Aaron Copland Quotes

Aaron Copland gives plain-spoken, argumentative takes on music and performance that spark fresh ideas.

16 quotes

1. '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.' Quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812

2. '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.' Quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812

3. 'If the listener does eventually come to the point where he makes the ultimate performance by splicing tapes from other musicians' recordings, he will eventually become just as bored with it as with other recordings, for it will still always be the same. Look, for instance, at electronic music. The boys are already becoming bored with what they do because they put it irrevocably on tape. The best indication of this is that more and more they are mixing the live performance element with their tapes.' Quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812

4. 'I object to background music no matter how good it is. Composers want people to listen to their music, they don't want them doing something else while their music is on. I'd like to get the guy who sold all those big businessmen the idea of putting music in the elevators, for he was really clever. What on earth good does it do anybody to hear those four or eight bars while going up a few flights.' Quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812

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

6. 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.

7. I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.

8. 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."

9. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

15. Is there a meaning to music? Yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? No.

16. 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.