else takes it the next distance.

All old music was modern once, and much more of the music of yesterday already sounds more old-fashioned than works which were written three centuries ago.

A cello was there 400 years ago and will still be here in 400 years.

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field.

The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names.

Music's cyclical. There's always that next generation that always comes along.

The blues is the foundation for a lot of things. Things have branched off. It's cool how music grows, but the foundation is always there. It's not going anywhere. The blues is always going to be relevant.

I completely understand the responsibility I have in continuing the sonic style that I have created.

If we look at music history closely, it is not difficult to isolate certain elements of great potency which were to nourish the art of music for decades, if not centuries.

I'm very much a traditionalist, but I think it's important to know about tradition so that you can evolve the music you are deciding to make.

I come from a very strenuous, strict, disciplined classical music background. My grandfather, noted Carnatic classical exponent Dr. Sripada Pinakapani, was a Padma Bhushan recipient.

There is a mysterious way in which orchestras keep a sense of their history and what they've done. I still listen to the L.A. Philharmonic and feel that Giulini was there.

When you do something in music and see it happen again in the next generation, you know you're on the right wave length.

I have a history, and I am proud of my legacy as a songwriter, all of the songs that I've brought forth into our culture. I'm proud of that.

If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country [Italy] its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.

It's wonderful to look back and think you were part of a force that shaped modern music and influenced the public in so many ways. However, that's all in the past.

I think it's important that all 50 years of rock 'n' roll live in the same place, because it's all connected.

Music is like a river or stream that has come down to us through time, bringing nurture to man's soul. From the past masters, this music flowed to my father and through him to me. I want to keep this stream flowing. I don't want it to die. It must spread all over the world.

When I made Illmatic, I was trying to make the perfect album. It comes from the days of Wild Style. I was trying to make you experience my life. I wanted you to look at hip-hop differently. I wanted you to feel that hip-hop was changing and becoming something more real.

Western music is arguably America's greatest contribution to the 20th century, cultural or otherwise.

Classical music is an unbroken, living tradition that goes back over 1,000 years, and every one of those years has had something unique and powerful to say to us about what it's like to be alive.