Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinskywas a Russian-French-American composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth17 June 1882
CityLomonosov, Russia
CountryRussian Federation
action appetite beginning brings work
Just as appetite comes from eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning
bring cannot present serve truth
I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.
building church knew music praises
The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament.
animal animals anymore cross dare die family hardly idiot known member plague royal stared street wherever zoo
A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares
animal animals anymore cross dare die family hardly idiot known member plague royal stared street wherever zoo
A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares
closer distant generation ways
It's one of nature's ways that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us.
starting-over becoming principles
The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.
path
To continue in one path is to go backward.
real thinking awareness
The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.
needs would-be music-is
I never understood the need for a "live" audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one.
creating hands faculty
The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation.
religious exercise years
I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music.
improvisation composition selective
Composition is selective improvisation.
children animal classical-music
My music is best understood by children and animals.