Max Richter Quotes

The song came out to be a gem, just came out to be a really, really interesting rendition of it.

You can never tell when an artist really will take up someone's work and work with it happily.

I've been asked a great deal about the influence I've had with my work and it's impossible to say, you know.

All too often, when creative people pick out someone else's creative work as an inspiration, what they end up with is very, very far from the original.

If you look at any creative person's work, you can see bits and pieces of their influences. That's what an artist does.

I couldn't find a way to write music with numbers and rules and schedules. So I tried to forget the academic idea of music and started to see if it was possible to do creative work, taking in all the influences I wanted to keep.

Besides, isn't it confoundedly easy to think you're a great man if you aren't burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?

Second edition of Earthworks I have the more traditional compositional approach, namely I write a piece from the piano.

ART is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours.

Everything in life influences my music.

Delsarte tells me that Mozart stole outrageously from Galuppi, in the same way, I suppose, that Molière stole from anybody anywhere, if he found something work taking. I said that what was Mozart had not been stolen from Galuppi, or from anyone else for that matter.

"On Script" is one of my favorite songs I've ever written. I'd just been jamming on it one day, and again I was struggling with lyrics. I'm still figuring out what it's about. I've seen a couple of reviews that are like, "It's about the monotony of playing the same songs every night," because I say, "On script every night/Like a well-rehearsed stage show." It's not about that at all, but I find that funny, how people project what they think about me, or songwriters in general.

I always wanted to do music that influences and inspires each generation.

Eventually you'll take the phrases and rhythm patterns you've copped and begin to put your own mark on them

I think the artistry is in having an insight into what one sees around them. Generally putting things together in a way no one else has before and finding a way to express that to other people who don't have that insight.

Mozart never composed anything, ever! He copied what was written on his soul.

Study the great brush drawings of the Chinese and Japanese... When we try to imitate their conventions for perspective, form and texture we lose the content, because those artists were part of an ancient tradition. Our tradition changes rapidly, our schools of thought come to fruition quickly and decay again. We see differently.

Bizet was a very young man when he composed this symphony, so play it softly.

You are an artist. What work of art will you leave behind?

I don't feel any real animosity towards critics when they write negative things. I think some are more perceptive than others. Some are very knowledgeable about painting. But it isn't something I have any influence over, so there isn't any point in worrying about it.

There is a way of looking at an awful place from a certain angle that allows it to take on a beauty because it is what it is.

Standing on the fringes of life... offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

My illusion is to have something to transmit. If I can't change the world, at least I want to change the way people look at it.

A good story should change the way you see the world.