Brian Wilson Quotes

It took me three weeks to write the 'Rhapsody in Blue.' I had always wanted to write something blue and Paul Whiteman inspired.

So writing a song is much harder than doing a classical piece for me, because in a classical piece, I can just let the mood dictate what's going to happen.

Leonard Bernstein was probably the most significant formative influence on me - he was such an encompassing musician. I spent my teenage years absorbing him, and my other interests stemmed off of that. Bernstein led me to Sondheim and to Gershwin, and Sondheim led me to listening to Joni Mitchell.

With a computer, there are too many choices, and I always liked working within limits. You know, if you look at Mozart, who had this strict classical framework - an allegro, an andante, a scherzo and a finale - you see that within that formula, he got results he might never have gotten if he had all the options in the world.

When I was 20, Shostakovich was my favorite composer. I still find his Fifth Symphony wonderful, with its outstanding themes and rhythms. That's the piece that made me want to be a classical composer.

Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully.

I'm never gonna be a Carlos Santana - an instrumentalist. I just like songs. It's three minutes of something that can be very powerful.

For me, everything definitely comes from music.

What makes a Beethoven symphony spectacular, what makes a Brahms rhapsody spectacular is that the patterns are wondrous.

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

I love classical music and often listen to symphonies or opera in the morning.

I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.

The Gershwin legacy is extraordinary because George Gershwin died in 1937, but his music is as fresh and vital today as when he originally created it.

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it.

I don't listen to much modern composition.

At the end of '69 I did a gig with Jean Luc Ponty here in L.A. He was an electric violinist.

If Mozart were around now he would write a killer rock song.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

You can't sit down and write 300 compositions in a three-month period and think that you're doing it all by yourself. Obviously, there's something going on here. And whether you want to call it channeling or being connected to a creative force or knowing your history and knowing where you belong, that's, you know, maybe a personal thing.

After conducting Wagner, Beethoven's triple concerto is like taking an Alka Seltzer.

My show business career doesn't mean I can't write a symphony. It just means I was never asked to write one.

I always start with the music and then try to figure out what I want to write about lyrically.

Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.

Then I started listenin' a lot to classical composers. Piano works. Just to see what they were doin'. That sort of put me in a different groove to try to blend all that in.

I still do not know where the notes will come from when I accept a commission for a new work.