Orchestras are like people. They're the sonic embodiment of their community.
Simon RattleRead
I've always had a profound conviction that great music is about joy, even in the face of tragedy.
Interpretation
Great music expresses joy, even amidst sorrow and tragedy.
This quote by Simon Rattle emphasizes the idea that music has the power to convey joy and positivity, serving as a source of comfort and hope, even when faced with difficult and tragic circumstances. It suggests that the emotional depth of music can uplift the spirit and promote a sense of joy, highlighting the duality of human experience where joy can coexist with sadness.
In practice
During a memorial service, you might quote this to remind attendees that music can help us find joy even in our grief.
Orchestras are like people. They're the sonic embodiment of their community.
What really counts isn't whether your instrument is Baroque or modern: it's your mindset.
We need to bring music to the people, even to those who normally do not listen to classical music.
I believe if you're not completely in love with what you're doing, you'd better find another profession.
Some of my favorite music in the world is Haydn. I had a sabbatical one year and made myself one promise: to play a different Haydn piano sonata each day - they are inexhaustible treasures.
We have to be evangelists for music. We couldn't just be high priests of music.
Somebody said they threw their copy of Dungeons and Dragons into the fire, and it screamed. It's a game! The magic spells in it are as real as the gold. Try retiring on that stuff.
At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.
Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.
I prefer to unwind by DJing. I learned that from Mike D from the Beastie Boys. After a show, he would DJ. Once I saw that, I wanted to do that. And now DJing is like my lifeline. I love the power it represents.
I hope to refine music, study it, try to find some area that I can unlock. I don't quite know how to explain it but it's there. These can't be the only notes in the world, there's got to be other notes some place, in some dimension, between the cracks on the piano keys.
Acting: An art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing.
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