Composers From France

"I think that you have to seriously have fun, or taking serious things in a light way and obviously, for me, before all, music is made of fun and pleasure and excitement."

"At a very early stage I realised that it's a real problem to perform electronic music on stage because electronic instruments are not particularly convincing on a visual point of view: somebody behind his computer, it's not particularly visual. So I was inspired by the opera. And what was the opera in the 19th century? It was the idea for a musician to join and to work, to collaborate with a stage director, with carpenters, painters, people doing decors, graphic artists to have a visual prolongation, a visual correspondence to their work. That's what I tried to do with the tools of my generation: electronics and video and lights and all that."

"L'auteur de ce Prophète a non seulement le bonheur d'avoir du talent, mais aussi le talent d'avoir du bonheur."

"C'est la vraie voix féminine de l'orchestre, voix passionnée et chaste en même temps, déchirante et douce, qui pleure et crie et se lamente, ou chante et prie et rêve, ou éclate en accents joyeux, comme nulle autre pourrait le faire."

"Un chanteur ou une cantatrice capable de chanter seize mesures seulement de bonne musique avec une voix naturelle, bien posée, sympathique, et de les chanter sans efforts, sans écarteler la phrase, sans exagérer jusqu'à la charge les accents, sans platitude, sans afféterie, sans mièvreries, sans fautes de français, sans liaisons dangereuses, sans hiatus, sans insolentes modifications du texte, sans transposition, sans hoquets, sans aboiements, sans chevrotements, sans intonations fausses, sans faire boiter le rhythme, sans ridicules ornements, sans nauséabondes appogiatures, de manière enfin que la période écrite par le compositeur devienne compréhensible, et reste tout simplement ce qu'il l'a faite, est un oiseau rare, très-rare, excessivement rare."

"Pauvres diables!... D'où sortent ces malheureux êtres ?... À quel Montfaucon vont-ils mourir ?... Que leur octroie la munificence municipale pour nettoyer (ou salir) ainsi le pavé de Paris ?... À quel âge les envoie-t-on à l'équarrissage ?... Que fait-on de leurs os ? (leur peau n'est bonne à rien.)"

"Le temps est un grand maître, dit-on; le malheur est qu'il soit un maître inhumain qui tue ses élèves."

"The high forehead, precipitously overhanging the deep-set eyes, the great curving hawk-nose, the thin, finely-cut lips, the rather short chin, the enormous shock of light-brown hair against the fantastic wealth of which the barber could do nothing–whoever had seen this head would never forget it."

"One of my neighbours rises from his seat and bending towards the orchestra shouts in a voice of thunder: "You don't want two flutes there, you brutes! You want two piccolos, do you hear? Oh, the brutes!" Having said that, he simply sits down again, scowling indignantly. Amidst the general tumult produced by this outburst, I turn around and see a young man trembling with passion, his hands clenched, his eyes flashing, and a head of hair - such a head of hair. It looked like an enormous umbrella of hair, projecting something like a moveable awning over a beak of a bird of prey."

"In the period between the death of Beethoven and about 1860, the symphony without a programme might have been considered moribund, and the present (and thus the future) could have been perceived to belong to music that was explicitly poetic. Although numerous composers contributed to this trend, Berlioz has left perhaps the largest footprints in this particular geological stratum. Berlioz was perceived by the poet and critic Gautier as one of a trinity of French Romanticism, with Victor Hugo and Eugene Delacroix, but this is more an indication of his perceived stature as a major outsider than to any artistic affinity."

"Vous me priez de vous dire…S'il est vrai que l'acte de foi de tout ce qui prétend aimer l'art élevé et sérieux soit celui-ci : "Il n'y a pas d'autre Dieu que Bach, et Mendelssohn est son prophète"?"

"Shakespeare, en tombant ainsi sur moi à l'improviste, me foudroya. Son éclair, en m'ouvrant le ciel de l'art avec un fracas sublime, m'en illumina les plus lointaines profondeurs. Je reconnus la vraie grandeur, la vraie beauté, la vraie vérité dramatiques."

"Je ne puis m'empêcher de rendre grâces au hasard qui m'a mis dans la nécessité de parvenir à composer silencieusement et librement, en me garantissant ainsi de la tyrannie des habitudes des doigts, si dangereuses pour la pensée."

"Cette face de l’instrumentation est exactement, en musique, ce que le coloris est en peinture."

"Barbarians always think of themselves as the bringers of civilization."

"Something new has been added, a new art of sound. Am I wrong in calling it music?"

"I do not want to heap coals of fire on anyone's head, but I would like to advise those who keep the living thought of the dead hidden away in cardboard boxes, to pass on as quickly as possibly such explosive material, whose only legitimate heir is the whole world, that is to say, my neighbor."

"Music has to do with sounds, so we need to find them somewhere and it is preferred to find musical ones. You have two sources for sounds: noises, which always tell you something — a door cracking, a dog barking, the thunder, the storm; and then you have instruments. An instrument tells you, 'la-la-la-la.' Music has to find a passage between noises and instruments. It has to escape. It has to find a compromise and an evasion at the same time; something that would not be dramatic because that has no interest to us, but something that would be more interesting than sounds like Do-Re-Mi-Fa..."

"People who try to create a musical revolution do not have a chance, but those who turn their back to music can sometimes find it."

"Sound is the vocabulary of nature... noises are as well articulated as the words in a dictionary... Opposing the world of sound is the world of music."

"We live in an age dominated by the problem of limits. We are witnessing the end of progress. We have reached the saturation point. Are we going beyond these limits? Are we going to take the risk? There is much work to do to maintain the planet."

"A plural man with a singular career, he has managed to warn, surprise, shock, and invent."

"I was horrified by modern 12-tone music. I said to myself, 'Maybe I can find something different... maybe salvation, liberation, is possible.'"

"In the world of Pierre Schaeffer, experimentation and entertainment were synonymous; any division between the avant-garde and the everyday simply did not exist."

"Fra tutti il primo Arnaldo Danïello Gran maestro d'amor; ch'a la sua terra Ancor fa onor col suo dir strano e bello."

"E fo meiller trobaire que negus d'aquels qu'eron estat denan ni foron après lui; per que fo apellatz maestre dels trobadors, et es ancar per totz aquels que ben entendon subtils ditz ni ben pauzatz d'amor e de sen."

"E si tot venta'ill freg'aura, L'amor qu'ins el cor mi pleu Mi ten caut on plus iverna."

"Ieu sui Arnautz qu'amas l'aura E cas la lebre ab lo bueu E nadi contra suberna."

"En breu brizara'l temps braus E'l biza, e'l brus e'l blancx Qui s'entresenhon trastuig De sobre claus ram de fuelha."

""O frate," disse, "chesti qu'io ti cerno col ditto," e additò un spirto innanzi, "fu miglior fabbro del parlar materno. Versi d'amore e prose di romanzi soverchiò tutti; e lascia dir li stolti che quel di Lemosì credon ch'avanzi."

"Mas greu veiretz fin' amansa ses paor e ses doptansa, c'ades tem om vas so c'ama, falhir, per qu'eu no·m aus de parlar enardir."

"Can vei la lauzeta mover De joi sas alas contra·l rai, Que s'oblid'e·s laissa chazer Per la doussor c'al cor li vai, Ai, tan grans enveya m'en ve De cui qu'eu veya jauzïon."

"D'aisso's fa be femna parer Ma domna, per qu'e·lh o retrai, Car no vol so c'om deu voler, E so c'om li deveda, fai."

"Chantars no pot gaire valer, Si d'ins dal cor no mou lo chans! Ni chans no pot dal cor mover, Si no i es fin' amors coraus."

"Aisso non es amors; aitaus No·n a mas lo nom e·l parven, Que re non ama si no pren."

"Bel dous companh, tan sui en ric sojorn Qu'eu no volgra mais fos l'alba ni jorn, Car la gensor que anc nasques de maire Tenc et abras, per qu'eu non prezi gaire Lo fol gilos ni l'alba."

"Bel companho, en chantan vos apel! No dormatz plus, qu'eu auch chantar l'auzel Que vai queren lo jorn per lo boschatge Et ai paor que.l gilos vos assatge Et ades sera l'alba."

"Qu'eu cut c'atretan grans sens Es, qui sap razo gardar, Com los motz entrebeschar."

"Be·l saupra plus cobert far! Mas non a chans pretz enter, Can tuch no·n son parsoner."

"Ma fin est mon commencement Et mon commencement ma fin."

"Et quant ma maladie Garie Ne sera nullement Sans vous, douce anemie, Qui lie Estes de mon tourment, A jointes mains deprie Vo cuer, puis qu'il m'oublie, Que temprement m'ocie, Car trop langui longuement. Douce dame jolie, Pour dieu ne penses mie Que nulle ait signourie Seur moy fors vous seulement."

"Qui de sentement ne fait, Son dit et son chant contrefait."

"Et musique est une science Qui veut qu'on rie et chante et dance. Cure n'a de merencolie, Ne d'homme qui merencolie A chose qui ne puet valoir, Eins met tels gens en nonchaloir. Partout ou elle est joie y porte; Les desconfortez reconforte, Et nes seulement de l'oir Fait elle les gens resjoir."

"To arms! to arms! ye brave! The avenging sword unsheathe! March on! march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death!"

"Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé! Contre nous de la tyrannie, L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis) Entendez-vous dans les campagnes Mugir ces féroces soldats? Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes! Aux armes, citoyens, Formez vos bataillons, Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur Abreuve nos sillons!"

"To transform oneself one must give, but to transform oneself one must also learn. One closes oneself off and does not admit love from another, the tenderness or the help of another. The real leap is learning to receive, which is as difficult as learning to give. And it is necessary to learn to ask for what one needs: justice is to give to oneself what one deserves. This is why the gospels say, "Knock and the door will be opened." If I ask for a long life, it is because I have the right to ask for it. If I ask that we will use an energy other than oil, it is because I have the right to ask for it. We have to learn to ask for what is just and to not ask for what it is not necessary to ask."

"I think the art of filmmaking is something you learn through actions, by doing it, not by learning theories. And as you do it, your mind starts to change."

"At that time they said I was crazy because I wanted to make a movie that was 14 or 16 hours. But now people do it. There are three—"Hobbit 1," "Hobbit 2," "Hobbit 3." Everything I wanted to do is possible to do today."

"When we didn't make the picture, Dan O'Bannon needed to be interned in a mental institution for two years, suffering because we didn't get to do "Dune." And when he came out he wrote the script for "Alien." "Alien" was the reaction to not doing "Dune." Who would believe that? But it's true!"

"Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness."