Quotes About Music
On this page you'll find quotes by various writers giving evidence
that beauty in music is a oneness of opposites.
from Concertos and Choral Works, by Sir
Donald Francis Tovey, pp. 351-2:
From one moment to the next [Haydn] is always
unexpected, and it is only at the end that we discover how perfect
are his proportions. With Mozart, the expectation of symmetry is
present all the time, and its realization is delayed no longer than
serves the purposes of wit rather than humour. Both composers are so
great that in the last resort we shall find Mozart as free as Haydn
and Haydn as perfect in form as Mozart; but the fact remains that
Haydn’s forms display their freedom before their symmetry, while
Mozart’s immediately display their symmetry, and reveal their
freedom only to intimate knowledge.
from The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, liner notes by
Martin Williams, p. 20:
In such
performances [i.e. Blue Light, Subtle Lament, Ko-Ko, Rumpus in
Richmond, Harlem Air Shaft, Concerto for Cootie, Sepia Panorama,
Blue Serge], Ellington rediscovered in far more sophisticated
terms what Morton had found in his own idiom: the perfect balance
between what is written ahead of time and what can be ad-libbed in
performance, what is up to the individual and what the ensemble
contributes, what makes and effective part and what makes a
continuous, encompassing, subsuming whole.
from The Wellsprings of Music, Curt Sachs, p. 111:
Rhythm and form
are the two organizing powers of melody. In recurrent patterns they
damn and divide its flow; they control its tension and relaxation;
they balance its law and its freedom.
An ABC of Music, by Imogen Holst, pp. 31-2:
Music consists
of silences as well as sounds…. Rests are just as important as
notes. Their silences are never static. They belong to the rhythm
of the tune, and the continuous pulse of the music can be felt
through them.
More to come...
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