If they say they don't like the way I play Beethoven, then I can swallow that, and maybe they're right. But if they don't like what I've written, then it's about me.
Stephen HoughRead
Few occupations pass the solitary hours more fruitfully than the playing of a musical instrument.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Playing a musical instrument can be a deeply productive and fulfilling solitary activity.
This quote suggests that few activities can be as rewarding during solitary moments as playing a musical instrument. It highlights the idea that music brings not only joy but also a sense of achievement and personal growth when practiced alone, making the act of playing an instrument a valuable use of time.
Themes
MusicSolitaryInstrumentProductivityArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on the benefits of art in education, I might quote this to emphasize the value of music.
More from Stephen Hough
All quotes βUnlike sport, music is not about winning or keeping fit or promoting your town or school; it's about celebrating, to a level approaching ecstasy, the deepest human longings.
Stephen HoughRead
Life is an incurable disease leading to death, but it's also an unrequested gift, which, if we can manage to keep giving it away to others, can keep giving back everything to us.
Stephen HoughRead
All things of beauty can speak to us of God, and I'm very happy to listen to and be inspired by people of every religious background.
Stephen HoughRead
Live in the present moment. The past and future are nonexistent. Only the present can be grasped or, better, embraced.
Stephen HoughRead
In Britten or Berg, there's a tension between the sweet and the sour, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the tonal and the atonal, the happy and the sad. That, to me, is what all western art is about - that tension. It's why we want to say anything at all.
Stephen HoughRead
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When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
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Whether one show one's self a man of genius in science or compose a song, the only point is, whether the thought, the discovery, the deed, is living and can live on.
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A strong experience in the present awakens in the creative writer a memory of an earlier experience (usually belonging to his childhood) from which there now proceeds a wish which finds its fulfilment in the creative work.
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The role of an orchestra in the 21st century isn't just playing, it's about developing future audiences and performers.
Leonard SlatkinRead