Best 85 quotes in «classical music quotes» category

Humanity thrown together in the equivalent of a Petri dish under a microscope bred malignant organisms as often as benign.

He wore his personality like a suit that was too tight.

History's greatest composers world be rolling in their graves if they knew that their beautiful compositions were reduced to distorted hold music.

I am into classical music, in fact,” I say. “It’s been around for more than a thousand years, its composers have more name recognition than whatever ‘indie’ music you’re listening to right now, and symphonies sell out millions of performances a year. So go ahead, tell me classical music is tedious or boring or inferior.

In the background, classical music plays from a paint-splattered radio, the New York station with the ancient announcer more frequently heard in doctors’ waiting rooms and other places where signs prohibit the use of cell phones – the last bastions of Beethoven or Chopin or, on racier days, Shostakovich.

In a timepiece, a sweep of a second hand is so slim in a way that it doesn't wait for no man, and that's why we choose to conceive things from the heart.

Injustice, large and small, was like sour, moldy bread. Consumed often enough, it brought on hunger for the meat of revenge.

Regardless of the age of the people in the audience, they are clapping, screaming with joy and enjoying each and every note. I used to think classical music was boring. But that was because I never really gave it a chance. When I first saw 2CELLOS' cover of Smooth Criminal, I was mesmerized by their talent and instantly intrigued. With just two instruments, they created a sound so powerful and incredible, a sound I had never known could come from a cello.

I shall never be converted, and I shall remain true to my old religion of the classics until my life's end.

Modern man is full of platitudes about living life to its fullest, with catchy keychain phrases and little plaques for kitchen walls. But if you've never retreated to the solitude of a dark room and listened to Beethoven's Ninth from start to finish, you know nothing. For music is a transcendental exploration of human emotion and experience, the very fabric of life in its purest form. And the Ninth our greatest musical achievement.

Now that rock is turning 50, it's become classical itself. It's interesting to see that development.

One imagines that he might have understood the supreme value of Bach's vocal works - not primarily as objects or artefacts, but as individual visions of life and as priceless forms of communication with his fellow man. For this is what is so distinctive when we compare Bach's legacy to that of his forerunners and successors. Monteverdi gives us the full gamut of human passions in music, the first composer to do so; Beethoven tells us what a terrible struggle it is to transcend human frailties and to aspire to the Godhead; and Mozart shows the kind of music we might hope to hear in heaven. But it is Bach, making music in the Castle of Heaven, who gives us the voice of God - in human form.

Rachmaninoff. The 18th Variation of a Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Listening to classical music is like reading philosophy books, not everybody has to do it. Music is not for everybody.

Robert Kapilow is a born teacher, an enthusiast who can think on his feet, a 110 percent believer in the project at hand ... It’s a cheering thought that this kind of missionary enterprise did not pass from this earth with Leonard Bernstein. Robert Kapilow is awfully good at what he does. We need him.

Sometimes, when inspiration runs dry, I drink classical music until my words spill out.

Sometimes in the great soundtrack of our lives there are no words, there are only emotions; I believe this is why God gave us classical music.

The classics constitute an almost infallible process for awakening the soul to its full stature. In coming to know a classic, one has made a friend for life. It can be recalled to the mind and 'read' all over again in the imagination. And actually perusing the text anew provides a joy that increases with time. These marvelous works stand many rereadings without losing their force. In fact, they almost demand rereading, as a Beethoven symphony demands replaying. We never say of a music masterpiece, 'Oh I've heard that!' Instead, we hunger to hear it again to take in once more, with new feeling and insight, its long-familiar strains.

There was that sound again--snap, then a footfall. She tried to whirl around as a dark form--Dear God--sprang with a splash from the darkness--grabbed her from behind, shoved her under the water.

The power of classical music turns my words into fire.

A musicologist is a man who can read music but cannot hear it.

Violinists wear the imprint on their necks with pride For they are the players of harmony. Pilgrims, too, wear the imprint on their foreheads with pride For they are the conductors of unity. And Lovers? Why, they are made humble by the imprint on their hearts For they are merely the instruments of rhapsody.

We are the conductors of the beauty of the orchestra of our inner lives. Keep a Händel on it and don't hold Bach!

What is classical music if not the epitome of sensuality, passion and understated erotica that popular music, even with all its energy and life, cannot even begin to touch?

Whenever i find myself losing faith in humanity, i come back to the classical music. They are a great reminder that we are also able to produce beautiful things made out of strong and barely controllable emotions.

Would you think of somebody who you adore, who’s no longer there? A beloved grandmother, a lover — somebody in your life who you love with all your heart, but that person is no longer with you. Bring that person into your mind, and at the same time follow the line all the way from B to E, and you’ll hear everything that Chopin had to say.

Whatever comes, I'll take the good--and send the rest to hell.

A good deal of classical music is, today, the opium of the good citizen.

Classical music is a genre of music. It's no more complex or less complex than pop music or R&B. The elitism is weird.

Another classical music teacher from Performing Arts that I've stayed in contact with is Jonathan Strasser.

Classical music has been based on works people love and come back to for aural comfort.

Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.

Classical music requires an immense amount of concentration, and I don't know if I would've been that committed to that particular life.

Classical music was my starting point. My mum would expose me to a lot of music and take me to really weird concerts when I was possibly too young.

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky were not classical musicians while they were alive and active, they were the rock stars of their day.

Being a classical musician I'm fascinated with how my colleagues, not just singers, but every musician finds ways to express something else or something new or the same ol', same ol' in classical music. I'm always in dialogue with other musicians at least orally, if I can't be with them and a lot of dead musicians as well. I've learned a lot from dead people on recordings.

Classical musicians go to the conservatories, rock´n roll musicians go to the garages.

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

Don't be a perfectionist... leave that to the classical musicians.

I also like Western classical music and jazz.

For me, personally, the most interesting music comes from the popular sector - from film and pop music - since contemporary classical music got stuck and went into directions where it lost a lot of the public by over-intellectualizing.

I got involved with classical music when I was in high school and it's followed me throughout my entire life and probably had a profound effect on my life.

I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.

I'd been trained as a classical musician, but also as a pop musician. My teacher made sure that everything was available.

I got obsessed with classical music, I got obsessed with Chopin, with playing the piano.

I got so much love for classical music and I hear so much incredible music.You should know a bunch of music and have respect for all sorts of genres and styles of music.

I'm not really involved with politics... I'm living in my cocoon with my classical music around.

I love classical music and often listen to symphonies or opera in the morning.

I'm everything I'm made of. So a part of me is made of classical music. I'm grateful for it.

I grew up with classical music, and to a lesser extent electronic music, and that's where I belong, so to speak.