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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If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
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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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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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If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
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A melody is not merely something you can hum.
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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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Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
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I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
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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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Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.
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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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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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I don't compose. I assemble materials.
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The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
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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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Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
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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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The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
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There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it. We are led on and on, and yet in some strange way we never lose control.
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