Quote

A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.

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
Flow
Taking
Leave
Great
Irresistibly
Made
Mississippi
Long
Symphony
Men
Destination
Instant

More quotes by Aaron Copland

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Someone once asked me... whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: Every day!
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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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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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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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I don't compose. I assemble materials.
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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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I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
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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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If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
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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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The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
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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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To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
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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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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 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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If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
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You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.
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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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