Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menottiwas an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, along with over two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular taste...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth7 July 1911
CountryItaly
dead die everybody feeling found rediscover waiting
I have the feeling that everybody was waiting for me to die so they could rediscover me. Then they found out I'm not dead yet, so they are rediscovering me while I'm still alive.
bobby composer love takes white
It takes a Bobby White to make a tired 90-year-old composer write a song about love.
beethoven chopin schubert though time
I really don't think I have that much of the gift; I have a little bit, but I wish I were Schubert or Chopin or Beethoven, though Beethoven had a very difficult time writing melody, too.
accountability vision done
Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do.
dream waiting destroyed
Waiting and hoping are the whole of life, and as soon as a dream is realized it is destroyed.
beethoven call human interests mozart music noblest note wonderful
The only thing that interests me in music is to be able to reach into the, let's call it, 'collective unconscious' of what is noblest in the human spirit, the way you find in the music of Mozart and Beethoven and Verdi that wonderful quality that not a note can be changed.
composers love
My advice to composers is, 'Try to reach 90, and everyone will love you.'
dared modest nobility rediscover
For better or for worse, in 'The Last Savage,' I have dared to do away completely with fashionable dissonance, and in a modest way, I have endeavored to rediscover the nobility of gracefulness and the pleasure of sweetness.
christmas compete nobody
One lived in the impression that nobody could ever compete with the 'Nutcracker' or 'A Christmas Carol.'
melodies
Writing beautiful melodies is not fashionable because it is very difficult to do.
content life memories music simplify
I have a heart problem, so I have to simplify my life and be content with memories and friends and music.
felt fifties suffered
The creation of Spoleto was a social experiment. Because I've always suffered guilt from being a Catholic, when I was in my fifties I felt a need of being needed.