Symphony Orchestras Quotes

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there's any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it's surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that's constant is change. ~ Warren G. Bennis

I never shied away from a challenge and I love doing big, epic films. They're interesting to me just on a pure music level, just in terms of the amount of music I could create for a symphony orchestra and chorus. ~ Howard Shore

A man must pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra often had to be subsidized. ~ John Barrymore

Few tears will be shed over the demise of the East German army, but what about East Germany's eighty symphony orchestras, bound to lose some subsidies? Or the whole East German system, which covered everyone in a security blanket from day care to health care, from housing to education? Some people are beginning to express, if ever so slightly, nostalgia for that Berlin Wall. ~ Bob Simon

The symphony orchestra had played poorly, so the conductor was in a bad mood. That night he beat his wife
because the music hadn't been beautiful enough. ~ George Carlin

You can play Bach on the piano, a symphony orchestra or a quartet of saxophones, but let's stop this silly, childish business of knit your own musicology ~ Paul McCreesh

My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony. ~ Fernando Pessoa

To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony ... that's the science and the craft. ~ Quincy Jones

Way back in the old days, say in Europe of the Middle Ages, you had an aristocracy, and they could afford to pay for musicians. The kings and queens had musicians in the castles, and that developed into symphony orchestras and what we call "Classical music" now. ~ Pete Seeger

Music will still be a big part of our environment. The Bible talks about choirs of angels and how there is singing in Heaven. We're going to have the greatest choirs, the greatest bands and symphony orchestras, the greatest music that the world has ever known. The world has never even heard music yet compared to what we're going to have there! If humans can make the beautiful music they have learned to make with these hand-made instruments, think what God can do supernaturally! ~ David Berg

Women play cellos and violins in symphony orchestras. They're playing Beethoven and Bach. What do you mean they can't play rock and roll? ~ Joan Jett

Opera halls, ballets, and large art museums receive more funding
and not all from the government
than do popular art and what might be considered popular music venues ... But there are plenty of innovative musicians ... who have had as much trouble surviving as symphony orchestras and ballet companies ... Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past? ... The 2011 annual operating budget for the New York Metropolitan Opera is $325 million; a big chunk of that, $182 million, came from donations from wealthy patrons. ~ David Byrne

Composers love to write for symphony orchestras because the symphony is the Rolls Royce of musical instruments. ~ David Del Tredici

But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands. ~ Michael Tilson Thomas

Every couple weeks I'll listen to Sibelius's Seventh Symphony, just to check in, to see how it's doing. It's doing OK. ~ Nico Muhly

The Lord did not people the earth with a vibrant orchestra of personalities only to value the piccolos of the world. Every instrument is precious and adds to the complex beauty of the symphony. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing. ~ Gerry Mulligan

Why is music capable of inflicting such pain? Because it works on our feelings directly. No ideas interfere with its emotions. This is why "all art aspires to the condition of music." The symphony gives us the thrill of uncertainty
the pleasurable anxiety of searching for a pattern
but without the risks of real life. When we listen to music, we are moved by an abstraction. We feel, but we don't know why. ~ Jonah Lehrer

I feel like people used to leave their homes and go to their local theatre, and they used to watch ballet dancers and musical theatre performers and tap dancers and orchestras and dog acts. You had to leave your home, be in the presence of other people, know how to behave, and enjoy the human being whose beating heart was in front of you. ~ Laura Benanti

What a grin he had, what ferocious eyes, what a creature he was. He had dreamt himself an entire life and death.
Ronan said, "I want to go back."
"Then take it," said his father. "You know how now."
And Ronan did. Because Niall Lynch was a forest fire, a rising sea, a car crash, a closing curtain, a blistering symphony, a catalyst with planets inside him.
And he had given all of that to his middle son. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen. ~ Carson McCullers

A visible shiver ran through Arthur. "Can you imagine letting him touch you? Be like kissing a snake that'd been dipped in snot."
"Oh, now there's a mental image." Eric wrinkled his nose. "You have such a talent for description. ~ Cecilia Ryan

The truth is ... that the great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom ever ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman. ~ H.L. Mencken

The critics say that Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony has no form. They are wrong; it has the form of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. ~ Edward Abbey

Based on my own experience, I believe the brain is as soft and malleable as bread dough when we're young. I am grateful for every class trip to the symphony I went on and curse any night I was allowed to watch The Brady Bunch, because all of it stuck. Conversely, I am now capable of forgetting entire novels that I've read, and I've been influenced not at all by books I passionately love and would kill to be influenced by. Think about this before you let your child have an iPad. ~ Ann Patchett

On Mars, where the air is spare - a hundred times less dense than on Earth - someone could hear you scream. But you'd have to really strain to get anyone's attention. On the Red Planet, where the wind is high-pitched and faint, even a symphony orchestra will sound as thin as cheap gruel. ~ Seth Shostak

A mystical symphony permeates my senses and a holy lullaby embraces me. ~ Earthschool Harmony

Probably many people think that I came back to life after the Fifth Symphony. No. I came back to life after the Seventh. ~ Dmitri Shostakovich

Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. He failed. ~ Edward Abbey

My favorite symphony is the silent song of the night! ~ Avijeet Das

Feeling alone or abandoned? Nature sings a symphony of God's presence every moment of the day, from the blue of the sky to the songbird's warble; from the brush of the wind on your face to the cooing of a baby; from the heart beating within your chest to the twinkling of a star's light in the evening sky, they all remind us that He is always with us. And because He is with us, He hears our every cry and every prayer. ~ Ron Lambros

And suddenly, my symphony of travel crescendos, achieving its rumbling, mighty End ~ David Arnold

Cincinnatians support a symphony, an opera, a ballet, museums, many galleries and theater groups. ~ Bill Dedman

In South America, I heard the 8th Symphony of Beethoven. And the young conductor thought, Beethoven must be heroic. But this is piece which shouldn't be heroic. And this was such a misunderstanding, such a deep misunderstanding. ~ Kurt Masur

You see colors no one else can see
In every breath you hear a symphony
You understand me like nobody can
I feel like my soul unfolding like a flower blooming
When this whole world gets too crazy
And there's nowhere left to go
I know you give me sanctuary
You're the only truth I know
You're the road back home. ~ Backstreet Boys

The Sun burned down in a warm contrasting world of white and black, of white Sun against black sky and white rolling ground mottled with black shadow. The bright sweet smell of the Sun on every exposed square centimeter of metal contrasting with the creeping death-of-aroma on the other side.

He lifted his hand and stared at it, counting the fingers. Hot-hot-hot-turning, putting each finger, one by one, into the shadow of the others and the hot slowly dying in a change in tactility that made him feel the clean, comfortable vacuum.

Yet not entirely vacuum. He straightened and lifted both arms over his head, stretching them out, and the sensitive spots on either wrist felt the vapors- the thin, faint touch of tin and lead rolling through the cloy of mercury.

The thicker taste rose from his feet; the silicates of each variety, marked by the clear separate-and-together touch and tang of each metal ion. He moved one foot slowly through the crunchy, caked dust, and felt the changes like a soft, not quite random symphony.

And over all the Sun. He looked up at it, large and fat and bright and hot, and heard its joy. He watched the slow rise of prominences around its rim and listened to the crackling sound of each; and to the other happy noises over the broad face. When he dimmed the background light, the red of the rising wisps of hydrogen showed in bursts of mellow contralto, and the deep bass of the spots amid the muted whistling of the wi ~ Isaac Asimov

No one had any idea, it turned out. None of the older Symphony members knew much about science, which was frankly maddening given how much time these people had had to look things up on the Internet before the world ended. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

Our life a harp is, with unnumbered strings, And tones and symphonies; but our poor skill Some shallow notes from its great music brings. ~ John Boyle O'Reilly

The less number of people like my writing the happier I become. The masses do not understand a symphony too! ~ Avijeet Das

(I dreamt of a long trip)
I dreamt of contemplating
Your eyes, your hair - their colors
The sun would leave in his hours.
I dreamt of your seasons
-Your body leaned against my horizon.
I dreamt of your face
I dreamt of your hands
I dreamt of your kisses
I dreamt of a symphony
Just few notes accompanied
-I dreamt of your wrists.
I dreamt of your heart
Of everything you emanate
The perfume that your soul wears
I dreamt of your smile
To hear you laugh, and cry
-I dreamt of seeing you alive
I dreamt of your presence
From your silence
And all your metamorphoses
(I dreamed of a long trip)
Around your closed eyelids. ~ Emmanuelle Soni-Dessaigne

We did experiments with the Boston Symphony for many years where we measured the angles of incidence of sound arriving at the ears of the audience, then took the measurements back to MIT and analyzed them. ~ Amar Bose

Hearing her laugh is like listening to the best kind of symphony. ~ M. Leighton

Because life is a symphony it must have its C Minor. Days there be when we hear only a discord of sharps and flats, and we wonder whether harmony will ever be restored. On other days we hear only an ominous, deep strain which seems to say that hope is fled. But why this chill despair? Symphonies are a blending of many tones, high and low, over and under, major and minor. One day cannot make a life a whole any more than shadows can make a picture or minor notes a symphony. We need to hear life's song, not as the discord of a single day, but as the completed harmony of all the years. Then will today's sorrow and tomorrow's disappointment ring forth in major key as glorious melody. ~ W. Waldemar W. Argow

I'm fine. It's a lie. I am not fine. My head is a symphony of pain, a sadistic master maestro conducting an opus of excruciating, devastating perfecting. ~ Kiersten White

I worry about being a fogy and just writing for orchestras. Like, really, I should be doing more electronic stuff, I feel. Laptops as part of the orchestra, and installation sound, and speakers. ~ Jonny Greenwood

The symphonies are the things that, as a soloist, I've not gotten to play. I used to travel the world playing concertos, and then I would sit and listen to the symphony. ~ Joshua Bell

My grade 3 teacher put on a kids' Christmas concert, and I played the kazoo, so my mother bought me a trumpet. I took lessons for eight years, was in the Kitsilano Boys Band, and I played in the Vancouver Junior Symphony for two years. ~ Jim Pattison

I hear the wind among the trees playing the celestial symphonies. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If Words are the Lyrics, and Laughter the Melody, then a Relationship becomes a Symphony. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I've watched the demise of the Hollywood orchestra, the house orchestras of the big studios. ~ Skitch Henderson

How do you fancy making some dark cherry ganache with me, and we can fill these little yuzu shells with that instead? They can be a temporary special: a macaron de saison." I scrape the offending basil mixture into the bin.
"Whatever you want." Her brightening eyes betray her.
"That's the enthusiasm I was looking for," I reply, smiling. "What shall we call them then? It has to be French."
We surrender to a thoughtful silence. Outside the cicadas are playing their noisy summer symphony. I imagine them boldly serenading one another from old tires, forgotten woodpiles, discarded plastic noodle bowls.
"Something about summer..." she mumbles.
After conferring with my worn, flour-dusted French-English dictionary, we agree on 'Brise d'Ete. ~ Hannah Tunnicliffe

It seemed to me that had Haydn lived to our day he would have retained his own style while accepting something of the new at the same time. That was the kind of symphony I wanted to write: a symphony in the classical style. And when I saw that my idea was beginning to work, I called it the Classical Symphony. ~ Sergei Prokofiev

What blooms from beautiful seeds of thought becomes a symphony of colorful abundance. ~ Jazz Feylynn

I would never have become music director of the Chicago Symphony, which would have been an extremely sad loss. ~ Georg Solti

Up the street a song cloud floats by, sagging a bit, but still intact. I walk faster and catch up with it just in time to hear the ending, a symphony orchestra, the sound full and resplendent, and it is one of those times, you know those times every so often when you hear the right piece of music at the right time, and it just makes you think. ~ Charles Yu

Audiences, whether they're seeing a film or a reading or whatever it is, a concert, they decide very quickly what kind of show it is, and then they judge it. They judge the rest of the thing by whether it conforms to their rules for what a good symphony orchestra would be. ~ Laurie Anderson

We have come to love the music of proof. Logical connection for us is not some popular song about a finch, but a choral symphony, so difficult and so inspired that the conductor must exert all his energy to keep the performers under his control. ~ Osip Mandelstam

Draft Three
Because I never realized that you could fall in love with humans the same way you fall in love with songs. How the tune of them could mean nothing to you at first, an unfamiliar melody, but quickly turn into a symphony carved across your skin; a hymn in the web of your veins; a harmony stitched into the lining of your soul ~ Krystal Sutherland

What I'm going for with the string arrangements for my Antarctic symphony is a pun here. ~ DJ Spooky

I don't think I would ever write a book with what anybody could call pornography in it, because I feel that pornography is a cheat. It is an attempt to provide sexual experience by secondhand means. Now sex is a thing which has to be experienced firsthand, if you are really going to understand it, and pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars. It's not the same thing. Sex is primarily a question of relationships. Pornography is a do-it-yourself kit
a twenty-second best. ~ Robertson Davies

It meant different things to different people, but somehow it meant them all intensely. Shostakovich's words just confuse the issue. His symphony itself is what remains. Listen to it. It is your symphony to write with him. ~ M T Anderson

And there was so much noise. A symphony of grinding, a chorus of popping, an aria of exploding, and finally, the sad clapping of hard metal cutting into soft trees. ~ Gayle Forman

When I lived in rural Oxfordshire, I was walking home across a field when I stroked a cow. The damn thing butted me in the orchestras. ~ Mark Lawrenson