Pearl Cleage (1948) American novelist
Source: Deals with the Devil, and Other Reasons to Riot
Balaustion's Adventure, line 323 (1871).
Source: The complete poetical works of Browning
Pearl Cleage (1948) American novelist
Source: Deals with the Devil, and Other Reasons to Riot
Jello Biafra (1958) singer and activist
Introducing the song "New Feudalism" with The No WTO Combo on (30 November 1999)
“He who makes songs without feeling
Spoils both his words and his music.”
Guillaume de Machaut (1300–1377) French poet and composer
Qui de sentement ne fait,
Son dit et son chant contrefait.
"Remede de Fortune", line 407; translation from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1997) p. 5.
Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter
Pop Chronicles: Show 5 - Hail, Hail, Rock 'n' Roll: The rock revolution gets underway. (Part 1) https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19751/m1/#track/6, interview recorded 1.2.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.
“Formalism is music that people don’t understand at first hearing.”
Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer
Quoted in Boris Schwarz Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1970 (1972) p. 115.
“Those who dance appear insane to those who cannot hear the music.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Misattributed
First recorded appearance: Germaine de Staël's On Germany (1813). ". . . sometimes even in the habitual course of life, the reality of this world disappears all at once, and we feel ourselves in the middle of its interests as we should at a ball, where we did not hear the music; the dancing that we saw there would appear insane." There are several other pre-Nietzsche examples, indicating that the phrase was widespread in the nineteenth-century; it was referred to in 1927 as an "old proverb".
“A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.”
Thomas Beecham (1879–1961) British conductor and impresario
Quoted by H. Proctor-Gregg, Beecham Remembered (1976), p. 154
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
Title poem, section IX.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream
Source: Requiem for a Dream
John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer
Quote of Cage, in an interview with Miroslav Sebestik, 1991; in Listen, documentary by Miroslav Sebestik. ARTE France Développement, 2003; as quoted on Wikipedia, note 54
1990s