“A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at any tempo, with or without rhythmic nuances, and it will still be great music. That's how music should be written, so that no-one, no matter how philistine, can ruin it.”

— Dmitri Shostakovich

Letter to Isaac Glikman, August 28, 1955; Josiah Fisk & Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (1997) p. 364.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 15, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at an…" by Dmitri Shostakovich?

Dmitri Shostakovich 32

Russian composer and pianist 1906–1975

Related quotes

“For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever.”

Aaron Copland (1900–1990) American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor

Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812.

“We live in a world of disposable music; fast-food music without any content… Music is not fireworks, music is feeling. So let's try to change this and bring music back which is really what matters.”

Salvador Sobral (1989) Portuguese singer

"Portugal's Eurovision triumph", Euronews (14 May 2017) http://www.euronews.com/2017/05/14/portugal-has-won-the-2017-eurovision-song-contest

“I think there are some objective [musical] qualities… how complex something is, how melodic, how diverse the tonality is, et cetera. But I could also make a piece of music that contains all of those and yet isn't "good" from a subjective viewpoint. For example, take Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", Beatles "Yesterday", and Underworld's "Born Slippy", and play them all on top of each other at the same time. Great music in their own right, but terrible sounding together.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

“Music is not a language. Any musical piece is akin to a boulder with complex forms, with striations and engraved designs atop and within, which men can decipher in a thousand different ways without ever finding the right answer or the best one…”

Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001) Greek composer

Introductory notes for Diatope performance, 1978 http://www.moderecords.com/catalog/148xenakis.html

“And the fact of the matter is that everyone should play music because it's such a beautiful gift. It's my religion. But maybe not everyone should play it in front of me. It's okay to play music in your rocking chair or whatever.”

Josh Homme (1973) American musician

Reported in Jay Babcock, " JOSHUA HOMME: People say [record] labels are evil. No, they’re just lame. http://www.arthurmag.com/2007/12/04/josh-homme-people-say-labels-are-evil-no-theyre-just-lame/", Arthur Magazine (December 4, 2007).

“A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile”

Don McLean (1945) American Singer and songwriter

Song lyrics, American Pie (1971), American Pie
Context: A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while.
But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The Day the Music Died.