Top 100 Quotes About Classical Music
#1. The type of music we know as classical music began with rich people hiring musicians or owning them in a way. Without funding, it's very hard to have this experience. Be it state money or private money, there has to be someone dedicated to raising the money.
Gael Garcia Bernal
#2. If you're alive, you have all the experience necessary to understand classical music.
Michael Tilson Thomas
#3. Classical music presents some of the world's most challenging pieces.
Jake Shimabukuro
#4. Our audience, it has been a more difficult process for classical music audiences around the world, and I'm not completely certain why.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
#5. That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise.
Itzhak Perlman
#6. Although cover notes for classical music albums tend to say that the trill of flutes suggests mountain streams and so on, I don't think anybody listens to music with the expectation that they're going to be presented with a sort of landscape painting.
Brian Eno
#7. Although in society in general, the idea of an Irish composer of 'classical music', or whatever you want to call it, is still a strange item, generally speaking. Even in the arts, among our fellow creative artists in other disciplines, you still feel slightly out of it.
John Kinsella
#8. When I was younger, studying classical music, I really had to put in the time. Three hours a day is not even nice - you have to put in six.
Alicia Keys
#9. I grew up with classical music blasting in my parents' living room and my older brother's practicing saxophone in his room listening to jazz ... a beautiful chaos.
Josephine De La Baume
#10. Indian classical music was born when time barely existed. It developed further within the structures of royal courts and a system of patronage where the ruler or the feudal master determined all.
Tariq Ali
#11. My parents loved classical music. And my father adored Mozart. But for some reason, I always had a reaction against it.
Simon McBurney
#12. I enjoy listening to classical music and heavy metal. I play basketball and try to go diving at least once a year. I don't really have hobbies in the traditional sense ... I engage in too many activities already through the actions of my characters.
Alan Dean Foster
#13. Anyone who knows classical music and loves classical music has heard the Beethoven Seventh hundreds of times probably in their life.
Joshua Bell
#14. I basically love classical music. I love a lot of musicians playing together and the whole culture of that, whether it's Indian or it's Western.
A.R. Rahman
#15. It's a small community, the classical music community, along with the excitement of new places and new things and this feeling of being at home wherever you go because that's where your community is.
Joshua Roman
#16. When I'm 40, too old to be a rock star, I plan to go back to college to study classical music.
Chris Martin
#17. But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.
Michael Tilson Thomas
#18. In classical music, love is based on bitin'
imitation. It's not based on interpretation. A jazz musician, if he plays someone else's song, has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.
Todd Boyd
#19. We have to go and show these people what classical music is. We say sometimes that classical music has a small audience, but it's because people don't have the chance to be closer to it.
Gustavo Dudamel
#20. It was kind of sort of the heavens opened up and I realized that Bach, at least, you know - out of all the classical music - needs to be a big part of my life.
Chris Thile
#21. As Duke Ellington once said, "There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind." In that sense, jazz and classical music are fundamentally the same. The pure joy one experiences listening to "good" music transcends questions of genre.
Haruki Murakami
#22. I think there are people who use classical music to say, 'I am better than you, because I know all the rules and you don't.' You're not allowed to have fun or entertain.
Andre Rieu
#23. Classical music is always a really great way for me to get my chops to where I want them to be.
Lucia Micarelli
#24. With a piece of classical music by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven, on first listening I'm referencing it with other pieces by them that I know. I think that most people do this - they listen to pieces through the filter of pieces they already know.
Paul Lansky
#25. education and money. I go to church with the kids for the same reason Genie and I play our grandchildren classical music and litter the floors and chairs all over our home with open art books. Jack, age three, eats his lunch with a big Goya book propped in front of him asking for the
Frank Schaeffer
#26. Before college, I acted in my room, to classical music, because music tells stories. I'd put on a record and proceed, silently. I'd keep putting the needle back to a certain segment because I hadn't died well enough. I had to really, really feel dead. I'd love to do a death scene.
Amanda Plummer
#27. Jazz isn't like pop, where you sell millions of records with a hit. Your spirit and soul aren't important in pop music. But jazz is like classical music. If people like you, they'll remember you and you'll last forever.
Freddie Hubbard
#28. I am a classical music lover - not necessarily the contemporary stuff, but the old stuff.
Eberhard Weber
#29. Lately I've been listening to some classical music again, some jazz.
Alan Vega
#30. Maybe I'm genetically more inclined to music - but the music I make is so far removed from Indian classical music. I grew up in Texas!
Norah Jones
#31. I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head.
John Fahey
#32. I think that's one of the things that has always put me in kind of an odd niche. It's that all of my understanding of orchestral music is via film, not via classical music like it's supposed to be. To me it's the same, it doesn't make any difference.
Danny Elfman
#33. Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune.
Gordon Getty
#34. Actually, I've had very little classical training, although I love listening to classical music very much.
Benny Green
#35. We want people to know that classical music is for everyone. A parent or kid might be terrified of this music, but after they come to us, they'll never be scared of classical music again.
Richard Hyung-ki Joo
#36. Jazz isn't dead yet. It's the underpinning of everything in this country. Whether it's a Broadway show, or fusion, or right on through classical music, if it's coming out of the U.S., it's not going to survive unless it's got some jazz influence.
Dave Brubeck
#37. I guess some people in classical music can keep going until they kick (die) and the (Rolling) Stones are definitely pushing the envelope but I wonder if here's a time when you have to face whether you are as good as you used to be.
Billy Joel
#38. I was not born into the world of the stuntman and the daredevil; I was born into the world of theater and writing and sculpting and classical music.
Philippe Petit
#39. Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.
Yo-Yo Ma
#40. I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about ... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.
Nina Simone
#41. I was able to turn to classical music many people, who saw my programs live and on YouTube, and this is one of the nicest achievements I can have.
Aleksey Igudesman
#42. The first concert that my parents took me to was in this canyon in Saudi Arabia called Buttermilk Canyon. You sleep under the stars in the desert, and ex-pats - German, Swiss, Canadian, American - would play classical music that filled the whole canyon.
Hannah Simone
#43. I got so much love for classical music and I hear so much incredible music.You should know a bunch of music and have respect for all sorts of genres and styles of music.
Bruno Mars
#44. At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.
Herbie Hancock
#45. The musical instuments may be western but my voice never wavers away from my own ragas. it is good to make experiments and I do a lot of them but my thoughts always round the centre and that centre is the tradition of my elders and it is classical music..
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
#46. My parents are both musicians and made sure we all played music. My brothers and sisters all play instruments, so we'll get together whenever we can and play. We play a lot of classical music - you know, the good stuff.
Olivia Culpo
#47. This is rock'n'roll, not classical music. It's about people working together.
Cass McCombs
#48. I like to listen to a lot of classical music when I'm painting, the most simplistic stuff I can find. I like simple piano.
Danny Fox
#49. It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line
Duke Ellington
#50. I remember being in college and taking a class on classical music and getting a big laugh when I said very sincerely that I was not really into trained voices. Some of the greatest singers can transcend their technical perfection and still sound great.
Ira Kaplan
#51. Life, like classical music, is full of difficult passages that are conquered as much through endurance and determination as through any particular skill.
Sheri Dew
#52. Classical music in Venezuela is now something like a pop concert. You can see people screaming or crying because they don't have a ticket.
Gustavo Dudamel
#53. Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
Nina Simone
#54. Autumn is a classical music; when it begins, the gravity disappears!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#56. Your mother is probably right," Dad said. "Social services frowns on drunk ten-year-ols. Besides, when I dropped my drumsticks and puked onstage, it was punk. If you drop your bow and smell like a brewery, it will look gauche. You classical-music people are so snobby that way.
Gayle Forman
#57. One of the problems that we face through the media attention that these artists receive is that there has been an awful lot of talk about opera and classical music being elite and being for an elitist group.
Lesley Garrett
#58. Classical music has become rarefied, like a maiden aunt that nobody wants to talk to.
Charles Hazlewood
#59. I look at raising funds for The Perlman Music Program as a challenge and as a way to provide opportunities for people who care about the future of classical music.
Itzhak Perlman
#60. I love classical music. Yes, I was in a conservatory when I was younger and played guitar and all that stuff, so I also love rock.
Matt Schulze
#61. In the ballet studio, it was such an organized and disciplined environment, like I'd never had in my life. Seeing myself in the mirror, surrounded by the classical music, that's when I started to fall in love with dance.
Misty Copeland
#62. The world of classical music is so fascinating. It's a world that encompasses people from everywhere and erases the basic restraints of nationality; everyone is united by this common language of music.
Gael Garcia Bernal
#63. I'm a self-taught guitarist, but I have a classical music background.
Adam Jones
#64. I had great inspiration from a Japanese composer named Toru Takemitsu. He wrote over 90 film scores and a lot of concert music, a lot of classical music, and he gave me a lot of inspiration, as well as composers from other countries.
Howard Shore
#65. Even the most jingoistic person would have to admit that even American cultural music comes from Europe. That's what classical music is, real European music.
Sonny Rollins
#66. I've been listening to quite a lot of classical music like Erik Satie, and quite a lot of blues.
Elizabeth Jagger
#67. There's a great energy and drive that takes precedence in a lot of rock and pop. It's about making a strong visceral connection. That's something that I think great classical music can have, too.
Joshua Roman
#68. I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.
Lana Del Rey
#69. Thank God for movie music. It preserves the rich vocabulary in classical music through challenging times.
Michael Tilson Thomas
#70. Music has always been transnational; people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.
Yo-Yo Ma
#71. I studied classical music for a year. Then, I studied jazz for a year at the New School, and then I got kicked out. You had to go to your class, so I don't know if that counts as studying. I didn't study jazz. I was supposed to.
Andrew Wyatt
#72. The only difference between death and love, one supposedly lasts forever, the other makes you think of classical music.
Mark Cirino
#73. As a rule, my focus is on classical music, but I love jazz. I love everything, actually.
Julie Andrews
#74. I did a pop album, 'Sogno,' in 1999. I think it's important to record another pop album because many people love pop music. By this kind of repertoire, some people can later discover classical music.
Andrea Bocelli
#75. Jazz is not the popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it.
John Corigliano
#76. My influences are with Irish music, church music and classical music,
Enya
#77. I don't have a classical-music mentality. I haven't been taught that way, and it doesn't fit my character, either.
Agnes Obel
#78. Classical music is a genre of music. It's no more complex or less complex than pop music or R&B. The elitism is weird.
Theo Hutchcraft
#79. I grew up with the Woodstock generation. I went to Woodstock, and like everybody in my school, I wanted to be in a rock-and-roll band, and most of us were. But I also grew up with a lot of piano lessons and a lot of classical music training.
John Tesh
#80. I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.
Michael Gambon
#81. I had to listen to the classical music because it calms me down, calms my nerves down.
Novak Djokovic
#82. I think classical music tuition is, well, was when I was a child, was an abomination. I think in some ways it is one of life's great tragedies for everybody who gives up an instrument.
Hugh Laurie
#83. It's hard to find an emblem of cultural, national pride that burns as bright as Israel's success in classical music.
Zubin Mehta
#84. I love singing jazz. I don't like the idea that classical music should be over here and jazz should be someplace else. It's all wonderful, and we should be open to enjoying it all.
Jessye Norman
#85. Classical music has been based on works people love and come back to for aural comfort.
Leila Josefowicz
#86. On horseback you feel as if you're moving in time to classical music; a camel seems to progress to the beat of a drum played by a drunk.
Walter Moers
#87. I loved Queen, Journey, Fleetwood Mac, and people like Barbara Streisand. The thing with me is that classical music was also an inspiration. I took piano lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels for 10 years.
Lara Fabian
#88. I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way.
PJ Harvey
#89. It'll help you be imaginative if you listen to classical music. It helps you understand dynamics and how important they are to create an environment.
Brittany Howard
#90. Jazz has a strong following in certain circles and there are annual jazz festivals in Puerto Plata and at Casa de Teatro in the capital. Grammy-winning Dominican jazz pianist Michael Camilo has had success on a global level. The classical music and ballet
Ginnie Bedggood
#91. Our first show, 'A Little Nightmare Music,' encompasses a lot of zany humor with beautiful classical music.
Aleksey Igudesman
#92. My family were all into classical music, and I found that very intimidating.
Elizabeth McGovern
#93. I have discovered three things which know no geographical borders - classical music, American jazz, and applause as the sign of the public's favor.
Jascha Heifetz
#94. Just going to Bangladesh was an experience ... if you go into small villages in the U.K., they're backward and culturally devoid. But if you go into small villages in Bangladesh, they have classical music concerts.
Sarah Gavron
#95. Culture dictated from above is the enemy of folk music. Whether it's stuffy classical music or pre-engineered pop where somebody's paid tons of money to make sure that everyone hears this song a certain number of times a day - that feels like the opposite of folk music.
Will Sheff
#96. Hip-hop has a feeling element, it's not just about knowing music. It's not like classical music or jazz where you can go on raw energy.
Robert Greene
#97. Classical music requires an immense amount of concentration, and I don't know if I would've been that committed to that particular life.
Questlove
#98. I wasn't listening to that much classical music - not much more than anything else. I was really lucky to have parents who loved all kinds of music.
Cecile McLorin Salvant
#99. I learned the cello , but I would still need a massive amount of practice. But I do play classical music, so I understand where that comes from.
Alicia Keys
#100. The history of music is nothing more than the history of art-music or classical music, the music that was commissioned by aristocrats.
Frank Fairfield
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