Composer Quote by Leonard Bernstein

“I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.”

Leonard Bernstein

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More by Leonard Bernstein

A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a…

Leonard Bernstein

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I think it is time we learned the lesson of our century: that the progress of the human spirit must keep pace with technological…

Leonard Bernstein

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Conducting is like making love to a hundred people at the same time.

Leonard Bernstein

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I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know that the answer is Yes.

Leonard Bernstein

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Our most emotionally active life is lived in our dreams, and our cells renew themselves most industriously in sleep. We reach highest in meditation,…

Leonard Bernstein

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Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.

Leonard Bernstein

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Any asshole can write a tone-row. It takes a composer to write a tune.

Leonard Bernstein

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From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.

Leonard Bernstein

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Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

Leonard Bernstein

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Einstein said that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. So why do so many of us try to explain the…

Leonard Bernstein

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When the thunder rumbles, Now the age of gold is dead. When the dreams we've clung to Trying to stay young, Have left us parched and old instead. When my courage crumbles, When I feel confused and frail, When my spirit falters on decaying altars And my illusions fail -- I go on right then. I go on again. I…

Leonard Bernstein

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too…

Leonard Bernstein

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“- Mom, can I tell them there that I'm Romanian? - Sure, why not tell them? - I was thinking that they wouldn't think... I'm bragging." (Dialogue with his mother before leaving for Vienna)”

George Enescu

The number of e-mails and letters that I get from choreographers, from sculptors, from composers who are being inspired by science is huge.

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The architect is very interesting because the architect is the commander, meaning the one who commands all the workers. The architect is also the…

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If a composer could state in words what being a composer means, he would no longer need to be a composer.

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Seen from the point of view of the composer, the most nonsensical practice is that of casting people in musicals who are unable to sing. No one would cast a dancing part with someone who cannot dance sufficiently to come up to professional standards. The same is true of acting. But when it comes to singing, more often than not…

Ernest Gold

I think there's just been this "thing" that's developed, this way that we have of talking about our music that alienates people. And I fall into that too! I learned that in graduate school. You just talk about your music in a specific way, and that separates people from you. But some composers like that. Schoenberg liked that. He wanted…

Missy Mazzoli