Concertos Quotes & Sayings

Most of the class was Black or Puerto Rican and we all loved music. But we hated music class with a passion. The teacher talked to us as though we were inferior savages, incapable of appreciating the finer things in life. She lectured about symphonies and concertos and sonatas and the like in a snooty voice. — Assata Shakur

I do remember realizing one day that I loved plays more than I loved playing concertos. — John Cariani

The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven's. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart's jewel, is Mendelssohn's. — Joseph Joachim

I listened to the pure crystalline notes of one of Mozart's concertos dropping at my feet like leaves from the trees. — Virgil Thomson

In my younger days, I used to visit record shops and covet boxed sets of Beethoven symphonies, Wagner operas, Bach cantatas, Mozart piano concertos. Only rarely was I able to find the money for such luxuries. — Michael Dirda

Crackpot is an excellent job because the expectations are so low. No one ever tells crackpots that they should be doing more. — Scott Adams

I was eighteen now, just gone. Eighteen was not a young age. At eighteen old Wolfgang Amadeus had written concertos and symphonies and operas and oratorios and all that cal, no, not cal, heavenly music. And then there was old Felix M. with his "Midsummer Night's Dream" Overture. And there were others. And there was this like French poet set by old Benjy Britt, who had done all his best poetry by the age of fifteen, O my brothers. Arthur, his first name. Eighteen was not all that young an age then. But what was I going to do? — Anthony Burgess

Vivaldi didn't write 400 concertos; he wrote one concerto 400 times. — Igor Stravinsky

I really love all types of music. I'm really open to that. I really love Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake and some James Taylor and Elton John stuff. — Hailee Steinfeld

Art begins where technique ends. There can be no real art development before one's technique is firmly established. And a great deal of technical work has to be done before the great works of violin literature, the sonatas and concertos, may be approached. — Leopold Auer

The fact that most people do not understand and respect the very best things, such as Mozart's concertos, is what permits men like us to become famous. — Johannes Brahms

Caroline, sister of William, was trained by him as a singer in the Bath days and had considerable success in Handel's oratorios under her brother's conductorship. (The method of training adopted was for her to sing the violin parts of concertos with a gag in her mouth.) It was with great reluctance that she dropped music to be trained as an assistant astronomer, yet she made discoveries - eight minor planets, one of them named after her. — Percy Scholes

If I can add, say, 10 great new violin concertos to the repertoire before I'm done, that will be truly exciting. — Leila Josefowicz

A large part of my work has been collaborating with composers; I think we've commissioned about 140 pieces now, a lot of them percussion concertos. — Evelyn Glennie

We may be sure that a genius like Mozart, were he born today, would write concertos like Chopin and not like Mozart. — Robert Schumann

Beethoven concertos ... Tchaicovsky concertos ... with a lot of these wonderful masterpieces there's always something wonderful to find ... there's always something new to find ... — Itzhak Perlman

I've always been a lover of classical music ever since I was an early teenager I suppose. I remember the very first piece of classical music that grabbed me was I bought an LP of Daniel Barenboim performing Mozart's piano concertos and I would have been about 14 or 15 at the time and I remember I played it over and over again. — George Brandis

I love Arthur Rubinstein, especially his live recordings. I think his Chopin Mazurkas, his interpretation of the Polonaises, and the Concertos of Chopin are just incredible. When I was a child, I wanted to play more and more Chopin because of his recordings. — Rafal Blechacz

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

And suddenly something unforgettable occurred: suddenly she felt a desire to go to him and hear his voice, his words. If he spoke to her in a soft, deep voice her soul would take courage and rise to the surface of her body, and she would burst our crying. She would put her arms around him the way she had put her arms around the chestnut tree's thick trunk in her dream. — Milan Kundera

I started playing violin because I was fascinated by how violin players could play so fast. I would buy their cassettes, and learn different concertos, but then I started rounding out my collection. My dad was a big jazz fan, so I just started hearing a lot more soul music. I loved Little Stevie Wonder, and I got really into him as a singer and a writer as I got older. — Toby Lightman

I've always had an ear for music so one day I sat at the piano and picked out some notes. I tried to improve, but without formal instruction, there was only so much I could learn. When I went off to school, I demanded my studies include piano lessons. By the time I was ten, I could play Mozart concertos. — Magda Alexander

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

The development of quantum mechanics early in the twentieth century obliged physicists to change radically the concepts they used to describe the world. — Alain Aspect

If I were to run around the world playing just the cello concertos - and believe me, I love playing them - I would be counting my entire repertoire from year to year on my two hands — David Finckel

I don't believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos. — Oscar Peterson

When I was younger, things got to me more, but not now. — Holly Valance

I'm in a position where, theoretically, I could play the same ten concertos and make a very good living bouncing around playing Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Barber, but I really think artists should keep pushing limits and trying new things. — Joshua Bell

If we are going to live with our deepest differences then we must learn about one another. — Deborah J. Levine

Well, Mozart is extraordinary not only in that he became virtuoso along the lines of his father, but that he had that compositional gift, that melodic gift. By the time he was four, he was doing piano concertos with harmony in the background. — Twyla Tharp

Seek out those who think differently from you and whom you will never be able to convince that you are right. — Paulo Coelho

he knew from studying maps in preparation: the broad avenues leading to the Brandenburg Gate. He had played Bach's Brandenburg Concertos records many times, intricate magic alive in the air. The gate that led to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel. — Gregory Benford

I've always been accused of moving around too much when I play concertos. Sometimes, conductors ask me which of us is leading. — Joshua Bell