Composers From The United States

"In your works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my painting."

"A regular Friday audience, 90 percent feminine and 100 percent well-bred, sat stoically yesterday through thirty minutes of the most cacophonous world premiere ever heard here - the first performance anywhere of a new Violin Concerto by Arnold Schoenberg. Yesterday's piece combines the best sound effects of a hen yard at feeding time, a brisk morning in Chinatown and practice hour at a busy music conservatory. The effect on the vast majority of hearers is that of a lecture on the fourth dimension delivered in Chinese."

"I am delighted to add another unplayable work to the repertoire."

"I was never revolutionary. The only revolutionary in our time was Strauss!""

"My music is not modern, it is merely badly played"

"Richard Strauss on Schoenberg, written by Schoenberg himself: "Dear Sir, I regret that I am unable to accept your invitation to write something for Richard Strauss's fiftieth birthday. In a letter to Frau Mahler (in connection with Mahler Memorial Fund) Herr Strauss wrote about me as follows: 'The only person who can help poor Schoenberg now is a psychiatrist ...". "I think he'd do better to shovel snow instead of scribbling on music-paper...'"

"In fact, the influence of Schoenberg may be overwhelming on his followers, but the significance of his art is to be identified with influences of a more subtle kind - not the system, but the aesthetic, of his art. I am quite conscious of the fact that my Chansons madécasses are in no way Schoenbergian, but I do not know whether I ever should have been able to write them had Schoenberg never written."

"Can you imagine a music in which tonality (that is, the adherence to any key) is completely suspended? I was constantly reminded of Kandinsky's large composition which also permits no trace of tonality.. ..and also of Igor Kandinsky's 'jumping spots' in hearing this music [of Schoenberg], which allows each tone sounded to stand on its own (a kind of white canvas between the spots of color). Schoenberg proceeds from the principle that the concepts of consonance and dissonance do not exist at all. A so-called dissonance is only a more remote consonance – an idea which now occupies me constantly while painting.. - note 6"

"[Schonberg's] music leads us into a realm where musical experience is a matter not of the ear but of the soul alone, and at this point the music of the future begins."

"At the moment there is a great tendency in painting to discover the 'new' harmony by constructive means whereby the rhythmic is built on an almost geometric form.. .I am certain that our own modern harmony is not to be found in the 'geometric' way, but rather in the anti-geometric, anti-logical way. And this way is that of 'dissonance in art', in painting, therefore, just as much as in music. And 'today's' dissonance in painting and music is merely the consonance of 'tomorrow'."

"Without John Williams, bikes don’t really fly, nor do brooms in Quidditch matches, nor do men in red capes. There is no Force, dinosaurs do not walk the Earth, we do not wonder, we do not weep, we do not believe."

"Leroy Anderson is an American original - direct, honest, personal, idiosyncratic, and free of pretension. His music is directed to, and reflective of, the American soul."

"I hadn't heard of either disco or Meco. When I was asked to listen to Meco's now-famous recording, I was a little apprehensive, wondering how a pop record could be made from "The March from Star Wars" and what it would be like. I immediately liked what I heard and sensed that a genuine communication was taking place. Meco took things forward another step by bringing Star Wars to a vast audience who otherwise would not have heard it in its original symphonic setting. I am most grateful to Meco for all of this and I am delighted that 'disco' and 'Meco' are now household words."

"There’s a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression. It doesn’t have to do with body movements, it doesn't have to do with articulation of a language, but with something spiritual."

"So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories."

"He's a man with a plan, Got a counterfeit dollar in his hand, He's misstra know-it-all."

"But don't you worry 'bout a thing, Don't you worry 'bout a thing, mama, 'Cause I'll be standing in the side when you check it out."

"I'm so darn glad he let me try it again, 'Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin, I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then, Gonna keep on trying until I reach my highest ground."

"To see the heaven in your eyes is not so far, 'Cause I'm not afraid to try and go it, To know the love and beauty never known before, I'll leave it up to you to show it."

"Her brother's smart, he's got more sense than many, His patience long, but soon he won't have any, To find a job is like a haystack needle, 'Cause where he lives, they don't use coloured people, Living just enough, just enough for the city."

"A boy is born in hard time Mississippi, Surrounded by four walls that ain't so pretty, His parents give him love and affection, To keep him strong, moving in the right direction, Living just enough, just enough for the city."

"But what I'd like to know, Is could a place like this Exist so beautiful? Or do we have to find our wings and fly away To the visions in our mind?"

"I believe when I fall in love with you It will be forever."

"When you believe in things that you don't understand, Then you suffer, Superstition ain't the way."

"Very superstitious, Writings on the wall, Very superstitious, Ladder's 'bout to fall, Thirteen month old baby, Broke the looking glass, Seven years of bad luck, The good things in your past."

"I feel like this is the beginning, Though I've loved you for a million years, And if I thought our love was ending, I'd find myself drowning in my own tears."

"You are the sunshine of my life, That's why I'll always be around, You are the apple of my eye, Forever you'll stay in my heart."

"And most of all, I'd like to thank Stevie Wonder, who didn't make an album this year."

"Stevie Wonder delivered an emphatic, at times impatient video message Tuesday urging on the Black Lives Matter movement. Saying he has listened to "voices on the left, voices on the right," Wonder added, "What I’ve not heard is a unanimous commitment to atone for the sins of this country."... Wonder lamented that three states — North Dakota, South Dakota and Hawaii — have failed to formally recognize Juneteenth as a holiday. "... It was an 18-year fight to (make) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday," said Wonder, who teamed with late U.S. Rep. John Conyers in that ultimately successful campaign... The short video, titled "The Universe is Watching Us," was posted to Wonder's social media channels Tuesday afternoon."

"As Stevie Wonder says in his song (It will take a long time before white America can understand what his music is about at all; it's almost like a code. They don't really know what Stevie is singing about or what Stevie is saying. They can't afford to know.) Stevie says, "I ain't gotta do nothing to you; I ain't even gotta do nothing to you; you cause your own country to fall." And that's what's happening."

"I don't know what life would be like without music. In my lonely times, music has been my closest friend. It has also been my doctor-and my lover, in the sense that I sometimes listen to music and dream of a lover that doesn't exist. Late at night, when I don't feel sleepy, I'll play music-all types of music and lose myself in its mystery. I might decide to play Stevie Wonder, or Debussy, or Tchaikovsky. It depends on my mood."

"Shame on me, shame on you, Shame on them, shame on us, Shame on me, shame on you, Shame on them, shame on us, So what the fuss."

"Raindrops, passionate raindrops, The kind of rain that writes 'They're so in love' on our skin. Raindrops, that we hope won't stop Cooling the red hot love that we are making."

"And though you don't believe that they do, They do come true, For did my dreams Come true when I looked at you, And maybe too if you would believe, You too might be overjoyed, over love, over me."

"We are undercover passion on the run, Chasing love up against the sun, We are strangers by day, lovers by night, Knowing it's so wrong but feeling so right."

"Call up, ring once, hang up the phone, To let me know you made it home, Don't want nothing to be wrong, With part-time lover."

"I just called to say I love you, I just called to say how much I care, I just called to say I love you, And I mean it from the bottom of my heart."

"You know it doesn't make much sense, There ought to be a law against Anyone who takes offence At a day in your celebration, 'Cause we all know in our minds That there ought to be a time That we can set aside To show just how much we love you, And I'm sure you would agree, What could fit more perfectly Than to have a world party On the day you came to be? Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, Happy birthday."

"Well I'm a man of many wishes, Hope my premonition misses, But what I really feel, My eyes won't let me hide, 'Cause they always start to cry, 'Cause this time could mean goodbye."

"Didn't know that you Would be jammin' until the break of dawn, See nobody ever told you that you Would be jammin' until the break of dawn."

"Everyone's feeling pretty, It's hotter than july, Though the world's full of problems, They couldn't touch us even if they tried."

"You took me riding in your rocket and gave me a star, But at a half a mile from heaven You dropped me back down to this cold, cold world."

"Goin' back to Saturn where the rings all glow, Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow, On Saturn, people live to be two hundred and five, Goin' back to Saturn where the people smile, Don't need cars 'cause we've learned to fly, On Saturn, just to live to us is our natural high."

"For you, there might be a brighter star, But through my eyes the light of you burns all I see. For you, there might be another song, But all my heart can hear is your melody."

"As around the sun the earth knows she's revolving, And the rosebuds know to bloom in early May, Just as hate knows love's the cure, You can rest your mind assured, That I'll be loving you always."

"They've been spending most their lives Living in a pastime paradise. They've been spending most their lives Living in a pastime paradise. They've been wasting most their time Glorifying days long gone behind, They've been wasting most their days In remembrance of ignorance oldest praise."

"I wish those days could come back once more, Why did those days ever have to go?"

"Looking back on when I was a little nappy-headed boy, Then my only worry was for Christmas, what would be my toy? Even though we sometimes would not get a thing, We were happy with the joy the day would bring."

"Well there's Basie, Miller, Satchmo And the king of all, Sir Duke, And with a voice like Ella's ringing out, There's no way the band can lose."

"Music is a world within itself With a language we all understand, With an equal opportunity For all to sing, dance and clap their hands."