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So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.

Aaron Copland

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Aaron Copland
Age: 90 †
Born: 1900
Born: November 14
Died: 1990
Died: December 2
Choreographer
Composer
Conductor
Film Score Composer
Jazz Musician
Music Critic
Music Pedagogue
Musicologist
Pianist
Brooklyn
New York
Give
Sustain
Music
Thrive
Human
Planet
Humans
Planets
Giving
Meaning
Long
Living
Thrives
Spirit
Accompany
Form
Expressive

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Most people use music as a couch they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific.
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When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.
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You may feel depressed, but it can't be so depressing that you can't move. No, I would say that people create in moments when they are elated about expressing their depression!
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To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
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If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.
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The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
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I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
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You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.
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Arthur V. Berger commenting on the music of Aaron Copland: Here is at last an American that we may place unapologetically beside the great recognized creative figures of any other country.
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If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
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A melody is not merely something you can hum.
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Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.
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Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
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For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever.
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If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
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I don't compose. I assemble materials.
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I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.
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Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
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The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
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Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness - I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.
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