Stravinsky

Music means nothing
but itself.
( Stravinsky )

They [critics] have no right to utter the hieratic nonsense about ‘interpretation” they do in fact utter.
( Stravinsky )

In Hollywood, Haydn would have been credited as the composer of Variations
on a Theme by Haydn
and Brahms as their “arranger.”
( Stravinsky )

An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.
( Stravinsky )

It’s like staring at a cow for a long time.
( Stravinsky, on Vaughan Williams’ Third Symphony )

The trick, of course, is to choose one’s commissions,
to compose what one wants to compose
and to get it commissioned afterward.
( Stravinsky )

Film music is significant in many ways, of course,
but not as music, which is why the proposition
that better composers could produce better film music
is not necessarily true:
the standards of the category defeat higher standards.
( Stravinsky )

The trouble with music appreciation in general
is that people are taught to have too much respect for music
when they should be taught to love it instead.
( Stravinsky )

He [Stravinsky] is inclining dangerously toward Schönberg.
( Debussy )

The Stravinsky music is a drab, rasping, tired shuffle and breakdown.
( Paul Rosenfeld )

Artists believe not in innate qualities but in Art.
( Stravinsky )

Stravinsky is entirely unable to formulate a musical idea of his own.
( Rutland Boughtland )

I am an inventor of music.
( Stravinsky )

I do not try to think in advance –
I can only start to work and hope to leap a little in my spirit.
( Stravinsky )

To listen is an effort, and just to hear has no merit.
A duck hears also.
( Stravinsky )

Then play it again!
( Stravinsky, when told the piece he had delivered
to fulfill a commission was too short )

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

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

My music is best understood by children and animals.
( Stravinsky )

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.
( Stravinsky, when asked about his treatment
of Andre Gide’s text years after
he had completed Persephone )

The more constraints one imposes,
the more one frees one's self.
And the arbitrariness of the constraint
serves only to obtain precision of execution.
( Stravinsky )

Hurry? I never hurry.
I have no time to hurry!
( Stravinsky )

Just as appetite comes by eating,
so work brings inspiration,
if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.
( Stravinsky )

Film people … want my name, not my music.
I was even offered $100,000 to pad a film
with music, and when I refused,
was told that I could receive
the same money if I were willing
to allow someone else
to compose the music
in my name.
( Stravinsky )

IGOR FYODOROVICH
STRAVINSKY
born: Oranienbaum (near St. Petersburg), 17 June 1882
died: New York, 6 April 1971, aged eighty-eight