Bach Quotes

I do not think that music keeps evolving. It evolved through Bach; since then, in my humble opinion, all the innovations added nothing.

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.

I don't think I had a Catherine Bach poster, but I know a lot of my friends desecrated those, big time.

Colour does not make so much difference. Look at the Bach Chaconne: There is not one dynamic mark in the whole Bach Chaconne. Colours do not make so much difference.

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

That's why it's called Sebastian Bach. I mean, it's a permanent band, pretty much, but if I jam with other people, it just makes a better album, I think.

It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille they play Mozart.

Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

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.

I'd love to have William Faulkner, Beethoven and Bach over. I want to find out what makes those guys tick!

But it wasn't just a technical approach towards the piano, studying the music for this film was also a way of approaching the soul of the film, because the film is really about the soul of Schubert and the soul of Bach.

I see it as my job to try to keep Bach in the mainstream and present his music with, rather than without, its emotional core.

When you are accompanying someone, you are listening to them the way you listen to a Bach Chorale, where four parts are going on at the same time, all of which are gorgeous melodies, all being played simultaneously.

Yes, I mean like you know, having studied with Yehudi Menuhin that is like some direct route into Bach, because he was one of the foremost interpreters of Bach for the violin.

If you try to have a fashion show with Bach fugues and John Coltrane, it doesn't really work.

I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve.

Some months ago, while I was preparing a new work, I told a young cinema executive my intention of including in a soundtrack two themes from Bach. But when he asked me which has been the last hit from that Bach?, then I knew that I had no longer place in cinema.

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

Any species capable of producing, at this earliest, juvenile stage of its development... the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, cannot be all bad.

Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure. I am sure, however, that en famille they play Mozart.

I was fifteen years old, and I hardly knew how to play a simple Bach prelude on the piano when I began to compose music, and at the most advanced level. I had never studied such things as harmony.

Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all.

The fact that Stravinsky used the classics as a major influence is obvious. What is interesting is how he used them, how he turned Bach into Stravinsky.

Has it struck you that the music which is regarded as the most sublime in western civilization, which is the music of Bach, is called baroque?

Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.

Maybe it's egocentric or whatever, but when I'm playing Beethoven, Bach, Hendrix, or whoever it is, in the end, it just feels like my own music and I'm making it up as I'm going along.

Bach was a top harmonist geezer, which is why the jazz cats love him.

I used to love Bach.

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning.