Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernsteinwas an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth25 August 1918
CityLawrence, MA
CountryUnited States of America
Leonard Bernstein quotes about
What [Louis Armstrong] does is real, and true, and honest, and simple, and even noble. Every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips, even if only to practice three notes, he does it with his whole soul.
I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees.
To be a success as a Broadway composer, you must be Jewish or gay. I'm both.
...we can all shut-up and go back to our caves.
Even experimental composers, revolutionary composers, self-styled radicals are, in writing revolutionary music, recognizing the music that preceded them precisely by trying to avoid it.
Einstein said that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?
Which of my Jewish roots do I follow?
From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.
Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.
When the thunder rumbles, Now the age of gold is dead. When the dreams we've clung to Trying to stay young, Have left us parched and old instead. When my courage crumbles, When I feel confused and frail, When my spirit falters on decaying altars And my illusions fail -- I go on right then. I go on again. I go on to say I will celebrate another day. I go on. If tomorrow tumbles And everything I love is gone, I will face regret all my days, and yet I will still go on.
Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer; that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts, however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor's existence.
Bernstein has been disclosing musical secrets that have been well known for over 400 years.
When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.
Life without music is meaningless, music without life is academic.