Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Juliette Nadia Boulangerwas a French composer, conductor, and teacher. She is notable for having taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century. She also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth16 September 1887
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
study break
To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.
music done limits
Nothing is better than music; when it takes us out of time, it has done more for us than we have the right to hope for: it has broadened the limits of our sorrowful life, it has lit up the sweetness of our hours of happiness by effacing the pettinesses that diminish us, bringing us back pure and new to what was, what will be, what music has created for us.
taken succeed done
It is nothing to succeed if one has not taken great trouble, and it is nothing to fail if one has done the best one could.
music notes forgiven
False notes can be forgiven, false music cannot.
truth effects
Do nothing for effect. Do it for truth.
music mistake serious
As far as the execution is concerned ... the most frequent and most serious mistake is to follow the music instead of preceding it.
dies
Do not take up music unless you would rather die than not do so.
tradition habit adore
I adore tradition. I cannot stand habit. Simply to repeat is nothing, also to destroy is nothing. Tradition is never interrupted, we are always evolving but never interrupted.
music ideas substance
Words created divergencies between beings, because their precise meanings put an opinion around the idea. Music only retains the highest and purest substance of the idea, since it has the privilege of expressing all, whilst excluding nothing.
music found composer
Music was not invented by the composer, but found.
order joy satisfaction
Without order there can be no inner satisfaction. Without inner satisfaction there can be no freedom. Without freedom there is no joy.
boredom boring
There is nothing boring in life except ourselves.
music laughter artist
The great conductor is always a despot by temperament and intractable in his ways. ... The artist is obliged to keep his laughter and tears to himself. If they want to emerge, in spite of himself, then he must hide them or unleash them in someone else.
music notes
[On the music of Richard Strauss:] Too many notes!