Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The work is the most important thing.
All reluctance is a lack of confidence.
All music has to speak in some form or other.
Your direction is a result of your perception.
With creative people, truly new horizons open up.
Gaining trust is like filling a bucket one drop at a time.
But the thing that will always occupy me the most is music.
It is desirable that people make music on the breath, with the breath.
How in the world any one weighing 185 pounds can be cute is beyond me.
It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father.
The future? Like unwritten books and unborn children, you don't talk about it.
Trust, in its most primitive form, is based on authenticity, not flawlessness.
The only way to combat failure is to see it as an opportunity to improve your direction.
If you don’t aim for the best prospects, you’re likely to do business with any prospect.
If you don’t do something differently, you’ll ultimately be where you are now, only later.
But, on the other hand, if Schubert were alive today, he would find even richer fields to plow.
Brahms believed that there was no need to publish absolutely everything that Schubert ever wrote.
What concerns me, is the general social tendency to enforce a level, above which nothing rises and stands out.
Many, many composers have only found their way to a certain form, through familiarizing themselves with texts.
The fact is that if you don't have an effective, efficient plan for selling, any business you get is accidental.
Unfortunately, it happens all too seldom that you really disappear behind a work, that you are no longer audible as an interpreter.
There are hundreds of people running around with great voices. If they would study and develop them they could become great singers.
In Romanticism, the main determinant is the mood, the atmosphere. And in that regard, you could also describe Schubert as a Romantic.
I knew that we were clicking when mimics started kidding my voice, I'll know that I'm on the way out when they stop doing their imitations.
Some critics have written that I wanted to teach through singing. Not at all. I was learning I went to school every time I gave a song recital.
One has to get through a big pile of mail every day. I don't pass my letters on to a secretary; rather, I try to take care of all of them myself.
The reason why Schubert is celebrated so much today, lies rather in the fact that there has been nobody else like him - not before him, not after him.
I came together with younger musicians and tried to pass on my own experiences. In the process, I always tried to maintain my curiosity and spontaneity.
If I had my choice, I'd pick a song that tells a story every time. There is a great deal of pleasure in doing the vocal on a number that you can put feeling into.
The composition of a single melody is born out of a bit of text, perhaps the first line, but it can also be the entire strophe; it can even be the poem's overall form.
Rather, I believe that it is very good, if, with the aid of his songs, we can be reminded, among other things, of the social conditions under which Schubert had to work.
Admittedly, it is really our duty, as artists, to hold up a mirror to our own era; but, on the other hand, these works have lives of their own, and they're still alive today.
Within each individual young person you meet, you have the same fields to plow. The trick is just to wake thmem up, to sharpen their ears for what's already there in the music.
Within each individual young person you meet, you have the same fields to plough. The trick is just to wake them up, to sharpen their ears for what's already there in the music.
Toward the end of his life, one can sense that he was no longer thinking his way into the minds of others, causing them to speak on his behalf, but that he was now speaking for himself.
It's not all that different with the orchestra. There are orchestras that seem to be encased in dough, so that first you have to break through the normal routine, and clear out the openings.
In fact, the element of play has an important role in my life, and I think that should be the case in the life of every artist. Our life is occupied with playing, whether we play an instrument or a role.
Particularly at around the age of 70 you reach a stage where you have to be very careful. If, at that point, you abandon the work you have been doing, there is a good chance that you will just collapse and drift.
Anyone who draws attention to himself as an individual, is viewed with suspicion. We acquired this tendency, of course, from America, and we must resist it: levelling, and imitation of what others are already doing.
If you only do little clusters - three or four songs by one, and another, and then yet another - you lose the opportunity to think your way into the composer's mind, since, after all, most of these pieces are quite brief.
...in my lieder concerts, I always strove, when possible, to sing only the works of a single composer, so that the audience could be gradually drawn into a particular creative genius' way of thinking, and could follow him.
Which is why, in my lieder concerts, I always strove, when possible, to sing only the works of a single composer, so that the audience could be gradually drawn into a particular creative genius' way of thinking, and could follow him.
You can't do opera when already from the 10th row you can only see little dolls on the stage. In such an enormous space you can't put much faith in the personal presence of the individual singer, which is reflected in facial expressions, among other things.
Well, we like to let down our hair and pep it up at the dances, but we keep it slower when we broadcast. We have to please everybody, and that softer music appeals to the larger amount of people. It's like eating too much cake. You have to have your steak too.
When you go out onto the stage, all the preparation has to be forced into your subconscious. For the moment of the performance, we all have to return to a new level of unconsciousness. All the reflection and all the doubts have to be laid aside before you start.
And what unity is to be had, at a time when orchestras are dying out, and when opera houses are about to close their doors; what's going to come next - when nothing new in music, for the orchestra, is truly lasting: pieces are performed once, and then they're thrown away.
It's easy to mindlessly ascend a corporate ladder without considering the impact each wrung will have on your potential. It's also easier to become a company lifer in the name of comfort than to seek out your strengths and listen to the longings of your heart. But the easier paths will never lead you to a dream fulfilled.