“Not since the time of Berlioz has a symphonic composer created such a stir. In far-away America, great conductors vie with each other for the jus primae noctis of his music. The score of his Seventh Symphony, the symphony of struggle and victory, has been reduced to a roll of microfilm and flown half-way across the world…to speed the day of the American première. How the old romantics would have loved to be the center of such a fantastic adventure!”

— Dmitri Shostakovich

Nicolas Slonimsky in The Musical Quarterly, 1942; reprinted in his Writings on Music (2005), p. 84.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Not since the time of Berlioz has a symphonic composer created such a stir. In far-away America, great conductors vie w…" by Dmitri Shostakovich?

Dmitri Shostakovich 32

Russian composer and pianist 1906–1975

Related quotes

“For the same reasons a music composer writes its own symphony, whereas others already did the same things, but differently.”

Benoît Minisini (1973) French computer programmer

Answering why he wrote an independent scripting language for Gambas. Quoted from FOSDEM interview, " http://www.madeasy.de/7/benoit.htm http://www.madeasy.de/7/benoit.htm" Mad Easy (2005-02-14)

“It seemed to me that had Haydn lived to our day he would have retained his own style while accepting something of the new at the same time. That was the kind of symphony I wanted to write: a symphony in the classical style. And when I saw that my idea was beginning to work, I called it the Classical Symphony.”

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer

Page 46; from the Autobiography.
Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960)

“Yes, I’m profoundly a representative of the great hypervirtuosic Romantic epoch. But as already mentioned, my roots also go back to Bach and this special style of interpretation, where I’m also at home. In this special field of tension I also see many of the major composers and works in the Romantic tradition. It was no less than Schumann himself who said that great music finds all its combinations in Bach. Indeed, Schumann also builds up his works in polyphonic style, and even in his orchestral scores and symphonic movements he is a counterpointer. As Romantic and modern his work must have seemed to people of his era and lifetime, in main he was a classicist. That means that - and only to name one typical Romantic composer - Schumann cannot be understood without Bach.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

“The soul of man is like the rolling world,
One half in day, the other dipt in night;
The one has music and the flying cloud,
The other, silence and the wakeful stars.”

Alexander Smith (1829–1867) Scottish poet and essayist

Horton.

“Unlike American film score composers, Japanese film score composers are given only three or four days in which to write the music for a movie. Because of this, I have almost always been very frustrated while writing a score. I therefore can't select any of my scores as favorites.”

Akira Ifukube (1914–2006) Japanese composer

As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview I" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)