Strings have been a part of my career and my albums since the very first day. 'Snowbird' had beautiful strings.
The Quartets have been a major part of my work.
In the 1950s in the United States, few music lovers were listening to chamber music. Daddy played Bach and Haydn on our phonograph for me. Not only did I become familiar with the form; he discussed the concerti. My own head start. My own Head Start.
I like Beethoven, especially the poems.
The most perfect expression of human behavior is a string quartet.
Classical music is this music that was written by a bunch of dead people a long time ago.
One is that you have to take time, lots of time, to let an idea grow from within. The second is that when you sign on to something, there will be issues of trust, deep trust, the way the members of a string quartet have to trust one another.
Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.
Beethoven's last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened to by a deaf man.
And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.
A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms; but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.
'Iceman' covers a bigger scope than 'Long Day's Journey.' But they're both fabulous pieces of work. 'Iceman' is like a symphony. It's got all the movements, all these different voices. 'Long Day's Journey' is more like a beautiful string quartet.
The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost.
There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.
My kids will come to me and ask me to listen to a 'new sound' they think they've discovered. One time it was the Beatles' 'Yesterday,' and the new sound was four strings. All of a sudden the new generation discovers the string quartet!
I much rather coach a string quartet in an interpretation of Haydn or Beethoven than to teach the guitar.
I'm everything I'm made of. So a part of me is made of classical music. I'm grateful for it.
I approach everything as chamber music. Even with Beethoven symphonies, I lead from the violin and basically encourage the orchestra to think of it as a giant string quartet.
There is no piece of guitar music that has the formal beauty of a piano sonata by Mozart, or the richly worked out ideas and passion of a late Beethoven string quartet, or for that matter the beautiful mellifluous poetry of a Chopin Ballade.
We built a bit of an audience at our university in Cambridge, playing Beethoven and Mozart quartets.
I studied classical guitar in school, and that type of stuff has led to writing for Kronos.
I listen mostly to classical music.
Schumann's 'Quintet in E flat for Piano and Strings' is one of the sublime moments in Romantic music.
Composers most identified with the chamber music form are Corelli, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and, of course, Bach. Of course, Bach. If there is any one composer who gives us reason and emotion, it is Bach.
I'm a big Beethoven fan, and you'll struggle to find a three-minute song on any of his stuff.
