Composer Other Composers Quotes & Sayings

Many composers use software to write music - programs like Finale or Sibelius. There are also recording programs. I should say I'm still very old-fashioned, I still use pencil and paper. But almost every composer I know does it the 'new way.' — Eric Whitacre

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

I listen only to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Life is too short to waste on other composers. — John Edensor Littlewood

Composers often think in terms of music and not of an instrument itself. — Michala Petri

The (photographic) negative is the equivalent of the composers score and the print is the equivalent of the conductors performance. — Ansel Adams

The more dollars the studio producers put in, the less freedom we have. If the budget hits $100m, they get scared - they'll take the existing score of a successful movie and expect composers to copy it, like wallpaper. The biggest challenge for any composer in Hollywood is to be as creative as possible within those boundaries. — A.R. Rahman

Many contemporary composers have been building walls of sounds following their own clever devices. But then, who lives inside those rooms? — Toru Takemitsu

Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist. The classicists think me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary. — Anton Rubinstein

I looked at the headline: "The Devil Made Him Do It." It was an opinion piece about the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and the "disjointed" but "grotesque" remarks he had made at a press conference. Lamenting the relative impotence of the arts in comparison to terrorism, Stockhausen had called the attacks "the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos." I guess he thought of it as a Wagnerian spectacle, an opera of airplanes and towers. "Five thousand people are dispatched into eternity, in a single moment," he said. "I couldn't do that. In comparison with that, we're nothing as composers. — Supervert

The composers hated me. The singers detested me. The guitarists were terrified by me. — Bulat Okudzhava

[Composers] Mark [Shaiman] and Scott [Wittman] are unreal — Megan Hilty

Composers most identified with the chamber music form are Corelli, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and, of course, Bach. Of course, Bach. If there is any one composer who gives us reason and emotion, it is Bach. — Karen DeCrow

The three greatest composers are Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. All the others are cretins. — Hans Von Bulow

Composers need words, but they do not necessarily need poetry. The Russian composer, Aleksandr Mossolov, who chose texts from newspaper small ads, had a good point to make. With revolutionary music, any text can be set to work. — James Fenton

I would still love to do more Handel. I think Handel was a fantastic composer. I did lots of Vivaldi, but it's also important to do the music of Handel, one of the greatest composers of the 18th century. — Cecilia Bartoli

I had great inspiration from a Japanese composer named Toru Takemitsu. He wrote over 90 film scores and a lot of concert music, a lot of classical music, and he gave me a lot of inspiration, as well as composers from other countries. — Howard Shore

I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven. — Jascha Heifetz

Studying Mahler changed many things in my tastes as a composer. Mahler & Berg are my favourite composers even today, as opposed to Hindemith, say, a Krenek and Milhaud whom I liked when I was young but cooled towards rapidly. — Dmitri Shostakovich

I would prefer to listen to a French classical composer like Olivier Messiaen than to the pop hits of the day. — Matt Groening

Improvisation was the blood and bone of jazz, and in the classic, New Orleans jazz it was collective improvisation in which each performer, seemingly going his own melodic way, played in harmony, dissonance, or counterpoint with the improvisations of his colleagues. Quite unlike ragtime, which was written down in many cases by its composers and could be repeated note for note (if not expression for expression) by others, jazz was a performer's not a composer's art. — Russell Lynes

There are no woman composers, never have been and possibly never will be. — Thomas Beecham

The fact that certain composers have been able to create first-class music within the medium of film proves that film music can be as good as the composer is gifted. — Jerry Goldsmith

Since Mozart's day composers have learned the art of making music throatily and palpitatingly sexual. — Aldous Huxley

There are some composers - at the head of whom stands Beethoven - who not only do not know when to stop but appear to stop many times before they actually do. — Virginia Graham

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music. — Giuseppe Verdi

Like many composers, most of my compositions are influenced by the music I've listened to throughout my life. — Nobuo Uematsu

Not all, but too many of the best writers, composers, and artists of our time begin to be acclaimed only when they no longer have anything to say and take to performing instead of stating. — Clement Greenberg

Something is conscious of us. It listens as it plays upon the
instruments that we are. It takes delight in the cacophony, an
orchestration so grand it is far beyond our contemplation. It is
masterful, elegant, swift, and awesome. It is the Song of the
Universe - and more. It is our Composer, and one who loves
beyond conditions, beyond the beyond. If the law of 'as above, so
below' holds true, then we too are composers. We too sing songs
that breathe shape into reality. But are we listening? Are we
paying attention to the compositions we create? — Dielle Ciesco

A lot of composers before me have been on this mission to change the world by getting off equal temperament, and I'm definitely one of those. — Aphex Twin

George Rochberg once said that 'to be a composer, you need to have fire in the belly, fire in the brain, but most importantly, an iron stomach.' I feel this is for the most part true, and hope I might convey something of it to younger composers. — Michael Hersch

When I finally got together with Rostropovich as a student, he was very focused, almost entirely focused on the music itself, on what the composer had in mind and what he knew about the composer. Many of the works that I played for him had in fact been composed and written for him; he was often the first performer of these works, having known the composers personally. — David Finckel

It may well be that some composers do not believe in God. All of them, however, believe in Bach. — Bela Bartok

There's no card, business card, better than a compact disc for a composer. It doesn't half impress people and they get a long way on it ... these composers they will get more performances, more commissions, more recognition just by having that disc — Peter Maxwell Davies

As far as rock groups, I really like Stone Temple Pilots. As for classical composers, it's Bach. I love Paganini, too, the Italian composer who would break strings during a performance and finish playing on just one string. Someone I would have loved to play with is Jimi Hendrix. — Matt Schulze