“There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen”

— Claude Debussy

Letter to Paul Dukas (1901)
Context: I confess that I am no longer thinking in musical terms, or at least not much, even though I believe with all my heart that Music remains for all time the finest means of expression we have. It’s just that I find the actual pieces — whether they’re old or modern, which is in any case merely a matter of dates — so totally poverty-stricken, manifesting an inability to see beyond the work-table. They smell of the lamp, not of the sun. And then, overshadowing everything, there’s the desire to amaze one’s colleagues with arresting harmonies, quite unnecessary for the most part. In short, these days especially, music is devoid of emotional impact. I feel that, without descending to the level of the gossip column or the novel, it should be possible to solve the problem somehow. There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen, despite themselves and despite their petty mundane troubles, and never mind if they’re incapable of expressing anything resembling an opinion. It would be enough if they could no longer recognize their own grey, dull faces, if they felt that for a moment they had been dreaming of an imaginary country, that’s to say, one that can’t be found on the map.

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Claude Debussy 34

French composer 1862–1918

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"The Music of This Sphere"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)
Context: The need to make music, and to listen to it, is universally expressed by human beings. I cannot imagine, even in our most primitive times, the emergence of talented painters to make cave paintings without there having been, near at hand, equally creative people making song. It is, like speech, a dominant aspect of human biology.

“All of us have the privilege of making music that helps and heals — to make music that makes people happier, stronger and kinder. Don't forget: music is God's voice.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

At the induction ceremony of The Beach Boys into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (January 1988) · Video of acceptance speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZSAQX2uuUY

“There was something so best-musical-ever when people screamed and begged for mercy, and she could listen to a good musical all day.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Surrender

“Most people don’t listen to classical music at all, but to rock-and-roll or hillbilly songs or some album named Music To Listen To Music By…”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Taste of the Age”, p. 12
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

“People will say "there's no money in music", that's not true, there's no money in music to people who aren't educated on how to make money.”

Marcus Orelias (1993) American actor, rapper, songwriter, author and entrepreneur

“The New Age music: "gave the opportunity for untalented people to make very boring music."”

Vangelis (1943) Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music

2005

“If one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act I.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Context: Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

“Listen to them — children of the night. What music they make.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Dracula referring to the howling of the wolves to Jonathan Harker.
Dracula (1897)

“Listen to them. Children of the night, what music they make.”

Garrett Fort (1900–1945) screenwriter

Dracula, in his castle, when he hears wolves howling
Dracula (1931)

“I simply make music, and people have always been foolish enough to pay me for it. I never told them that I would have done it all for nothing.”

Leopold Stokowski (1882–1977) British conductor

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Newton%2BClassics/8802024 CBS TV 1976

“There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen”

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Claude Debussy 34

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