No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. -W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973)
I don’t mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don’t understand. -Sir Edward Appleton (1892 – 1965)
I can’t listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland. -Woody Allen (1935 – )
A musicologist is a man who can read music but can’t hear it. -Sir Thomas Beecham (1879 – 1961)
Brass bands are all very well in their place – outdoors and several miles away. -Sir Thomas Beecham (1879 – 1961)
The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish. -Virgil Thomson (1896 – 1989)
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
William Congreve (1670 – 1729), The Mourning Bride, Act 1 Scene 1
When griping grief the heart doth wound,
and doleful dumps the mind opresses,
then music, with her silver sound,
with speedy help doth lend redress.
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, ‘Is there a meaning to music?’ My answer would be, ‘Yes.’ And ‘Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?’ My answer to that would be, ‘No.’ -Aaron Copland (1900 – 1990)
An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger. -Dan Rather (1931 – )
Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings. -Ed Gardner
Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. -Edgar Wilson Nye (1850 – 1896), quoted in Mark Twain’s Autobiography, 1924
I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to. -Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977)
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist. -G. K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936)
Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned. -George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950), Man and Superman (1903) act 3
Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions. -George Santayana (1863 – 1952), Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 4
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. -Groucho Marx (1890 – 1977)
Among all men on the earth bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the muse has taught them songs and loves the race of bards. -Homer (800 BC – 700 BC), The Odyssey
My music is best understood by children and animals. -Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971), In Observer 8 Oct. 1961
I think everyone should have a Beatles phase in their life. I think it’s part of growing up in the Western world. -Jadelr and Cristina Cordova, Chasing Windmills, 07-24-06
If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience. -John Cage (1912 – 1992)
We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. -Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1844-1881)
