Category Archives: Quotations

Joseph Böhm Speaks

November 25, 2010 – 9:00 AM

In 1825, Joseph Böhm was the first violinist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet. He relates this anecdote. The unhappy man [Beethoven] was so deaf that he could no longer hear the heavenly sound of his compositions. And yet rehearsing in his presence was not easy. With close attention his eyes followed the bows and therefore he […]

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John Dewey Speaks

October 21, 2010 – 9:00 AM

Music, having sound as its medium, thus necessarily expresses in a concentrated way the shocks and instabilities, the conflicts and resolutions, that are the dramatic changes enacted upon the more enduring background of nature and human life. The tension and the struggle has its gatherings of energy, its discharges, its attacks and defenses, its mighty […]

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Jan Chiapusso Speaks

October 7, 2010 – 9:00 AM

It was unthinkable in Bach’s time to teach children merely to play an instrument without making them aware of the harmonic foundations of music and preparing them to compose their own pieces as soon as possible. —Bach’s World, p. 161

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“The Fox and Ape Enter Court”

September 30, 2010 – 9:00 AM

Albumleaf 36: September 29, 2010 (Farmville) Then gan this craftie couple to deuize, How for the Court themselues they might aguize: For thither they themselues meant to addresse, In hope to finde there happier successe, So well they shifted, that the Ape anon Himselfe had cloathed like a Gentleman, And the slie Fox, as like […]

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Anthony Hecht Speaks

August 26, 2010 – 10:05 PM

These dissonances but serve to underscore The score nobody knows Except the taciturn composer, Fate. Sensing at the deep base Of our being the ultimate cadences before They gather to their close, We feel the fickle fingering and confess It’s already getting late. –from “A Love for Four Voices: Homage to Franz Joseph Haydn”

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“Brit”

August 19, 2010 – 9:00 AM

Albumleaf 27: August 18, 2010 (Farmville) Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat. By the […]

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“Lied ohne Ende.” Albumblatt Op. 124, No. 8

July 29, 2010 – 9:58 AM

Robert Schumann zum 154. Todestag. Clara describes her visit to Robert in the Endenich asylum two days before his death. Johannes [Brahms] saw him and, together with the doctor, begged me not to go to him, put it in the light of a duty to my children not to upset mysel thus, etc. So I […]

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Papillons, op. 2

June 8, 2010 – 9:00 AM

Robert Schumann zum 200. Geburtstag! In many a sleepless night I behold a far-away picture, like a goal. –While writing down the Papillons I truly feel a certain independence trying to develop itself. This is, however, the sort of thing that the critics usually reject. –Now the Papillons flutter in the wide, glorious world of […]

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D.H. Lawrence Speaks

June 3, 2010 – 9:00 AM

Our bounder thrummed on the table and hummed something, and asked the q-b if she knew the Rosencavalier. He always appealed to her. She said she did. And ah, he was passionately fond of music, said he. Then he warbled, in a head voice, a bit more. He only knew classical music, said he. And […]

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T.S. Eliot Speaks

April 22, 2010 – 9:00 AM

From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire Where you must move in measure, like a dancer. –“Little Gidding,” lines 144-146

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