Quotes & Sayings About Stravinsky

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven. — 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

Composition is selective improvisation. — Igor Stravinsky

Damn! What did Ansermet, that most faithful friend, know about Stravinsky's poverty of heart? What did he, that most devoted friend, know about Stravinsky's capacity to love? And where did he get his utter certainty that the heart is ethically superior to the brain? Are not vile acts committed as often with the heart's help as without it? Can't fanatics, with their bloody hands, boast of a high degree of "affective activity"? Will we ever be done with this imbecile sentimental Inquisition, the heart's Reign of Terror? — Milan Kundera

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

What force is more potent than love? — Igor Stravinsky

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

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love? — Igor Stravinsky

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

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators. — 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

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

I'm not a star. I'll never be a Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley or a Ray Charles. I'm just an imitator, man. I'm doing a very bad imitation on the bass of Jerry Jemmott, Bernard Odum, Jimmy Fielder, Jimmy Blanton, Igor Stravinsky, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, James Brown, Charlie Parker ... the cats, man. I'm just backing up the cats. — Jaco Pastorius

'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

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

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

Recordings of Georgian folk polyphonic songs makes a great musical impression. They are recorded in a tradition of active reproduction of Georgian folk music the origin of which begins from ancient time. It is a wonderful finding and can give to the performance much more than all the modem music can ... Yodel or "Krimanchuli" as it is called in Georgia is the best song which I have ever heard. ["America" magazine, No 23 1967] — Igor Stravinsky

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

Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament. — Igor Stravinsky

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

Conformism is so hot on the heels of the mass-produced avant-garde that the 'ins' and the 'outs' change places with the speed of mach 3. — 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

The one true comment on a piece of music is another piece of music. — 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

Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is. — Esa-Pekka Salonen

Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also. — Igor Stravinsky

New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky. — Duke Ellington

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

There is this tremendous amount of arrogance and hubris, where somebody can look at something for five minutes and dismiss it. Whether you talk about gaming or 20th century classical music, you can't do it in five minutes. You can't listen to 'The Rite of Spring' once and understand what Stravinsky was all about. — Penn Jillette

Composition is frozen improvisation. — Igor Stravinsky

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

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

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

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

There is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse. — 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

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

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

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

The profound meaning of music's essential aim ... is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the Supreme Being — Igor Stravinsky

The extent of his influence across jazz, across American music, and around the world has such continuing stature that he is one of the few who can easily be mentioned with Stravinsky, Picasso and Joyce. His life was the embodiment of one who moves from rags to riches, from anonymity to internationally imitated innovator. Louis Daniel Armstrong supplied revolutionary language that took on such pervasiveness that it became commonplace, like the light bulb, the airplane, the telephone. — Stanley Crouch

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 no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this. — Ernest Newman

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

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

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

He was a six and a half foot scowl.
(on Rachmaninov) — 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

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

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has to the book I am reading. — Igor Stravinsky

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

No, I don't know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra that thinks it can appeal to under-30 listeners by suggesting that they 'should' like Schubert and Stravinsky has already lost the battle. — Terry Teachout

The true creator may be recognized by his ability always to find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note. — 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

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

Revolution means turning the wheel. — Igor Stravinsky

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

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

I'm not the kind of actor who runs around and insists on being called Stravinsky by everybody, and my family has to call me Igor. I'm not that kind of actor. I think that's pretentious. — Mads Mikkelsen

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

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

Hurry? I have no time to hurry. — 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

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received. — Igor Stravinsky

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

The first music I was exposed to was Stravinsky and I loved it but I don't remember it. — Leo Kottke

You may not be aware of this but Leonard Bernstein won another award, for explaining the music of Igor Stravinsky ... to Igor Stravinsky! — Victor Borge

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

We cannot describe sound, but we cannot forget it either. — 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

Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it. — Igor Stravinsky

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

The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation. — 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

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

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also. — Igor Stravinsky

Outside Soviet Russia, and following the last symphonies of Mahler, Nielsen and Sibelius, an element of obsolescence has unmistakably attached itself to the genre. One could, perhaps, be forgiven for regarding Stravinsky's two ironic stylizations of the symphony as a fitting farewell salute. And yet the Shostakovich symphonies have, in Philip Larkin's phrase, 'penetrated the public mind' to an extent that has put them on a level with Beethoven. — Pauline Fairclough

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

Most of us are searching-consciously or unconsciously- for a degree of internal balance and harmony between ourselves and the outside world, and if we happen to become aware-like Stravinsky- of a volcano within us, we will compensate by urging restraint. By that same token, someone who bore a glacier within them might urge passionate abandon. The danger is, as Bergman points out, that a glacial personality in need of passionate abandon may read Stravinsky and apply restraint instead. — Walter Murch

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

To continue in one path is to go backward. — Igor Stravinsky

A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares. — Igor Stravinsky

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

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

The man has accumulated a repertoire of facial tics and blinks that demand nothing less than a complete musical score by Stravinsky. — Anonymous

We can neither put back the clock nor slow down our forward speed, and as we are already flying pilotless, on instrument controls, it is even too late to ask where we are going. — Igor Stravinsky

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

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

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

Nothing is likely about masterpieces, least of all whether there will be any. — Igor Stravinsky

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

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

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