Ronnie Barker Quotes

I have a big problem with conductors who gesture a lot.

The biggest challenge for me was Get Rhythm. I don't know why.

It's really hard for me to sing and play bass.

Pardon me for loitering in front of an orchestra.

When I was 4 or 5, I attended my father's concerts. He very often played Strauss waltzes as encores and I saw something happening with the audience.

I once had an extraordinary experience with former prime minister Ted Heath. Both of his eyes, including the whites, turned jet black, and I seemed to be looking into two black holes.

The New York Philharmonic is a tremendous opportunity, a great orchestra.

How it happened that Mastro Cherry, carpenter, found a piece of wood that wept and laughed like a child.

Symphonic orchestras have almost become a glut in the market.

Every day we make more progress toward understanding the concert hall.

I was really excited to have the opportunity to make Fiddler.

The way it works: The orchestra plays a few selections of its own and I terminate the first part of the programme on piano, usually with a movement from a Mozart concerto.

When you hear a large symphony orchestra. for instance, in a concert hall, there's a big, sweeping sound that just doesn't get on to a record.

When you hear a great two-track of a performance in Carnegie Hall, let's say, it sounds like you're right there at that moment. It's true to reality. And the closer it gets, once it gets too technical, it becomes very tinny to hear notes. It doesn't sound right. It has to be natural.

I really like conducting my music in concerts because I'm convinced it's not just for films; it has its own life. It can live far away from the images of the movie.

When I played my first concert with an orchestra, I was eight years old in Berlin.

To me, there is nothing like the excitement and unique experience of a live orchestra playing.

The music lovers of London and the country deserve to have something where orchestras can flourish. You have no idea how wonderful an orchestra like the London Symphony Orchestra can sound in a great concert hall.

You don’t think when you play music, you just try to play and be in it. It is the same for me when the writing is going really well. It’s the same kind of feeling. I’m just in it. It’s not the words, it’s not the sentences, I’m not aware of it. Then it’s good.

I feel that it's nothing if not an incredible privilege to be able to get up on stage and play for people, and I don't ever take it for granted.

I feel that Dennis Rodman has become a problem. He will be more of a problem than an asset. Of course, he can prove me wrong.

Janis Joplin sings the blues as hard as any black person.

In my mother's church, everybody read the Bible and it was mostly about music. My mother had the most beautiful voice I have ever heard in my life. She could sing anything - classical, jazz, blues, opera. And people came from long distances to that little church she went to - African Methodist Episcopal, the AME church she belonged to - just hear her.

Something that you can't play in your kitchen is rap. It is done in your neighbour's kitchen.