Symphony Quotes

Coming to understand a painting or a symphony in an unfamiliar style, to recognize the work of an artist or school, to see or hear in new ways, is as cognitive an achievement as learning to read or write or add.

And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.

Writing a play, you start with less, so more is demanded of you. It's as if you have to not only write a symphony, but invent the instruments as well.

A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors.

But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands.

Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.

My show business career doesn't mean I can't write a symphony. It just means I was never asked to write one.

And at the same time, I had my very first concert at the age of 16. I hadn't heard a symphony orchestra before, and I was so deeply impressed I said I have to be a conductor.

If he's a true symphony artist, he knows better than that because he knows that the only truly creative musician is the jazz musician.

A symphony is no joke.

The Chicago Symphony is considered the greatest orchestra in the world.

When the bright angel dominates, out comes a great work of art, a Michelangelo David or a Beethoven symphony.

Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing.

Although, I am proud of all my Symphonies as they all have something special to say, my particular favourite is the Fifth. As the great Mahler expert Donald Mitchell said that if Mahler had written another Symphony, it would have been my Fifth!

You can't play a symphony alone, it takes an orchestra to play it.

It feels like my job is to support people. I support great artists. When I worked with a symphony, I sat in the third chair, not the first chair.

But some people will say you just did these programs. Well, yes, the programs are important and I'm proud of the programs, but mostly I'm proud of the way the San Francisco Symphony plays these programs.

If a professional musician in a symphony orchestra is playing Beethoven. But this particular orchestra have played this particular chestnut so many times, they can play it in their sleep. Does the genius remain present in the music or not?

In South America, I heard the 8th Symphony of Beethoven. And the young conductor thought, Beethoven must be heroic. But this is piece which shouldn't be heroic. And this was such a misunderstanding, such a deep misunderstanding.

When I was to come to Washington the first time as Music Director of the Boston Symphony, Mrs. Johnson phoned us to find out if they could give us a party and who we would like to meet.

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.

When we're at the end of The Rite of Spring or of a Bruckner symphony, I want people to feel the music physically.

I grew up a Red Sox fan. I grew up going to Fenway Park and the Museum of Fine Arts and the Science Museum and Symphony Hall and going to the Common, walking around. My whole family at different times lived and worked in Boston.

I don't see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.

We did experiments with the Boston Symphony for many years where we measured the angles of incidence of sound arriving at the ears of the audience, then took the measurements back to MIT and analyzed them.

I think there's a poet who wrote once a tragedy by Shakespeare, a symphony by Beethoven and a thunderstorm are based on the same elements. I think that's a beautiful line.

The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.

When you hear a large symphony orchestra. for instance, in a concert hall, there's a big, sweeping sound that just doesn't get on to a record.