I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.
quote by Anne Stevenson
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If Beethoven and Bach hooked up with Mozart and made a band, they could be a distant runner up to The D.
quote by Jack Black
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Friends Within The Darkness
I can remember starving in a
small room in a strange city
shades pulled down, listening to
classical music
I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife
inside
because there was no alternative except to hide as long
as possible--
not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:
trying to connect.
the old composers -- Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,
Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and
they were dead.
finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into
the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and
monotonous
jobs
by strange men behind desks
men without eyes men without faces
who would take away my hours
break them
piss on them.
now I work for the editors the readers the
critics
but still hang around and drink with
Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the
Bee
some buddies
some men
sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in.
Anonymous submission.
poem by Charles Bukowski
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If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it.
quote by Andrew Denton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.
quote by Ernest Newman
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Not Communicating To Oneself
Listening to Beethoven we sense
the inspiration pouring from the master.
Johann Sebastian Bach sounds as intense,
but far more distant from disaster.
He seems to want to have a conversation
with anyone prepared to pay attention.
Although we lose him when his great elation
exceeds the limits of our comprehension,
we know that he is trying to communicate,
as if he’d just found, lying on a shelf,
the notes he’s trying to communicate
to us, and not, like Ludwig, to himself.
The proofs of Beethoven’s profundity
lay in the notes that for him had no sound,
while Bach, with effortless fecundity,
encouraged all of us to be profound.
J. M. Coetzee contrasts his relationship to the music of Beethoven and J. S. Bach. Whereas he imagines Beethoven as a genius from whom inspiration pours forth while oblivious to the people who may be listening to him he imagines J. S. Bach as a teacher who is attempting to instruct him while he sits next him while he is playing. As a rider, Coetzee added that there are moments when J. S. Bach’s inspiration exceeds the listener’s comprehension. These are the moments of his greatest inspiration. Listening to this report I was reminded of Richard Eder’s comment on Ceotzee when reviewing his book “Diary of a Bad Year” (“A Writer, A Muse, Their Laundry, ” NYT, January 1,2008) :
I think of the childlike simplicity of late Beethoven on a profound return trip from profundity.”
10/7/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Roll over Beethoven
She loves her classical music does Val
as Tchaikovsky helps her to unwind
then again so does Handel as well
and a bit of Stravinsky she doesn't mind.
She's in heaven listening to Bach
and dreamland to the sounds of Debussy
Mendelssohn sends her all of a quiver
but Borodin too so she's not that fussy.
Beethoven is another favourite though
but Ravel's Bolero she reckons is tops
she dances around her house when it's on
and even when she's down at the shops.
But she likes the volume up really high
especially when it's Mozart or Liszt
but this upsets her next door neighbour
who bangs on the wall with his fist.
So the next time you hear loud classical music
that'll probably be coming from Val Dohrens house
but don't worry she'll be doing her housework
while waltzing about to the sounds of Strauss!
poem by Kevin Halls
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The Mare's Nest
Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse
Was good beyond all earthly need;
But, on the other hand, her spouse
Was very, very bad indeed.
He smoked cigars, called churches slow,
And raced -- but this she did not know.
For Belial Machiavelli kept
The little fact a secret, and,
Though o'er his minor sins she wept,
Jane Austen did not understand
That Lilly -- thirteen-two and bay
Absorbed one-half her husband's pay.
She was so good, she made hime worse;
(Some women are like this, I think;)
He taught her parrot how to curse,
Her Assam monkey how to drink.
He vexed her righteous soul until
She went up, and he went down hill.
Then came the crisis, strange to say,
Which turned a good wife to a better.
A telegraphic peon, one day,
Brought her -- now, had it been a letter
For Belial Machiavelli, I
Know Jane would just have let it lie.
But 'twas a telegram instead,
Marked "urgent," and her duty plain
To open it. Jane Austen read:
"Your Lilly's got a cough again.
Can't understand why she is kept
At your expense." Jane Austen wept.
It was a misdirected wire.
Her husband was at Shaitanpore.
She spread her anger, hot as fire,
Through six thin foreign sheets or more.
Sent off that letter, wrote another
To her solicitor -- and mother.
Then Belial Machiavelli saw
Her error and, I trust, his own,
Wired to the minion of the Law,
And traveled wifeward -- not alone.
For Lilly -- thirteen-two and bay --
Came in a horse-box all the way.
There was a scene -- a weep or two --
With many kisses. Austen Jane
Rode Lilly all the season through,
And never opened wires again.
She races now with Belial. This
Is very sad, but so it is.
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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And it's a crime because the great plays of history, going all the way back to the Greeks, are part of everybody's heritage. It's just like in music, Beethoven or Mozart, that's everybody's heritage.
quote by Tony Randall
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Emotional Upheaval
Only Terry Pratchett can be forgiven for irreverently sending
an unrefined Sam Vines into the pristine company of Pride
and Prejuduce - calling this classic a silly romance
Vimes launches into a diatribe against the stifling gentility that
held rich people enthralled within a useless existence, tells
author Jane Austen to write about
Corpses, murder and war – a cross between Mickey Spillane
and Margaret Mitchell; I love his advice about earning one’s
own keep leading to self-esteem
Enjoy the psychological tension Austen described –without
much action she creates more excitement and emotional
upheaval than Mike Hammer and
Scarlett O’Hara combined – only Wuthering Heights and
Jane Eyre can rival Jane Austen in making me
experience hallucinations!
Snuff – Terry Pratchett; Doubleday 2011
pp 69-72
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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That Music Extraordinaire, Mozart
That music extraordinaire, Mozart,
Who from his tender days, played with desire
Musical from the bottom of his heart.
Sweet notes from his music he did impart
That captivated audience to admire
That music extraordinaire, Mozart,
Whose tones can set an emotion to start
With a charm to have their hearts raised on fire
Musical from the bottom of his heart.
With pleasant pace from his great style of art
Is such that shows he was such a live wire,
That music extraordinaire, Mozart,
Whose harmony when heard is nice and smart
Can cheerfully raise hearts to go much higher
Musical from the bottom of his heart.
Joy occurs from such wonders that does chart
In tremendous ways that truly inspire.
That music extraordinaire, Mozart,
Musical from the bottom of his heart.
poem by Obinna Kenechukwu Eruchie
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Minds in Harmony
Jane's interest is solely in music
Away from the bustle of town
And oh how she loves the music
When Greensleeves Fantasia comes round.
There's magic in the Vaughan Williams' sound.
James' days are too long without music
So many misgivings abound
And oh how he loves the music
When the Moonlight Sonata comes round.
There is mystery in the Beethoven sound.
poem by Joyce Hemsley
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But it wasn't just a technical approach towards the piano, studying the music for this film was also a way of approaching the soul of the film, because the film is really about the soul of Schubert and the soul of Bach.
quote by Isabelle Huppert
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I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven.
quote by Richard Wagner
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Daphne
She has… had… (which
is the more appropriate word
for those who live on so lively
in one’s human memory? …)
that grace of spirit which you’ll know
from reading, seeing acted out,
let’s say, Jane Austen:
at once as serious about life
as any thinker; yet as light-hearted
as she danced life’s play, that
to meet her, was to dance along
with her pure spirit..
a golden girl; I remember her
reading aloud Jane Austen’s letters,
Fanny Burney’s diaries, as if
she and we were living them together;
Shakespeare surely met her like..
she pretended to the belief
(eyes laughing, daring you to disagree..)
that ‘humour’ derives from ‘guna’…
and, she lived it; her soul, deeply serious;
her spirit, dancing to a merry tune;
acting out the play of life; speaking to the heart…
such are the lives that touch our own,
bless them, light them, lighten them;
may I share this memory of her? *
MS
*[guna: in Hinduism, the three ‘qualities’ of
all true goodness; activity; and rest;
continually swaying and swinging
the play of Creation with their imbalance
from first to last]
poem by Michael Shepherd
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To me, Mozart is our Shakespeare, the one who wrote the most dramatic, psychologically most baffling music. He combined ideas that no one else would have thought of putting together.
quote by Lukas Foss
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Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.
quote by Nina Simone
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Music In Our Hearts
Music in our bones music in our hearts
Music in the air singing from a lark,
Sailing ‘cross the river moon
Beethoven sends dreams of the sonatas swoon,
Chopin lulls the senses, for applause,
Snowdrops ring the dainty bells cause
Daffodils start their famous dance,
With a Strauss waltz wafting a lilting breeze of trance
Music in our bones music in our hearts
Music in the air singing from a lark.
Memories of a T S Elliot poem find
Greatness to flow from Andrew Lloyd’s mind.
To drowned us in dreams of falling leaves,
Then Mozart lifts our souls up to the eaves,
His magic his mighty requiem of love
His music to God of all rises far above.
Music in our bones music in our hearts,
Music in the air singing from a lark.
poem by Ken e Hall
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We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning.
quote by George Steiner
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dreams of Vienna
Solstice elves quiet as a fox
Light and snow on the morning pines
Vivaldi writes for the seasons
Symphony of grace and beauty
I wish I were in Vienna
Covered in the jeweled myths
Calling Bach, Mozart, Beethoven
Evening gowns swirl to a waltz
Fall leaves dance like elegant notes
Carriages with ladies dressed like flowers
Poise, science, enlightenment
Music reflecting faith and hope
Male and female in Greek ideals
The reformation sighing freedom
Renascence spurring the arts
Classic forms touching the world
Concert Halls like portals of angels
Vivacious architecture for the ages
A string section like a bolt of heaven
Dreams of Vienna under the starry night
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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The Mirror
Look into the mirror and make a change,
For Michelangelo painted and Beethoven composed;
But keep your mind up to do the right thing and,
Be very great in all that you do in this world.
Shakespeare wrote and Mozart composed,
And you are young and very attractive!
But ith a theologian emeritus without a view;
For behold! I have set before you an open door.
You do have a little strength to carry on this mission,
For the truth does not change like the order of an agape!
But the mirror on the wall is all that you need for a change.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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