Music is an art that touches the depth of human existence; an art of sounds that crosses all borders.
Daniel BarenboimRead
We need a certain amount of energy to produce the sound. But then to sustain it, we have to give more energy, or otherwise, it goes and it dies in silence. And therefore, sound is absolutely, inextricably connected to time, the length of time.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the relationship between energy, sound, and the passage of time.
Daniel Barenboim illustrates how sound requires an initial investment of energy to exist, but sustaining that sound necessitates continuous energy input. This concept reflects the fundamental connection between sound and time, highlighting the transient nature of existence and the necessity of ongoing effort to maintain vitality in any form, including art and life itself.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of persistence in music, this quote could illustrate the necessity of continuous effort.
Music is an art that touches the depth of human existence; an art of sounds that crosses all borders.
You can't expect someone born into a family with no music... to understand when I'm conducting the Schoenberg Variations.
For me personally, Elliott Carter was and remains one of the most meaningful composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries because he represents substance. He was the living proof of uncompromising, complex music, which at first seems inaccessible. But it becomes accessible if one digs in and sees the development through.
When we talk about music, we talk about our reaction to it. One person might say that music is so poetic, while another says it's all mathematics. Yet another might say it's about sensuality, and so on. That's all true. But music is not just one of these things. It's everything all at once.
Playing and listening to music gives you a sense of fulfilment because you have to put everything in you at its disposal.
You have to really have the will to hang onto the first note as it is being played, and then really stay with it and take the flight, as it were, you know, for the duration of the piece.
Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginitive in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody.
and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself or as if to bless the ground there or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead.
There are 2,000 verses of Scripture that tell us we must be committed to protecting the poor and the oppressed... There is no concern of Scripture that is addressed so often and so powerfully as reaching out to the poor.
It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?
And since the portions of the great and the small are equal in number, so too all things would be in everything. Nor is it possible that they should exist apart, but all things have a portion of everything.
I'm not interested in celebrity.
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