Beth Anderson: Quotes about beauty

“To make something beautiful is revolutionary (not low class, not easy, not a sign of low intelligence).”

Beth Anderson

Opening-sentence
Beauty is Revolution (1980)

Beauty , Intelligence

“My own mystic bent leads me to believe that musical variations, collage, reiteration and process, or evolution, are beautiful. Life is worth living and beauty is worth making.”

Beth Anderson

Beth Anderson http://www.allmusic.com/artist/beth-anderson-mn0000757980 at allmusic.com, 2013

Life , Beauty , Music

“I've rediscovered the part of my brain that can't decode anything, that can't add, that can't work from a verbalized concept, that doesn't care about stylish notation, that makes melodies that have pitch and rhythm, that doesn't know anything about zen eternity and gets bored and changes, that isn't worried about being commercial or avant-garde or serial or any other little category. Beauty is enough.”

Beth Anderson

Variant quotes:
I've rediscovered the part of my brain that can't decode anything, that can't add, that can't work from a verbalized concept, that doesn't know anything about Zen eternity and gets bored and changes, that isn't worried about being commercial or avant-garde or serial or any other little category. Beauty is enough.
Beauty is Revolution (1980)
Source: Jane Weiner LePage (1983) Women composers, conductors, and musicians of the twentieth century: selected biographies. p. 14

Beauty , Change , Parting

“Beauty means perfect to me, but it also has an additional meaning having to do with being pleasurable, rather than painful. Beauty is hard to make. The making is painful, and involves a certain amount of craft, and a relaxation of the part of the brain that says, "Don't write that. X wrote those four notes in 1542 or 1979 or 1825 or whatever period you are worried about being influenced by."”

Beth Anderson

Beauty is Revolution (1980)

Pain , Pleasure , Beauty , Parting

“The idea that beauty is revolution is a revelation to me. I once believed that the concept of the music was more important than the sound, that the politics of the notation was more important than the time limits of the rehersals and therefore, more important than the sound of the performance”

Beth Anderson

Cited (earlier) in: American Women Composers (1979) AWC news. Volumes 2-3. p. 41
Beauty is Revolution (1980)

Beauty , Music , Idea , Time