Ignacy Jan Paderewski Quotes

Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.

Beethoven was just music, and it didn't matter if he could hear it or not - he could feel it. He could hear it in his mind. He could write it down hearing it in his mind. He was just music. Yeah, he's one of my favorite writers of all times.

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it.

I'm continuing to learn more about music - it's an ocean, and you can never really say that you know everything. I'm grateful that I'm still living and making music among the greats.

Mozart, Beethoven - how can you not want to share them with everyone and anyone? This stuff is of as great importance as the food we eat and the air we breathe.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

Well, I don't know any piece by heart, but Mozart goes something like this... What do you think?

Rachmaninoff made a musician out of me. His 'Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini' was the piece that sent me into raptures. It spoke to me. To me, it was a tender entreaty for the misunderstood.

I can't play any instrument for the life of me, but I know what I want to hear.

Looking back on it now, I felt that I was blessed much like the masters, I guess - the guys who wrote the concertos.

I listen to music. I particularly love Mozart.

I find myself more genuinely drawn to the essence of Beethoven in Schnabel than I ever have been by anybody.

When you're a kid, Beethoven is Beethoven, but as I've grown older, my astonishment at the sheer inventiveness of the man has increased, and I have an appreciation that I didn't have when I was in my 20s.

I think that there is not really a difference between a 'Peanuts' and a beautiful Renaissance painting. There is something very romantic in the 'Peanuts' - it's at the same level of a novel or a Jane Austen story or a beautiful embroidered rose fabric. It is a piece of romanticism.

During a rehearsal of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony the members of the orchestra were so overwhelmingly moved by the conducting of Arturo Toscanini that they rose as one man and applauded him. When the spontaneous cheering has subsided, Toscanini turned to his men, tears glistening in his eyes. "Please . . . please! Don't do this! You see, gentlemen, it isn't me you should applaud. It's Beethoven!"

Some people think a song without words isn't a real song. Tell that to Beethoven and he'll kick your ass!

Those are terrible people who don't like Glenn Gould... I will have nothing to do with such people, they are dangerous people.

My whole trick is to keep the tune well out in front. If I play Tchaikovsky, I play his melodies and skip his spiritual struggle.

How could anybody think of Bach as 'cold' when these [cello] suites seem to shine with the most glittering kind of poetry," Casals said. "As I got on with the study I discovered a new world of space and beauty... the feelings I experienced were among the purest and most intense in my artistic life!

Music is a manifestation of the human spirit, similar to language. Its greatest practitioners have conveyed to mankind things not possible to say in any other language. If we do not want these things to remain dead treasures, we must do our utmost to make the greatest possible number of people understand their idiom.

Poetry is the honey of all flowers, the quintessence of all sciences, the marrow of wit, and the very phrase of angels.

Other people singing my songs is something that I've never been casual about. I've always been very touched by it and I always go into immediate critical suspension.

Music is the most important thing. I'm thinking of my future. There has to be something new, and I want to be part of it. I want to lead an orchestra with excellent musicians. I want to play music which draws pictures of the world and its space

I was proud to work with the great Gershwin, and I would have done it for nothing, which I did.

Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.