Composer and Conductor Quotes

[mahler10th]

Some of my favourite quotes come from Eugene Ormandy, whose career was littered with fabulous malapropisms.
Here are just a few:

"Why do you always insist on playing while I'm trying to conduct?"

"I was trying to help you, so I was beating wrong."

"At every concert I've sensed a certain insecurity about the tempo. It's clearly marked 80...uh, 69."

"Don't think you are looking at me because you are not."

"Mahler wrote it as the third movement of his Fourth Symphony. I mean the fourth movement of his First Symphony. We play it third. The trumpet solo will be played by our solo trumpet player. It's named 'Blumine,' which has something to do with flowers."

Ormandy:  "Percussion, a little louder!"
Percussion:  "We don't have anything."
Ormandy:  "That's right, play it louder!"

"Did you play? It sounded very good."

(To William Smith) Did you play?
WS: Yes.
EO: I know. I heard you.

[karlhenning]

In opera, there is always too much singing.

If it sounds good, it is good.

And, courtesy of Guido:

Any professional knows that the flute and the piano is a boring combination. All you've got to arrive at is a kind of typical gestural crap, right? You might agree, though you wouldn't call it gestural crap.

[hornteacher]

Some of my favorites:

Difficult is good.  Difficult is beautiful.  Difficult is closer to the truth. - Beethoven

Hate reacts on those who nourish it. -Beethoven

A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one. - Shostakovich

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. - John Cage

Competitions are for horses, not artists. - Bela Bartok

If I have an orgasm, its good music. - Bernstein

[M forever]

One of my favorite composer quotes comes from a documentary about Orff in which he was asked to talk about his life and his music, and he said, "my name is Carl Orff, I am a composer and I was born in Munich in 1895, and I still live there". And that was it.

Another favorite one comes from Ravel about Boléro, unfortunately I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of, "Ansermet thinks it's a good piece, but unfortunately, it contains no music".

[Hollywood]

"When I wished to sing of love it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow it was transformed for me into love."  -Franz Schubert

"O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life have you left in our souls!" -Franz Schubert


"Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend." -Beethoven

[toledobass]

Here are a few conductor quotes that I heard in rehearsal and they still make me laugh.

During the Rite of Spring to the violin section where the lazy playing was a bit less than effective:  It's marked tremelo not Morse code!!!!

And then during the Adagietto of Mahler 5 again to the violins: It sounds like you are trying to play historically informed Mozart.


Allan

[MISHUGINA]

"Prizes are for boys. I'm all grown up" Charles Ives

"My criterion for this would be, 'Will it give me orgasm?' " - Bernstein

[ChamberNut]

"a bad composer who died too late rather than too early" - Glenn Gould on Mozart.

I'm sure a lot of people would say the exact same thing about Gould, just replace the word "composer" with "pianist".

But thanks for that valuable insight anyways.

[ChamberNut]

"He roused my admiration when I was young; he caused me to despair when I reached maturity; he is now the comfort of my old age." - Gioachino Rossini

"Mozart is sunshine."- Antonin Dvorak

[Dundonnell]

"No composer has written as much as 100 bars of worthwhile music since 1925"..Sir Thomas Beecham.

[Drasko]

To have a conductors quotes thread without Leif Segerstam is simply inexclickable!

http://www.grahamnasby.com/misc/musichumour_leif-segerstam-quotations.shtml

[ChamberNut]

"No composer has written as much as 100 bars of worthwhile music since 1925"..Sir Thomas Beecham.

I'm sure it's only a matter of seconds before "some guy" logs on.

[karlhenning]

I'm sure it's only a matter of seconds before "some guy" logs on.

I'll warm up the "Beecham was a reactionary ass when he said that" line, meanwhile. 

[Bulldog]

"No composer has written as much as 100 bars of worthwhile music since 1925"..Sir Thomas Beecham.

Did he say that in 1926?

[karlhenning]

My favorite Beecham story:

Thomas Beecham programmed the Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten at an Albert Hall concert.  Near to him, a young man was following the music from the published score.  Proud and gratified, Beecham felt that a few words of amity were indicated, and began with, "I see you're interested in Benjamin Britten."

"Of course I am."

Beecham was intrigued. "Why 'of course'?" he asked the stranger.

"Because I am Benjamin Britten."

Nonplussed, Beecham responded "Oh, are you?" and ended the conversation.

Later Beecham related this to a friend, who disturbed him greatly by remarking: "Maybe he was Benjamin Britten."

[adamdavid80]

From Tom Waits, I learned of the following statement from Miles Davis:

"The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones."

From Keith Richards, a paraphrase of another Davis-ism, upon hearing a musician hit a "wrong" note:

"That wasn't a mistake, that was innovation."

That last one works a lot better within the jazz rather than the classical genre....

[karlhenning]

From Keith Richards, a paraphrase of another Davis-ism, upon hearing a musician hit a "wrong" note:

"That wasn't a mistake, that was innovation."

That last one works a lot better within the jazz rather than the classical genre....

Tangentially, this was taken up a couple of levels in All of Me.  Steve Martin, for esoteric reasons relating to a quite specific plot, doesn't have complete control over half his body.  He's trying to play guitar as part of a band at a big social function, and the director asks him what's wrong.  The tenor sax player sitting next to Martin, without missing a beat, goes, "You didn't like that?"

[Opus106]

http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/080903-NL-Beecham.html

[M forever]

My favorite Beecham story

That somehow sounds unlikely, that Beecham didn't know what Britten looked like, and that he would talk to a stranger from the stage during a concert.

[karlhenning]

That somehow sounds unlikely, that Beecham didn't know what Britten looked like, and that he would talk to a stranger from the stage during a concert.

I somehow took the impression that this was during a rehearsal (or, from another version of the anecdote, during a break in the rehearsal), not a concert.  I don't find it incredible that he would not know Britten by sight.

I don't absolutely know that it's a true story;  but it is plausible.