Music Quotes by Igor Stravinsky

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

— Igor Stravinsky

I am an inventor of music.

— Igor Stravinsky

Music is...the coordination between man and time.

— Igor Stravinsky

We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it.

— Igor Stravinsky

Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also.

— Igor Stravinsky

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

— Igor Stravinsky

Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it.

— Igor Stravinsky

Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself.

— Igor Stravinsky

The one true comment on a piece of music is another piece of music.

— Igor Stravinsky

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

— Igor Stravinsky

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos?

— Igor Stravinsky

Music is the sole domain in which man realizes the present.

— Igor Stravinsky

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be…

— Igor Stravinsky

The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building…

— Igor Stravinsky

The profound meaning of music's essential aim... is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the…

— Igor Stravinsky

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius…

— Igor Stravinsky

I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had…

— Igor Stravinsky

Music is given to us specifically to make order of things, to move from an anarchic, individualistic state to a regulated, perfectly…

— Igor Stravinsky

The performance of performance has developed to such an extent in recent years that it challenges the music itself and will soon…

— Igor Stravinsky

Look for the music on all things, and life will be a symphony of joy. My music is best understood by children…

— Igor Stravinsky

It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism--Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique…

— Igor Stravinsky

I live neither in the past nor in the future. I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring…

— Igor Stravinsky

We have a duty towards music; namely to invent it. ...Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. For the…

— Igor Stravinsky

“Recordings of Georgian folk polyphonic songs makes a great musical impression. They are recorded in a tradition of active reproduction of Georgian…

— Igor Stravinsky

“For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude…

— Igor Stravinsky

“He was a six and a half foot scowl. (on Rachmaninov)”

— Igor Stravinsky

My music is best understood by children and animals.

— Igor Stravinsky

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

— Igor Stravinsky

There is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse.

— Igor Stravinsky

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in…

— Igor Stravinsky

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more…

— Igor Stravinsky

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has to the…

— Igor Stravinsky

All music is nothing more than a succession of impulses that converge towards a definite point of repose.

— Igor Stravinsky

I never understood the need for a "live" audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead…

— Igor Stravinsky

“Georgian folk music has more new musical ideas than all the contemporary music. [Los Angeles Times. 26.02.1990]”

— Igor Stravinsky

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man…

— Igor Stravinsky

The further one separates himself from the precepts of the Christian Church, the further one distances himself from the truth. Only God…

— Igor Stravinsky

“Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration;…

— Igor Stravinsky