Stephen Hough Quotes

Writing tonal music now, you are not writing into the 19th Century.

My favorite composers are the ones that tell the story. I love Wagner. I love Mahler. Prokofiev. The programmatic music. I listen more to classic rock because I don't like the contemporary music very much.

My music was typically continental - nothing like, say, The Beatles.

I love classical. I have a lot of, like, Bach and Mozart and stuff. Then you flip on over, and I've got, like, Kanye West and, you know, just a bunch of - I am very eclectic. I love every sort of music.

I don't listen to much modern composition.

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.

It's hard to find an emblem of cultural, national pride that burns as bright as Israel's success in classical music.

When I went back to England after a year away, the country seemed stuck, dozing in a fairy tale, stifled by the weight of tradition.

India is desperately romantic, utterly unashamed of its sentimentality, its generosity, its fierce pride and massive heart.

Classical music's ability to translate emotional themes is fantastic.

New music is absolutely integral to classical music.

I'm English enough to feel something of a gut-reaction to modernism, to continental philosophising and anything that smacks of a refusal to pay attention to the forensics: the empirical facts on the ground.

The academic area of new music or modern music festivals is not something which attracts me at all.

Is it true that we must accept the music of another race as being that which is American? Have not the white Americans sufficient individuality to develop a characteristic style of composition.

The 'Mozart Symphony No. 27' is an early composition. I find it charming.

I think the preservation of orchestras and what they do is worth expending all the ways there are to reach out to people who might not otherwise go.

I have a great liking for the Chamba folk music, which depicts the beauty of women and the mountains with a touch of Indian classical music.

In Berlin... it's important to present a concert that will change their ears... so if you present a Tchaikovsky symphony, you get almost no audience.

The U.S. has always understood itself to be united around political principles and not around culture, whereas the nations of Europe have a much more traditional conception of nationhood that is connected to romanticism, which thinks of religion and culture as ingredients of nationhood.

Many people who don't like Rachmaninov's style consider the 'Rhapsody' his masterpiece. It's written fantastically well for orchestra and piano. He combines a lot of effervescence with a deep, Romantic spirit.

We've never adopted Americanisms. We are a very British band from a very British cultural scene. We fly that flag and that is something I enjoy.

For me, electronic music is the classical music of the 21st century.

I'm trying to do the exact thing Verdi or Mendelssohn did - open up that spiritual space where we can all be fully ourselves.

My Britishness waters my music down!