A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street any more without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares. Igor Stravinsky More Quotes by Igor Stravinsky More Quotes From Igor Stravinsky The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead. Igor Stravinsky music humorous appreciation Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end. Igor Stravinsky music witty funny Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos? Igor Stravinsky villa pieces musical Vivaldi didn't write 400 concertos; he wrote one concerto 400 times. Igor Stravinsky vivaldi writing Music is...the coordination between man and time. Igor Stravinsky coordination music-is men The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. Igor Stravinsky execution precision self Music is the sole domain in which man realizes the present. Igor Stravinsky realizing domain men We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it. Igor Stravinsky duty Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. Igor Stravinsky architecture inspiring art I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music. Igor Stravinsky religious exercise years I was...attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing "simple" music, blamed for deserting "modernism," accused of renouncing my "true Russian heritage." People who had never heard of, or cared about, the originals cried "sacrilege": "The classics are ours. Leave the classics alone." To them all my answer was and is the same: You "respect," but I love. Igor Stravinsky artist simple people Doomed to total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference, he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, of whose mines he had a perfect knowledge. Igor Stravinsky cutting ignorance perfect A cultural snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible. Igor Stravinsky snob familiar claims What force is more potent than love? Igor Stravinsky force love Art postulates communion, and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself. Igor Stravinsky joy art needs It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism--Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique concrete--opposes. But instead of bringing art and reality closer together, the new movement merely thins out the distinction. Igor Stravinsky self reality art My music is best understood by children and animals. Igor Stravinsky pet animal children The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation. Igor Stravinsky creating given hands I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust. Igor Stravinsky music opportunity inspirational All music is nothing more than a succession of impulses that converge towards a definite point of repose. Igor Stravinsky succession impulse music-is
