Isaac Stern Quotes

As a singer, you have to bring the soul to the song.

Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves.

All music has to speak in some form or other.

Is it not the business of the conductor to convey to the public in its dramatic form the central idea of a composition; and how can he convey that idea successfully if he does not enter heart and soul into the life of the music and the tale it unfolds?

The role of the musician is to go from concept to full execution. Put another way, it's to go from understanding the content of something to really learning how to communicate it and make sure it's well-received and lives in somebody else.

Can't you read? The score demands 'con amore', and what are you doing? You are playing it like married men!

Music expresses what cannot be put into words I like to think, and I think the band makes a good go at it.

I think the whole question of meaning in music is difficult enough even if you hear me playing live right now in the same room! What I mean and what you take from it may be two quite different things anyway.

I always imagined that to bring an orchestra to play together is not enough for a conductor.

My goal is to connect with people emotionally. I take life’s experiences and translate them into music — music that hopefully creates an impact on the listener.

I want to go and write music that announces to you that you can feel something. I don’t want to tell you what to feel, but I just want you to have the possibility of feeling something.

Some musicians play with their heart, you know what I mean? I don't know what to tell a person that can't - if you can't tell a person what you're talkin' about when they're rushin' or droppin' the tempo, you get somebody else.

Music becomes very personal. When you marry a message you want to send out into the world with good music, all of a sudden you have a very potent way of delivering your message.

We communicate with passion and passion persuades.

We are aware that the conductor is not really making the music, it is making him -- if he is relaxed, open and attuned, then the invisible will take possession of him; through him, it will reach us.

I also think there's something about dance, music and the arts that transcends all other types of communication and expression.

If you want to know me, listen to my music.

I don't really see huge barriers between any styles of music. My definition of music is "organizing sound and silence into emotion," and that's a very broad definition.

There's a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There's also happiness to it if you want to hear it.

Eloquence dwells quite as much in the hearts of the hearers as on the lips of the orator.

Music is truly love itself, the purest, most ethereal language of the emotions, embodying all their changing colors in every variety of shading and nuance.

Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words, killing me softly with his song.

I love music. I do play. It's like mathematics, and it's also emotional. It's nice to play, for no other reason than just to play.

Obviously, the emotions I want to convey through music are streamed through the way I interpret life.

Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't.