Don't play the notes. Play the meaning of the notes.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of expressing emotions and ideas rather than merely playing notes technically.
Pablo Casals suggests that true musicality comes from understanding and conveying the deeper meaning behind the notes we play, rather than just replicating them accurately. This perspective invites musicians to connect with their audience through emotional expression and interpretation, highlighting the art of music as a profound form of communication.
In practice
In a speech about musical education at a conference, one could use this quote to inspire budding musicians to delve deeper into their art.
Bach is the supreme genius of music... This man, who knows everything and feels everything, cannot write one note, however unimportant it may appear, which is anything but transcendent. He has reached the heart of every noble thought, and has done it in the most perfect way.
In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness... I see what people call God in all these things.
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.
I am an old man but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life.
To the whole world you might be just one person, but to one person you might just be the whole world.
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.
The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what youβve seen.
No writer has a right to make that much money. Indeed, without diabolical assistance, no writer can.
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.
Major writing is to say what has been seen, so that it need never be said again.
The human soul needs actual beauty even more than bread.
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