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Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

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
Williams
Symphony
Fifth
Cows
Staring
Listening
Minutes
Vaughan
Like
Ralph

More quotes by Aaron Copland

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The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
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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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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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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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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.
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I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
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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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Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.
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A melody is not merely something you can hum.
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Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.
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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 main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It's useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.
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The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
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If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
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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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Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
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I don't compose. I assemble materials.
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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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This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.”
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Someone once asked me... whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: Every day!
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