Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.
Claude DebussyRead
The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a deep sense of melancholy and artistic introspection.
In this quote, Claude Debussy uses vivid imagery to convey the emotional state of his soul, comparing it to an 'iron-grey' color, which symbolizes heaviness and sadness. The 'bats' wheeling around the 'steeple of my dreams' suggests a haunting presence of despair that disturbs his aspirations, illustrating the juxtaposition of beauty in music and the struggle of the artist with inner darkness.
In practice
During a poetry reading (to express the emotional depth of art).
Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.
On those who overanalyze his music: When you tear the wings off a butterfly, it is no longer a butterfly
But music, don't you know, is a dream from which the veils have been lifted. It's not even the expression of a feeling, it's the feeling itself.
People come to music to seek oblivion: is that not also a form of deception?
Some people wish above all to conform to the rules, I wish only to render what I can hear.
Art is the most beautiful deception of all!
Wherefore the mere practical architect is not able to assign sufficient reasons for the forms he adopts; and the theoretic architect also fails, grasping the shadow instead of the substance.
Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one's living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn't ask for anything better. It's as near to godliness as I can get.
I ain't never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.
I change the language with which I use my voice. In opera, I know I have an orchestra behind me; I have to communicate to people very far from me.
I don't know what it's like for a book writer or a doctor or a teacher as they work to get established in their jobs, but for a singer, you've got to continue to grow or else you're just like last night's cornbread...stale and dry.
What goes on in abstract art is the proclaiming of aesthetic principles... It is in our own time that we have become aware of pure aesthetic considerations. Art never can be imitation.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.