"Nothing right can be accomplished in art without enthusiasm."

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: ‘The only proof he needed for the existence of god was music.'”

Kurt Vonnegut (1923-2007)

“Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.”

Marcel Marceau (1923-2007)

“Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

“A strange art – music – the most poetic and precise of all the arts, vague as a dream and precise as algebra.”

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

“If you’ve lost your faith in love and music then the end won’t be long.”

Pete Doherty (b. 1979)

“Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.”

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

“Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.”

George Eliot (1819-1880)

“Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa più, meno sa – Who knows most, knows least.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

“A man should hear a little music […] in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

“I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.”

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

\
Week	2020

“Should music not rather come from the heart as well as the brain?”

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)

"To follow in Beethoven's footsteps transcends one's strength."

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.

Gustav Mahler (1860 -1911)

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

“Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned
by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.”

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

\
Week	2019

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

“There is nothing more difficult than talking about music.”

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

“Bear in mind that you are not making music for your own pleasure, but for the pleasure of your audience.”

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

“Why hurry over beautiful things? Why not linger and enjoy them?”

Clara Schumann (1819-1896)

“It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me.
I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I.
There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.”

W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)

"If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony."

W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)

"Learn all there is to learn, and then choose your own path."

George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)

"For me the greatest beauty always lies in the greatest clarity."

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 – 1781)

"I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wish to make them better."

George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)

"If we cannot write with the beauty of Mozart, let us at least try to write with his purity."

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)

"How lucky is the man who, like Mozart and others, goes to the tavern of an evening
and writes some fresh music. For he lives while he is creating."

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)

"If you cannot please everyone with your deeds and your art, please a few. To please many is bad."

Friedrich Schiller (1759 – 1805)

"I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies."

Elvis Costello, OBE (b. 25 August 1954)

"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

"The artist reveals to mankind the way to harmony, which is happiness and peace."

George Enescu (1881 -1955)

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

“There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.”

George Eliot (1819-1880)

“The idea comes to me from outside of me - and is like a gift.
I then take the idea and make it my own - that is where the skill lies.”

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

“It is proportion that beautifies everything,
the whole universe consists of it, and music is measured by it.”

Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

“Nothing right can be accomplished in art without enthusiasm.”

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

“With a heart filled with endless love for those who scorned me, I wandered far away.
For many and many a year I sang songs. Whenever I tried to sing of love,
it turned to pain. And again, when I tried to sing of pain, it turned to love.”

Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828)

"Recommend to your children virtues, that alone can make them happy, not gold."

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1825)

"Send light to the dark hearts of men, that is the duty the artist."

Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)

"A good composer should be able to set public notices to music."

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

"A violinist should always be happy when he is playing. If he is playing well,
he should be happy that he is playing well.
If he is not playing well, then he should be happy because it will soon be over."

Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987)

"We want to do a lot of stuff; we're not in great shape. We didn't get a good night's sleep.
We're a little depressed. Coffee solves all these problems in one delightful little cup."

Jerry Seinfeld (b. 1954)

"Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine."

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)

“Music is neither old nor modern: it is either good or bad music,
and the date at which it was written has no significance whatever.”

Peter Warlock (1894-1930)

“It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday
is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.”

Robert H. Schuller (1926-2015)

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 -1943)

“Without my morning coffee I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat.”

J.S.Bach (1865-1750)

“You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying. To the best you can do everyday.”

Jason Thomas Mraz (b. 1977)

“The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.”

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

“Keep true to the dreams of your youth.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805)

“The work I’m doing this year is more exposed than ever.
So if it goes wrong, it does so in a very public way.”

Roxanna Panufnik (born in 1965)

“You can kill people with sound.
And if you can kill, then maybe there is also the sound that is opposite of killing.
And the distance between these two points is very big. And you are free--you can choose.
In art everything is possible, but everything is not necessary.”

ARVO PÄRT (b. September 1935)

"There are no difficult pieces. Either you can play it, or you can't'."

Nathan Mironovich Milstein (1903-1992)

2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012	2011	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006

"Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors."

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

"I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphbet."

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

“Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation,
if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.”

Clara Schumann (1819-1896)

"I dared much, but the next time, you will see, I will dare even more."

Cesar Franck (1822-1890)

"Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge
which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend."

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

"To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time."

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”

Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846-1916)

“Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house.
Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks,
the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.”

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

“It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is
to leave the superfluous notes under the table.”

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

"Genius is an overused word. The world has known only about a half dozen geniuses.
I got only fairly near."

Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)

"The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea
and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping."

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

"What I have achieved by industry and practice,
anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve."

J.S..Bach (1685 -1750)

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

George Eliot (1819-1880)

"Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second."

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

"Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine!."

J.S.Bach (1685-1750)

"Art is the most beautiful of all lies."

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

"The highest result of education is tolerance."

Helen Keller (1880-1968)

"Tell me, I forget,
show me, I remember,
involve me, I understand."

Carl Orff (1895–1982)

“To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”

Beethoven (1770-1827)

"I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played."

Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)

"Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic.
Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself,
and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me."

Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987)

"Hope nourishes me; it nourishes half the world,
and has been my neighbor all my life, else what would have become of me!"

L. van Beethoven (1770-1827)
(letter to Bettina von Arnim (August 11, 1810)

"Anger and hatred lead to fear; compassion and concern for others
allow us to develop self-confidence, which breeds trust and friendship."

Dalai Lama (b. 6 July 1935)

"The real musical genius writes for no other purpose but to express his own soul,
and in so doing finds life's greatest satisfaction and joy."

Frederick Delius (1862 -1934)

"The ultimate aim in life should be to fulfill to the utmost all that
within our ability and to share that which is good and beautiful."

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999)

"If I wanted to play the violin, I had to work. Because anything that one wants to do really, and one loves doing, one must do everyday.
It should be as easy to the artist and as natural as flying is to a bird.
And you can’t imagine a bird saying well, I’m tired today, I’m not going to fly!"

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999)

“Bear in mind that you are not making music for your own pleasure,
but for the pleasure of your audience."

Richard Strauss (1864 - 1941)

“It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard
is to leave the superfluous notes under the table."

Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)

“Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music."

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

“My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us,
the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require.”

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

“It's just as difficult to overcome success as it is to overcome failure."

William Walton (1902-1983)

“Every man and woman alive is gifted by God in some special way.
People who have a self-image of worth are going to see value in what they do.
This is the attitude that motivates them to be and to do their best.
It's a drive that comes from within people."

William Walton (1902-1983)

“A grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.”

William Walton (1902-1983)

“It's just as difficult to overcome success as it is to overcome failure.”

William Walton (1902-1983)

“You believe happiness to be derived from the place in which once you have been happy,
but in truth it is centered in ourselves.”

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)

“The love of truth lies at the root of much humour.”

Robertson Davies (1913 - 1995)

“There is no room in music for the second-rate - it might just as well be the nineteenth-rate.”

Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

“For me, art, and especially music, exist to elevate us as far as possible above everyday existence.”

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

“Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets.”

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

“Joy is not in things; it is in us.”

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

“The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex,
the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.”

W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

"If you play music with passion and love and honesty, then it will nourish your soul,
heal your wounds and make your life worth living. Music is it's own reward."

Sting (b.1951)

"You believe happiness to be derived from the place in which once you have been happy,
but in truth it is centered in ourselves."

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

"Do you know that our soul is composed of harmony?"

Leonardp da Vinci (1452-1519)

"Harmonie is next to Godliness."

J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

"New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.
Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings,
all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'.."

Bing Crosby (1903-1977)

"Joy is not in things; it is in us."

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

"No one should be allowed to make music as if he were made of wood.
One must reproduce the musical text exactly, but not play like a stone."

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

"You can't teach a young musician to compose any more than you can teach a delicate plant to grow,
but you can guide him a little by planting a stick in here and a stick in there."

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

"Without my morning coffee I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat."

J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

"The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it,
is the root of all evil in the world"

Max Bruch (1838-1920)

"Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts."

William Martin "Billy" Joel ( b.1949 )

"In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music."

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

"It's just as difficult to overcome success as it is to overcome failure."

William Walton (1902-1983)

"The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it,
is the root of all evil in the world."

Max Bruch (1838 -1920)

The real musical genius writes for no other purpose but to express his own soul,
and in so doing finds life's greatest satisfaction and joy."

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

"Always stick to your likings - there are profound reasons for them. "

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"Nobody understands another's sorrow, and nobody another's joy. ”

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

"A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man,
and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.”

Helen Rowland (1875-1950)

"Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways.
But the good artists who follow after genius - and I count myself among these -
have to restore the lost connection once more.”

Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945)

"For me, art, and especially music, exist to elevate us as far as possible above everyday existence.”

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

“Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.”

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 -1827)

“Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it'll always get you the right ones.”

John Lennon (1940-1980)

“There is no such thing as happy music.”

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

“Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.”

Claude Debussy (1862 -1918)

“You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice.
And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”

Charlie Parker (1920-1955)

“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

Maya Angelou (1928 -2024)

“Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets,
for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine. "

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

“Nothing is more odious than music without hidden meaning."

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

“To play without passion is inexcusable!"

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

“If you try to suppress the arts,
then you are suppressing the deepest dreams and aspirations of a people."

President Barack Obama (b.1961) 25 May 2016

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem,
see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

"Why", he would ask his pupils, "write six pages when six bars will do?"

Composer William Lloyd Webber (1914-1982)

"Why", he would ask his pupils, "write six pages when six bars will do?"

Composer William Lloyd Webber (1914-1982)

"Music is a friend for life. If you understand and love it,
it will never let you down."

Pianist Piers Lane, ABC Classic FM interview, May 7th 2016 (b. 1958)

"Music is for me like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together.
He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world,
and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces.”

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

"Each human being has the eternal duty of transforming what is hard and brutal
into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty,
ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration,
thereby rediscovering the child’s dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death,
the servant of life, and by life the servant of love.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999)

"The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught
to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead. ”

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

"Peace may sound simple - one beautiful word - but it requires everything we have,
every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal..”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999)

"The violinist must possess the poet's gift of piercing the protective hide which grows on propagandists,
stockbrokers and slave traders, to penetrate the deeper truth which lies within.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999)

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

“I believe that harmony is entirely a matter of instinct.”

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

“I am playing the violin, that's all I know, nothing else, no education,
no nothing. You just practice every day.”

Itzhak Perlman (b. 1945)

“Music is the thousandth of a millisecond between one note and another;
how you get from one to the othere-that's where the music is.”

Isaak Stern (1920-2001)

“Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes,
and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind
and makes them spiritually drunken”

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

“I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven”

Richard Wagner (1813 -1883)

“God's gift to his sorrowing creatures is a joy worthy of their destiny.”

J.S. Bach (1685 -1750)

"What's best in music is not to be found in the notes."

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

"I dared much, but the next time, you will see, I will dare even more... "

César Franck (1822-1890)

"Life and art are not two different things...."

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

"We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion
constitute the real content of a work of art."

Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)

"Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second."

Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)

"You believe happiness to be derived from the place in which once you have been happy,
but in truth it is centered in ourselves."

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

"I write bars, for the musicians, because they have to be together."

György Ligeti (1923 - 2006)

"I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little."

Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life."

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

"Without Music, we could completely destroy the structure of the space time continuom"

Dr. Emmett Brown ( fictional, Back to the Future character - inventor of the first time machine)

"The art of music above all the other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation. "

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

"The inner nature of man is the province of music."

Confucius (551BC - 479BC)

"Anyone can make the simple complicated.
Creativity is making the complicated simple."

Charles Mingus (1922-1979)

"The first contact with a great work of art is...comparable to meeting the person
who is going to play an important role in your life."

Wanda Landowska (1879-1959)

"I stand face to face with the Eternal Energy from which all life flows, and I draw upon that infinite power. To contact this Eternal Energy, I must conform to certain laws, two of the most important being SOLITUDE and CONCENTRATION.
A composer must sit in the silence and wait for the direction from a force that is superior to the intellect."

Max Bruch (1838-1920)

"Before going any further may we take it that the object of art is to obtain
a partial revelation of that which is beyond human senses
and human faculties – of that, in fact, which is spiritual?
And that the means which we employ to induce this revelation
are those very senses and faculties themselves?"

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

"No composer whose chief idea is to be brilliant or startling ever lasts.
Cleverness counts for very little, in my opinion."

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

"Always stick to your likings - there are profound reasons for them."

Frederick Delius (1862-1935)

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."

W.A.Mozart (1756-1791)

"Study Bach. There you will find everything."

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

New Year's day promise for 2012

"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up."

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days,
recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport
the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!"

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

"Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings,
all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'."

Bing Crosby (1903-1977)

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)

"Art exists to rattle the senses and inflame the nerves."

Ken Russell, Filmmaker, who died last week (1927-2011)

“ Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights.
I only wanted... to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home. "

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

“ ... it’s not what’s systematically derived
but what arrives unexpectedly that gives life to art. "

Wolfgang Rihm (b. 13 March 1952)

“Music is at once the product of feeling and knowledge, for it requires
from its disciples, composers and performers alike, not only talent
and enthusiasm, but also that knowledge and perception
which are the result of protracted study and reflection."

Alban Berg (1885-1935)

“To play without passion is inexcusable!"

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

“The good composer is slowly discovered, the bad composer is slowly found out."

Ernest Newman, music critic (1868-1959)

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time. "

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

“In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug
and we shall want to live more musically. "

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

“Anyone can make the simple complicated.
Creativity is making the complicated simple."

Charles Mingus (1922-1979)

“The violin can sing a melody better than the piano,
and melody is the soul of music.”

Max Bruch (1838-1920)

“Music should never be harmless.”

Robbie Robertson (b. 1943)

“No composer whose chief idea is to be brilliant or startling ever lasts.
Cleverness counts for very little, in my opinion.”

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes
and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

Frederic Chopin (1810-1949)

“The only love affair I have ever had was with music.”

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

"That which cannot be expressed otherwise can only be told through music.
A thought, which seems commonplace in its analysis,
acquires a deeper sense in music."

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

"Study Bach. There you will find everything."

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

"Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter — to all these music gives voice,
but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest
to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way,
as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods
and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water."

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

"Do not find yourself in the music, but find the music in yourself."

Heinrich Neuhaus (1888 -1964)

"I like to look on the composer's vocation as the old troubadours or bards..."

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

"I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I've felt it."

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)