Aaron Copland Quotes

• The melody is generally what the piece is all about.

  Aaron Copland

  1816

• A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.

  Aaron Copland

  1300

• There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it. We are led on and on, and yet in some strange way we never lose control.

  Aaron Copland

  Aaron Copland (1980). “Music and Imagination”, p.10, Harvard University Press

  3219

• I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.

  Aaron Copland

  "Aaron Copland: the Life and Work of an Uncommon Man". Book by Howard Pollack, 1999.

  3507

• To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.

  Aaron Copland

  Aaron Copland (1959). “The pleasures of music”

  4569

• Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

  Aaron Copland

  1042

• You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

  Aaron Copland

  Aaron Copland (2011). “What to Listen For in Music”, p.23, Penguin

  1560

• 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

  What to Listen for in Music (1939) ch. 2

  3811

• Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

  Aaron Copland

  Listening  

  993

• I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.

  Aaron Copland

  "Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music". Book by Richard Kostelanetz, 1996.

  4571

• Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.

  Aaron Copland

  1569

• Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.

  Aaron Copland

  Aaron Copland (1952). “Music and imagination”, Harvard Univ Pr

  1481

• When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.

  Aaron Copland

  Listening  

  495

• The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It's useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.

  Aaron Copland

  1191

• If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.

  Aaron Copland

  "Aaron Copland: the Life and Work of an Uncommon Man". Book by Howard Pollack, 1999.

  2014

• The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

  Aaron Copland

  Aaron Copland, Richard Kostelanetz (2004). “Aaron Copland: A Reader : Selected Writings 1923-1972”, p.27, Psychology Press

  1444

• Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific.

  Aaron Copland

  4525

• Arthur V. Berger commenting on the music of Aaron Copland: Here is at last an American that we may place unapologetically beside the great recognized creative figures of any other country.

  Aaron Copland

  1836

• The inspired moment may sometimes be described as a kind of hallucinatory state of mind: one half of the personality emotes and dictates while the other half listens and notates. The half that listens has better look the other way, had better simulate a half attention only, for the half that dictates is easily disgruntled and avenges itself for too close inspection by fading entirely away.

  Aaron Copland

  Personality   Listening   Mind  

  Aaron Copland (1980). “Music and Imagination”, p.43, Harvard University Press

  4472

• For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever.

  Aaron Copland

  "Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music". Book by Richard Kostelanetz, 1996.

  3572

• You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.

  Aaron Copland

  2776

• If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

  Aaron Copland

  2597

• Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world's great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province... Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated.

  Aaron Copland

  3438

• You may feel depressed, but it can't be so depressing that you can't move. No, I would say that people create in moments when they are elated about expressing their depression!

  Aaron Copland

  2443

• I don't compose. I assemble materials.

  Aaron Copland

  "Aaron Copland: the Life and Work of an Uncommon Man". Book by Howard Pollack, 1999.

  5180

• Someone once asked me... whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: "Every day!"

  Aaron Copland

  Aaron Copland (2011). “What to Listen For in Music”, p.27, Penguin

  4544

• So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.

  Aaron Copland

  Aaron Copland, Richard Kostelanetz (2004). “Aaron Copland: A Reader : Selected Writings 1923-1972”, p.32, Psychology Press

  1070

• A melody is not merely something you can hum.

  Aaron Copland

  2145

• Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness - I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

  Aaron Copland

  4035

• This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.”

  Aaron Copland

  "What to Listen For in Music".

  5108

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