Elfriede Jelinek Quotes

My proposition is that music is at the heart of what 'The Magic Flute' means: that it's Mozart's music, not the words, we should be attending to. Music expresses what can't be expressed otherwise.

I think that a song, when it works, never mind a piece of long form music, even a song is something that speaks to itself but has a language all of its own, ideally.

All music has to speak in some form or other.

I hear music as narrative.

A composer knows that music is written by human beings for human beings and that music is a continuation of life, not something separated from it.

I've always wanted to make music like people write plays, so I was inspired by writers as much as musicians.

What music can do so well is tell the truth in a subjective way.

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.

Sure, I love people, and I want to communicate with people. I mean, what is music anyway? It's a form of communication - at least for me it is. And that's why I play the kind of music that I think - that I hope - can communicate with people.

If music leaves any impression at all, it does so without regard to stylistic issues.

Music should be able to invoke the natural emotions in all human beings. Music is not notes fixed on apiece of paper.

I want my music to do the explaining.

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?

Everyone's just extracting meaning and feeling and emotion from almost every aspect of music, and I think that for me, it's a huge antidote to that to have a concept album.

The guitar for me is a translation device. It's not a goal. And in some ways, jazz isn't a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination - a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works.

The character of instrumental music... lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations.

I always loved singing and writing poetry. I always loved music, and I've loved writing my whole life. When I put them together, it was probably in my early 20s where I put words to music for the first time.

I was touched by the magic of music. My way to communicate was through my guitar and music.

Music can describe emotions far more accurately than words ever can. As soon as I realised that, I knew music was where I wanted to be.

For me it was really important to get the essence out of the music for the story and not, sort of, press the music into the service of the whimsical telling of it.

My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

In my own life I studied music, not creative writing; I see a novel as music - an opening as an overture, themes and subplots as lines in a fugue. The chance to write a novel about a musician boxed in by all kinds of limitations but who plays out his ultimate struggle for freedom at the piano was irresistible.

Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

The hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of.

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