Quote #3

I strenuously object to the very word 'grotesque' which has become hackneyed to the point of nausea:I would prefer my music to be described as 'Scherzo-ish' in quality, or else by three words describing the various degrees of the Scherzo - whimsicality, laughter, mockery.

More from Sergei Prokofiev

  1. My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation,…
  2. It seemed to me that had Haydn lived to our day he would have retained his own style while accepting something of the new at the same time.…
  3. Formalism is music that people don't understand at first hearing.
  4. The time is past when music was written for a handful of aesthetes. Today vast crowds of people have come face to face with serious music a…
  5. In my view, the composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify human …

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