...we can all shut-up and go back to our caves. Leonard Bernstein More Quotes by Leonard Bernstein More Quotes From Leonard Bernstein From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining. Leonard Bernstein new-year funny years Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own. Leonard Bernstein music stars art The Rhapsody is not a composition at all. It's a string of separate paragraphs stuck together - with a thin paste of flour and water... I don't think there has been such an inspired melodist on this earth since Tchaikovsky... but if you want to speak of a composer, that's another matter. Leonard Bernstein tchaikovsky water thinking Conducting is like making love to a hundred people at the same time. Leonard Bernstein conducting making-love people Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors. Leonard Bernstein communication technique two What [Louis Armstrong] does is real, and true, and honest, and simple, and even noble. Every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips, even if only to practice three notes, he does it with his whole soul. Leonard Bernstein real simple men When the thunder rumbles, Leonard Bernstein regret determination dream Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages. Leonard Bernstein serenity compassion suffering The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning. Leonard Bernstein has-beens century drama Wine snobbery, of course, is part showmanship, part sophistication, part knowledge, and part bluff Leonard Bernstein sophistication bluffs wine I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees. Leonard Bernstein wagner knees hate Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer; that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts, however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor's existence. Leonard Bernstein requirements effort humble I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer. Leonard Bernstein orchestra sound want Even experimental composers, revolutionary composers, self-styled radicals are, in writing revolutionary music, recognizing the music that preceded them precisely by trying to avoid it. Leonard Bernstein music self writing It is hard to think of another composer who so perfectly marries form and passion. Leonard Bernstein passion form thinking I have two answers to everything and one answer to nothing. Leonard Bernstein answers two If you're a good composer, you steal good steals. Leonard Bernstein composer stealing ifs Which of my Jewish roots do I follow? Leonard Bernstein roots Bernstein has been disclosing musical secrets that have been well known for over 400 years. Leonard Bernstein musical secret years Any great work of art revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world -- the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air. Leonard Bernstein
