Stravinsky Quotes

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The perfection of performance has escalated to the extent that the music itself is threatened with relegation. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos? ~ Igor Stravinsky

Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories ... Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time. ~ Igor Stravinsky

There is no beauty in Music itself, the beauty is within the listener ~ Igor Stravinsky

I never understood the need for a "live" audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one. ~ Igor Stravinsky

In two thousand years all our generals and politicians may be forgotten, but Einstein and Madame Curie and Bernard Shaw and Stravinsky will keep the memory of our age alive. ~ Anthony Burgess

To be deprived of art and left alone with philosophy is to be close to Hell. ~ Igor Stravinsky

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself. ~ Igor Stravinsky

There is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I was ... attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing "simple" music, blamed for deserting "modernism," accused of renouncing my "true Russian heritage." People who had never heard of, or cared about, the originals cried "sacrilege": "The classics are ours. Leave the classics alone." To them all my answer was and is the same: You "respect," but I love. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Hurry? I have no time to hurry. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being? ~ Igor Stravinsky

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Silence, which will save from shame, will also deprive me of fame. ~ Igor Stravinsky

My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned to myself for each one of my undertakings. I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the claims that shackle the spirit." - Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music ~ Dennis DeSantis

All music is nothing more than a succession of impulses that converge towards a definite point of repose. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The performance of performance has developed to such an extent in recent years that it challenges the music itself and will soon threaten it with relegation. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Good composers don't borrow, they steal ~ Igor Stravinsky

The more controlled, limited and tormented art is, the freer it is. ~ Igor Stravinsky

A cultural snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible. ~ Igor Stravinsky

One's belief that one is sincere is not so dangerous as one's conviction that one is right. We all feel we are right; but we felt the same way twenty years ago and today we know we weren't always right. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Music is the worst of them - roiling and boiling - overly emotionalized on the one hand, overly intellectuallized on the other. Bach and Mozart indeed! Bach inevitably makes me think of fish in a barrel! round and round and round they go and nothing ever happens. Nothing ! Tum -de-dum-dum. Tum -de-dum-dum and that's all! Tum -de-dum-de-bloody-dum-dum! As for Mozart, his emotions did not mature beyond the age of twelve. never achieved adolescence, let alone puberty. his music merely combines a popular talent for slapstick and a commercial talent for tears. No - not tears. For sobs. Beethoven, pompous. Chopin - sickly sweet and given to tantrums - Tum -de-dum-dum- Bang! and Wagner - a self -centred bore. and Stravinsky - discordant, rude and blows his music through his nose ~ Timothy Findley

My music is best understood by children and animals. ~ Igor Stravinsky

It is my conviction that the public always shows itself more honest in its spontaneity than do those who officially set themselves up as judges of works of art. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven. ~ Igor Stravinsky

When I discovered that I had been made custodian of this gift, in my earliest childhood, I pledged myself to God to be worthy of it, but I have received uncovenanted mercies all my life. The custodian has too often kept faith on his all-too-worldly terms. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I'd heard "Rhapsody in Blue" a thousand times and it always amazed me. It was so humble and then so bombastic. It was beautiful, bright, and terrifying: old and new, European and American. At times it sounded like Debussy, at times it sounded like Stravinsky, and at times it sounded like the Lower East Side in 1910.
"Rhapsody in Blue" was a quintessentially New York work of art, but it was also about moving from east to west, from the old world to the new... ~ Moby

The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece with a difficult violin passage. After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it. Stravinsky said, 'I understand that. What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.' ~ Thomas Powers

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. ~ Igor Stravinsky

It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism
Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique concrete
opposes. But instead of bringing art and reality closer together, the new movement merely thins out the distinction. ~ Igor Stravinsky

An artist is like a pig snouting truffles. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Composers can do things that weren't allowed in the 17th century. Until we had composers like Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff to break the rules. ~ Aaron Zigman

I came up in the '60s; that was a time when there was a revolution going on in music. Stravinsky had become a twelve-tone composer; even Aaron Copland was writing twelve-tone pieces at that time! ~ Paul Lansky

A good composer does not imitate; he steals. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The fact that Stravinsky used the classics as a major influence is obvious. What is interesting is how he used them, how he turned Bach into Stravinsky. ~ Lukas Foss

I think of a sun like Beethoven, a wind like Debussy, and birdcalls like Stravinsky. But the tempo is all mine. ~ Patricia Highsmith

The further one separates himself from the precepts of the Christian Church, the further one distances himself from the truth. Only God can create. I make music from music. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that. ~ Esa-Pekka Salonen

Sweet music It beats love because there aren't any wounds: in the morning she turns on the radio, Brahms or Ives or Stravinsky or Mozart. She boils the eggs counting the seconds out loud: 56, 57, 58 ... she peels the eggs, brings them to me in bed. After breakfast it's the same chair and listen to the classical music. She's on her first glass of scotch and her third cigarette. I tell her I must go to the racetrack. She's been here about 2 nights and 2 days. "When will I see you again?" I ask. She suggests that might be up to me. I nod and Mozart plays. ~ Charles Bukowski

I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. 'That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific'. ~ Igor Stravinsky

That's the way Stravinsky was. Bup, bup, bup, bup. The poor guy's dead now. Play it legato. ~ Eugene Ormandy

A lot of habitually creative people have preparation rituals linked to the setting in which they choose to start their day. By putting themselves into that environment, they start their creative day.

The composer Igor Stravinsky did the same thing every morning when he entered his studio to work: He sat at the piano and played a Bach fugue. Perhaps he needed the ritual to feel like a musician, or the playing somehow connected him to musical notes, his vocabulary. Perhaps he was honoring his hero, Bach, and seeking his blessing for the day. Perhaps it was nothing more than a simple method to get his fingers moving, his motor running, his mind thinking music. But repeating the routine each day in the studio induced some click that got him started.

In the end, there is no ideal condition for creativity. What works for one person is useless for another. The only criterion is this: Make it easy on yourself. Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down. It should make you want to be there, and once you find it, stick with it. To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming. All preferred working states, no matter how eccentric, have one thing in common: When you enter into them, they compel you to get started. ~ Twyla Tharp

I got thrown out of music school for even listening to Fats Domino and Ray Charles. I was asked, 'What kind of music do you like to listen to?' and I said, 'Well, I do like Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky but I also like Fats Domino and Ray Charles,' and they literally said, 'Either forget about that or leave.' ~ Steve Winwood

I never am sea sick, never. I am sea drunk! ~ Igor Stravinsky

We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it. ~ Igor Stravinsky

It's something he used to say when he was happy. It could be a very, very simple day. We might be sitting out on the front lawn. Dad loved classical music and we might be listening to some Stravinsky or something and having some tea and eggs. And he'd say, 'Oh, good stuff, isn't it?' ~ Jennifer Grant

For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Even Stravinsky does not evoke the same public affection as Verdi. ~ Charles Rosen

What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I am an inventor of music. ~ Igor Stravinsky

He was a six and a half foot scowl.
(on Rachmaninov) ~ Igor Stravinsky

I loved Debussy, Stravinsky, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, anything with romantic melodies, especially the nocturnes. Nietzsche was a hero, especially with 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra.' He gets a bad rap; he's very misunderstood. He's a maker of individuals, and he was a teacher of teachers. ~ Joni Mitchell

Old age is a time of humiliations, the most disagreeable of which, for me, is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Georgian folk music has more new musical ideas than all the contemporary music.
[Los Angeles Times. 26.02.1990] ~ Igor Stravinsky

I love ballet and am more interested in it than in anything else. . . . For the only form of scenic art that sets itself, as its cornerstone, the tasks of beauty, and nothing else, is ballet. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I don't think that Prokofiev ever treated me seriously as a composer; he considered only Stravinsky a rival and never missed a chance to take a shot at him. I remember once he started telling me some vile story about Stravinsky. I cut him off. ~ Dmitri Shostakovich

'Canticum Sacrum' is wonderfully archaic. What Stravinsky does is extraordinary. It takes you on a journey from Gregorian chant right through to the modernism of Webern - and all in 17 minutes. ~ John Tavener

Art postulates communion, and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully. ~ Gyorgy Ligeti

Stravinsky is one of the greatest composers of our time and I truly love many of his works. ( ... ) The marvellous composer has invariably been at the centre of my attention, and I not only studied and listened to his music, but I played it and made my own transcriptions as well. ~ Dmitri Shostakovich

If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other. Remind us of Stravinsky. Know the names of plants and flying creatures. Hunt gauzy wings with snares of gauze. Make science pay tribute. Have a butterfly known by your name. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I knew I had to write a Mass of my own, but a real one. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Revolution means turning the wheel. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Composition is selective improvisation. ~ Igor Stravinsky

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Bernard Herrmann used to write all his scores by himself. So did Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky. I don't understand why this happens in the movie industry. ~ Ennio Morricone

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I've got a very wide taste in art. I like Russian icon painters. I like Salvador Dali. It's like music. Sometimes you want to hear Led Zeppelin, and sometimes you want to hear Stravinsky. It just depends. ~ Peter Webber

We might as well swing boys, because Stravinsky cuts us all. ~ Woody Herman

It's one of nature's way that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us. ~ Igor Stravinsky

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth, France enjoyed an upsurge of artistic flourishing that became known as La Belle Epoque. It was a time of change that heralded both art nouveau and post impressionism, when painters as diverse as Monet, Cezanne and Toulouse Lautrec worked. It was an age of extremes, when Proust and Anatole France were fashionable along with the notorious Monsieur Willy, Colette's husband. On the decorative arts, Mucha, Gallé and Lalique were enjoying success; and the theatre Lugné-Poe was introducing the grave works of Ibsen at the same time as Parisians were enjoying the spectacle of the can-can of Hortense Schneider. Paris was the crossroads of a new and many-faceted culture, a culture that was predominately feminine in form, for, above all, la belle Epoque was the age of women. Women dominated the cultural scene. On the one hand, there was Comtesse Greffulhe, the patron of Proust and Maeterlinck, who introduced greyhound racing into France; Winaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac, for whom Stravinsky wrote Renard; Misia Sert, the discoverer of Chanel and Diaghilev's closest friend. On the other were the great dancers of the Moulin Rouge, immortalised by Toulouse lautrec - Jane Avril, Yvette Guilbert, la Goulue; as well as such celebrated dramatic actresses as the great Sarah Bernhardt. It would not be possible to speak of La belle Epoque without the great courtesans who, in many ways, perfectly symbolize ~ Charles Castle

I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky. ~ Esa-Pekka Salonen

I had no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this. ~ Ernest Newman

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

Music is the sole domain in which man realizes the present. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I live neither in the past nor in the future. I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity. ~ Igor Stravinsky

What force is more potent than love? ~ Igor Stravinsky

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward. ~ Igor Stravinsky

You can rave about Stravinsky without the slightest risk of being classified as a lunatic by the next generation . ~ George Bernard Shaw

Composition is frozen improvisation. ~ Igor Stravinsky

In his autobiography Stravinsky relates that the first music he remembers was made by a peasant, working his hand in his armpit to produce a rhytmic farting. ~ Craig Raine

One lives by memory . . . and not by truth. ~ Igor Stravinsky