Chamber Music Quotes

I would advise all young musicians to not only experience and play chamber music, but to go to operas, speak to the singers, to explore and expand your horizons. ~ Wu Han

I listen to lots of music, especially Bach, opera (all periods), German lieder, chamber music, and rock, old and new. I can't listen to music while I write. It's too absorbing. ~ Cheryl Mendelson

Music always stimulates my imagination. When I'm writing I usually have some Baroque music on low in the background chamber music by Bach, Telemann, and the like. ~ Haruki Murakami

In concertos, I stand up, and I conduct with the bow when I'm not playing. During symphonies, I sit, but sometimes I stop playing to conduct. Being seated in a section allows me to feel more like we're playing chamber music, which is how I like to approach it. ~ Joshua Bell

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience. ~ Gustav Mahler

I started directing chamber orchestras, then adding bigger pieces, adding winds, adding small symphonies. I've always loved chamber music, and I've done a lot. ~ Joshua Bell

The streets of Prague were a fantasia scarcely touched by the twenty-first century - or the twentieth or nineteenth, for that matter. It was a city of alchemists and dreamers, its medieval cobbles once trod by golems, mystics, invading armies. Tall houses glowed goldenrod and carmine and eggshell blue, embellished with Rococo plasterwork and capped in roofs of uniform red. Baroque cupolas were the soft green of antique copper, and Gothic steeples stood ready to impale fallen angels. The wind carried the memory of magic, revolution, violins, and the cobbled lanes meandered like creeks. Thugs wore Motzart wigs and pushed chamber music on street corners, and marionettes hung in windows, making the whole city seem like a theater with unseen puppeteers crouched behind velvet. ~ Laini Taylor

I play a lot chamber music.As for something that's hard for me to play, before I leave this Earth I'm hoping to play Brahms' Second Piano Concerto. ~ Condoleezza Rice

Even if you are a pianist, your concerto repertoire is very limited compared to what your chamber repertoire would be if you were a chamber music pianist. ~ David Finckel

Thorny compositions that sound as if female teen punkers the Shaggs received doctorates in the music of 12-tone composer Alban Berg, and then rewrote their Philosophy of the World ... Carefully notated structures and interplay morph effortlessly into free improvisation that is intelligent and expressive, but never self-indulgent. Also featuring intense lyrics sung with their clear and melodic voices, the two women make transcendent chamber music outside of any genre. ~ Elliott Sharp

What isn't on my iPod playlist? I have very eclectic tastes. Jazz. Classic Rock. Hip Hop. Ska. Soul. Electronica.World Music. Funk. Blues. Chamber Music. Reggaeton. Gospel. And a whole lot of Prince. (I am a Minnesota gal through and through.) ~ Michele Norris

Poetry reading is the chamber music of the actor's craft. ~ Robert Lacey

In the 1950s in the United States, few music lovers were listening to chamber music. Daddy played Bach and Haydn on our phonograph for me. Not only did I become familiar with the form; he discussed the concerti. My own head start. My own Head Start. ~ Karen DeCrow

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music. ~ Amos Oz

All this was only, in my father's estimation, a means; the end was the Earthly Paradise, the translation of William Morris's 'News from Nowhere' into 'News from Somewhere.' Then Whitman's sense of abounding joy in his own and all creation's sensuality would sweep away the paltry backwaters of bourgeois morality; the horrors of industrial ugliness which Ruskin so eloquently denounced would dissolve, and die forgotten as a dream (phrases from hymns still washed about in my father's mind) as slums were transformed into garden cities, and the belching smoke of hateful furnaces into the cool elegance of electric power. As for the ferocious ravings of my namesake, Carlyle, about the pettifogging nature of modern industrial man's pursuits and expectations -- all that would be corrected as he was induced to spend ever more of his increasing leisure in cultural and craft activities; in the enjoyment of music, literature and art.

It was pefectly true -- a point that Will Straughan was liable to bring up at the Saturday evening gatherings -- that on the present form the new citizenry might be expected to have a marked preference for dog-racing over chamber music or readings from 'Paradise Lost,' but, my father would loftily point out, education would change all that. Education was, in fact, the lynchpin of the whole operation; the means whereby the Old Adam of the Saturday night booze-up, and fondness for Marie Lloyd in preference to Beatrice Webb, would be cast off, and the ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

'Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta' is a kind of expansion of chamber music. ~ Pierre Boulez

In chamber music, the audience can hear each instrument and understand (and feel) what the composer and the musicians have in mind as they play. ~ Karen DeCrow

I never liked opera growing up. I always liked chamber music or solo music even more than orchestral music. ~ Tod Machover

Once a month I play with a chamber music quartet. I play almost no solo music anymore because I so enjoy the interaction. The members of my quartet have become some of my best friends and so I really enjoy it now in ways that I didn't before. ~ Condoleezza Rice

Nothing in the next-door world of Dachau impinged on the great winter cycle of Beethoven chamber music played in Munich. No canvases came off museum walls as the butchers strolled reverently past, guide-books in hand. ~ George Steiner

Look at it,' he said, gesturing. 'This window looks down upon hundreds more panes of glass, and behind those panes live thousands upon thousands of lost souls. When I feel cast down and helpless, scores of other men do as well, and when I am bitterly angry at feeling cast down and helpless, countless other people languish in concert with me. When I'm happy, it's the same. It's a bit like ... I used to play chamber music. It's like a vast orchestra. And so I shan't ever be alone. ~ Lyndsay Faye

Mozart has written opera, symphony, sacred and chamber music - not to mention his piano and violin concerti. ~ Neville Marriner

I tend to write short, brief snippets - I lean toward the chamber music end as opposed to the symphony end of things. ~ K.A. Applegate

If you're writing a piece for the Boston Pops, the balance is towards one end. If you're writing a piece for a chamber music society, then it's towards another point. I won't make a final answer on that. I think it changes with every piece. ~ Peter Maxwell Davies

Even though I started playing the violin when I was four, my early chamber music experiences helped build a strong foundation for my solo work, as all music is a rich language and dialogue that is shared on stage, no matter what the size of the ensemble. ~ Anne Akiko Meyers

Most experiences are either sensual or intellectual. Chamber music, played by a small group so the listener can follow what each player is doing, is both. ~ Karen DeCrow

She shielded her eyes with a salute to the afternoon sun. "Right there, where the ground is blackened, just to the left of that cloud, that's where the Presidential Palace stood." Rotating in a slow circle, her index finger pressed the past into the empty panorama. The market selling Levi's two decades before any licensed clothing store. The music college, where some years earlier a prodigy had learned to play the viola by listening to the two-hundred-year history of chamber music lilting through those open windows. She reconstructed the square for Akhmed - her voice raised every edifice from the dust, replanted every linden tree - because that was easier than apology. ~ Anthony Marra

The trombone and side-drums in the chamber music of Stravinsky will do well enough in a very smart house-party where all the conversation is carried on in an esoteric family slang and the guests are expected to enjoy booby-traps. Very different is the outlook of some of our younger masters such as Hindemith, Jarnach, and others, whose renunciation of beauty was in itself a youthfully romantic gesture, and was accompanied by endless pains in securing adequate performance. The work of masterly performers can indeed alone save the new ideas from being swamped in a universal dullness which no external smartness can long distinguish from that commemorated in the Dunciad. ~ Donald Francis Tovey

My gaze returns to earth and when it does, it's her eyes I see. Not the way I used to see them - around every corner, behind my own closed lids at the start of each day. Not in the way I used to imagine them in the eyes of every other girl I laid on top of. No, this time it really is her eyes. A photo of her, dressed in black, a cello leaning against one shoulder like a tired child. Her hair is up in one of those buns that seem to be a requisite for classical musicians. She used to wear it up like that for recitals and chamber music concerts, but with little pieces hanging down, to soften the severity of the look. There are no tendrils in this photo. I peer closer at the sign. YOUNG CONCERT SERIES PRESENTS MIA HALL. ~ Gayle Forman

Rock and roll music, if you like it, if you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I can't help it.' ~ Elvis Presley

I am equally excited about the possibilities that music making holds for all people and it's ability to heal what seems to me a chronic imbalance in modern life. ~ Paul Winter

Men are wary of me because they know, by listening to my music, that a relationship with me will be quite deep. ~ Ellie Goulding

Music, Take That and what we do is not real life. It's magical.
As soon as you begin to believe it the magic will disappear. ~ Gary Barlow

When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write, I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.' ~ Roddy Doyle

Creating art (music, books, films, etc.) can be beautiful and liberating, but trying to sell art, well, that is the movie business. There are few winners, and lots and lots of losers. ~ Ronnie Apteker

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener. ~ Pat Metheny

Not only was it enough to be a cover band, it was perhaps the highest calling. After all, if you could play music recorded by others, stay true to the original, and still add fire and flare, why not? ~ Paul Shaffer

I didn't get into music to become a blues musician, or a country musician. I'm a singer-songwriter. In my book that means I get to do whatever I want. ~ Justin Townes Earle

There is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

If you are a reader of 'Harper's Bazaar,' to me, you are a woman who loves fashion, but not just fashion; you love fashion, you love travel, you love art, you love music. ~ Carine Roitfeld

Something I eventually learned: Prince's top girlfriend was always in Minneapolis. When you came to Minneapolis, you were the girl on her way in. When you left Minneapolis, you were the girl on her way out.

This would have been a valuable piece of information for me to keep in my own hip pocket. ~ Mayte Garcia

He is tangled in Isabelle's arms, he is curtained by Isabelle's hair, he is touching Isabelle's body, he is lost in Isabelle, in her smell and her taste and the silk of her skin.
He is onstage, the music pounding, the floor shaking, the audience cheering, his heart beating beating beating in time with the drumbeat.
He is laughing with Clary, dancing with Clary, eating with Clary, running through the streets of Brooklyn with Clary, they are children together, they are one half of a whole, they hold hands and squeeze tight and pledge never to let go.
He is going cold, stiff, the life draining out of him, he is below, in the dark, clawing his way to the light, fingernails scraping dirt, mouth filled with dirt, eyes clogged with dirt, he is straining, reaching, dragging himself up toward the sky, and when he reaches it, he opens his mouth wide but does not breathe, for he no longer needs to breathe, only to feed. And he is so very hungry.
He is sinking his teeth into the neck of an angel's child, he is drinking the light.
He is bearing a Mark, and it burns.
He is raising his face to meet the gaze of an angel, he is flayed by the fury of angel fire, and yet still, impudent and bloodless, he lives.
He is in a cage.
He is in hell.
He is bent over the broken body of a beautiful girl, he is praying to whatever god that will listen, please let her live, anything to let her live.
He is giving away that which is most precious to him, ~ Cassandra Clare

In Jazz, like in America, the group works together toward a common cause with lots of room left for each individual to shine. ~ Richie Gerber

I'm not used to writing about happy emotions, I'm just used to pulling from my sad or angry - happy emotions are very hard for me to portray in music. ~ Melanie Martinez

Even if I'm doing a show and there's five people in the audience and the sound system is terrible - I mean, it's been a while but I've certainly done those kind of shows where it's just every conceivable thing is against you - you still have music. It's still something that's real whether there's five people in the audience or a hundred thousand people in the audience. And that's always been there for me. ~ Joan Osborne

I really like to go for the essence of things - the most beautiful parts of things - of human beings or of music. If there are things in there that are getting in the way and complicating it, it's just not good for me. ~ Bill Kreutzmann

Whether you like another band's music or not you never know who is going to take you out on tour or who you are going to be friends with and that is just something that is important to us. ~ Adam Rich

It fascinates me that when we lose one of our five senses, the remaining four strengthen and rally to make sense of the world we live in. Even by closing our eyes for a moment, we find ourselves paying closer attention to the sounds around us. Perhaps this is why music can resonate so deeply within us; somehow our isolated senses allow our brains the space and perspective to connect these really beautiful dots of our own hearts and souls. I wonder if the act of giving our other senses a break ca ~ Ryan O'Neal

Even people that know Johnny Cash's music really well and know that he was married don't really know that much about June Carter. So finding out about her really helped to inform my performance and to bring her to the front in a way that she has never been before. ~ Reese Witherspoon

I don't do 'black music,' I don't do 'white music' ... I make fight music, for high school kids. ~ Eminem

Where I've been hasn't influenced my music. It's more what I listen to. You can find music everywhere, so moving hasn't really influenced my music, more me as a person. ~ Lykke Li

Sex parties, alcohol and drugs lost their appeal to Sven after a while. Music never did, in his continual search for that sober connection
intimacy with one person over a long period of time, as opposed to periods of intimacy with a bunch of random faces. ~ Jess C. Scott

It's hard to be taken seriously if you're a young, female artist making pop music; you never know how people are going to react. ~ Alessia Cara

I like any reaction I can get with my music. Just anything to get people to think. ~ Jim Morrison

I don't listen to music throughout the day very often. I don't own a record player. I don't really have a stereo system. Most of the music I listen to these days is on the web or on MySpace pages, stuff like that. ~ Panda Bear

One of my favorite "deep thoughts" on the topic occurred when one of my other bands, Loaded, was opening for Alice Cooper a number of years back. After one particularly successful show, we got to talking about Bon Jovi. In the song "Wanted Dead Or Alive," the claim is made that "I've seen a million faces, and I've rocked them all." All? Let's ponder.
I have no doubt that Bon Jovi had played to a million people by the time "Dead or Alive" was released on Slippery When Wet in 1986. But did they rock them all? Couldn't it be that some dudes brought their girlfriends to the show and weren't necessarily into their music? What about some parents? Or maybe some people just didn't get rocked? Hey, it's happened to me. I've gone to gigs properly prepared to get rocked and it just didn't happen. ~ Duff McKagan

The passion and spontaneity in music is all gone. ~ Jan Hammer

I don't even listen to music when I'm off tour. ~ Vince Neil

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was born in Salzburg, Austria on January 27. About eleven minutes later he was writing his own music. ~ Ron David

I took music theory in high school and dropped out halfway through the semester because it was ruining music for me. ~ Blake Judd

Try and fail, but never fail to try! ~ Jared Leto

I've always felt like my music would stand for itself and I would stand for myself. So I've kept my music a little bit esoteric, and I've kept the lyrics a little aloof. I try to say something important, but I don't necessarily preach. ~ Kenna

Each kind of generation of bands forgets how they got here. Waylon Jennings came out and they're like, 'That's not Patsy Cline.' And everyone panicked, like, 'I don't know what happened to country music, but this isn't it.' ~ Kristian Bush

I've always said that if I could have made a living someway in gospel music, I would have loved to had that break, but it never was offered to me, a job in that field, so naturally, I got lost on that other road. ~ George Jones

Eternity hums with every beating heart, with every up-lifted voice, with the crash of waves, the whirl of wind across the shifting dunes, the cry of sea birds, and the trumpets of heavenly angels. ~ Janell Rhiannon

I think there is a fascination with choral music in general. ~ Ed Droste

[A]ny musician who has not experienced - I do not say understood, but truly experienced - the necessity of dodecaphonic music is USELESS. For his whole work is irrelevant to the needs of his epoch. ~ Pierre Boulez

When I was 20, political music was the uncoolest thing on earth. ~ Bjork

Music is life. That's why our hearts have beats" - Unknown ~ Adrianne James

I was attracted to a lot of different art forms - dancing, painting. But there's something about music that people hold so close. It's such a powerful art form, and that's why I live for it. ~ Ani DiFranco

There's a certain kind of motion and pacing that our music has, and this just doesn't have that. We just kind of rushed to the conclusion of most of the songs. I just would've preferred to done them over. ~ Branford Marsalis

I remember always looking forward to listening to country music in the car with my mother, and it wasn't even something I enjoyed in the sense of music, but just being around music itself was enough. ~ James Vincent McMorrow