Nigel Kennedy Quotes

Chopin is a great composer who influenced many, many important composers. He was a great innovator, especially in harmony.

Bach was a top harmonist geezer, which is why the jazz cats love him.

The impressionists, Debussy, Faure, in France, did take a few steps forward.

The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice.

At the risk of sounding hopelessly romantic, love is the key element. I really love to play with different musicians who come from different cultural backgrounds.

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.

After working with Ligeti I began to hear Brahms and Beethoven differently.

I listen to Bach a great deal. In general I like to listen to hymns and liturgical music.

I loved Debussy, Stravinsky, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, anything with romantic melodies, especially the nocturnes. Nietzsche was a hero, especially with 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra.' He gets a bad rap; he's very misunderstood. He's a maker of individuals, and he was a teacher of teachers.

Schumann's 'Quintet in E flat for Piano and Strings' is one of the sublime moments in Romantic music.

Suddenly I've got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.

For me, playing music while I write is important. Several of the romantic scenes in 'Paris' were written with Debussy's 'String Quartet,' his 'L'Apres-midi d'une Faune,' or Canteloube's 'Songs of the Auvergne' playing in the background.

I used to listen to a lot of Bach on the radio, and when the basses started to sing, it made everything complete - it made it all make sense.

It is important for the musician to learn as much about the composer as possible and to study the music he has written. Then, even a short piece by Brahms or Chopin can be played with much more understanding.

Deep down, classical Romantic music is what I love: Brahms, Tchaikovsky, the Romantics.

There is something romantic about the world being a diverse place, where every place has a Starbucks and Denny's.

Chopin was a master of melody, harmony and voice leading - the art of smoothly moving from chord to chord.

The real Brahms is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

How did Haydn and Mozart produce such vast quantities of formally perfect art? They worked from a perfect formula. In music, Beethoven was the Great Emancipator.

A landscape, torn by mists and clouds, in which I can see ruins of old churches, as well as of Greek temples - that is Brahms.

Study Bach. There you will find everything.

The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.

I was an incurable romantic then, same as I am now. I was always pining away after somebody

I prefer Offenbach to Bach often.