Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Although cover notes for classical music albums tend to say that the trill of flutes suggests mountain streams and so on, I don't think anybody listens to music with the expectation that they're going to be presented with a sort of landscape painting.

I wouldn't call myself a synaesthete in the sense that Nabokov was. But I'll talk about a sound as being cold blue or dark brown. For descriptive purposes, yes, I often see colors when I'm listening to music and think, 'Oh, there's not enough sort of yellowy stuff in here, or not enough white.'

The relation between practical and spiritual spheres in music is obvious, if only because it demands ears, finger, consciousness and intellect.

I just started studying opera - very, very much as hobby - and for some reason I've been gravitating toward French composers, like a lot of Debussy and Faure. I find it a really sinuous and spooky language to sing in.

I don't think Beethoven expresses religious truth. He expresses a human truth.

I want to take the great tradition of the orchestra within me, to take what the orchestra offers.

Classical music presents some of the world's most challenging pieces.

He was making all kinds of sounds apparently with his mouth, and shaking his head and I thought, gosh, is he trying to stop the orchestra? Is it all wrong? It was just unbelievable.

I can tell you, dearest friend, that if it became known how much friendship, love and a world of human and spiritual references I have smuggled into these three movements, the adherents of programme music - should there be any left - would go mad with joy.

What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.

I'll refer to my music in color, like 'This song needs to be bright red.'

In contrast, traditional classical music starts from an abstract musical schema. This is then notated and only expressed in concrete sound as a last stage, when it is performed.

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

We have such a great depth of human history in all of the arts, whether it's opera or mathematics or painting or classical music or jazz. There's so many things to study, new books to read, and certainly always ways to transform old ideas and to come up with new ones.

What I do remember is visualization of the sound of music, seeing bodies in movement in relation to how music sounded, because my mother practiced at the keyboard a lot and I also went to her lessons. As a two year old, three year old I remember seeing things in movement.

Is it not the business of the conductor to convey to the public in its dramatic form the central idea of a composition; and how can he convey that idea successfully if he does not enter heart and soul into the life of the music and the tale it unfolds?

Great music was written by the great geniuses, and you want to do it justice.

I hate playing the piano! And it's so hard to fight for Beethoven's soul! But that's what I have to do!

I began composing works which were imitative of the music I was being told about. I was also very interested in translating the music into visual terms.

It'll help you be imaginative if you listen to classical music. It helps you understand dynamics and how important they are to create an environment.

I approach everything as chamber music. Even with Beethoven symphonies, I lead from the violin and basically encourage the orchestra to think of it as a giant string quartet.

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

That's what it is that you rehearse - the making of music, not the playing of notes as abstractions.

Music. It's all creativity right here, right now.