Donal Henahan Quotes

#1. On the subject of wild mushrooms, it is easy to tell who is an expert and who is not: The expert is the one who is still alive.

Donal Henahan

#2. Real folk music long ago went to Nashville and left no known survivors.

Donal Henahan

#3. It will never be mistaken for a high school gymnasium or a meeting room in a Midwestern motel.

Donal Henahan

#4. The irrepressible spirit that made his playing seem like good conversation is the Rubinstein legacy for pianists, if they can pick up their heads from the keyboard long enough to claim it.

Donal Henahan

#5. Next to the writer of real estate advertisements, the autobiographer is the most suspect of prose artists.

Donal Henahan

#6. [Rubinstein was] a fountain from which music spouted, not a recitalist.

Donal Henahan

#7. Miss Petrowska,an excellent pianist, held the audience transfixed with Chou Wen-chung's work. Miss Petrowska was coolness itself in getting the hardware into the piano and out again ... in Messiaen, a feeling for the music's reverent sobriety combined to produce an absorbing performance.

Donal Henahan

#8. The human brain can soften as a result of incessant listening to music with an intent to commit prose.

Donal Henahan

#9. It might be argued that genuine spontaneity is not really possible or desirable so long as printed scores of great works exist. All modern musicians are, for better or worse, prisoners of Gutenberg.

Donal Henahan

#10. The more disastrous the mishaps the simpler the reviewing task.

Donal Henahan