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
They both changed the way we hear the sound of the piano, both of them inventors of sonority: Chopin took bel canto singing lines and reproduced them on the keyboard above richly upholstered counterpoint; Debussy somehow preserved vibrations in the air, blending their ephemeral magic into music that reaches far back into deep memory.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the innovative contributions of composers Chopin and Debussy to piano music.
Stephen Hough's quote emphasizes the revolutionary approaches of Chopin and Debussy in their piano compositions. Chopin is noted for capturing the lyrical quality of bel canto singing, while Debussy is recognized for his unique ability to evoke atmospheric sensations through his music, which connects emotionally to the depths of human memory.
In practice
In a lecture on music history, this quote can be used to illustrate the evolution of piano composition.
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.
Unlike 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.
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.
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.
Live in the present moment. The past and future are nonexistent. Only the present can be grasped or, better, embraced.
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.
There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to. It's like trying to write a song, making tiny tweaks, reading it out loud, shifting things to make it sound a certain way... Sometimes it feels like digging out of a hole, but sometimes it feels like flying. When it's working and the rhythm's there, it does feel like magic to me.
Your voice is not your instrument. Your voice is the character that you build, your innermost feelings, the things that you want to say, and your instrument is the vehicle that you use to carry the message.
All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.
There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.
I taught myself how to draw, and I soon found out it was what I really wanted to do. I didn't think I was going to create any great masterpieces like Rembrandt or Gauguin. I thought comics was a common form of art, and strictly American in my estimation, because America was the home of the common man - and show me the common man that can't do a comic. So comics is an American form of art that anyone can do with a pencil and paper.
Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.
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