Igor Stravinsky
Rite of Spring revolutionized modern music
Most quoted
"What is important for the lucid ordering of the work—for its crystallization—is that all the Dionysian elements which set the imagination of the artist in motion and make the life-sap rise must be properly subjugated before they intoxicate us, and must finally be made to submit to the law: Apollo demands it."
— from Poetics of Music, 1939
"For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude, a psychological state, a natural phenomenon, etc.... Expression has never been an inherent property of music and is certainly not the aim of its existence."
— from An Autobiography (Chroniques de ma vie), 1936
"The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation. And the true creator may be recognized by his ability always to find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note."
— from Poetics of Music, 1939
All quotes by Igor Stravinsky (372)
I have never been able to understand why people are so interested in my nationality. I am a citizen of the world.
I am not a revolutionary. I am an evolutionist.
I have always been a man of my time, and I have always tried to express the spirit of my time.
Music is given to us to organize what is chaotic in us: it is a discipline.
To listen is an effort, and a rather tiring one. A radio listener is a man who has ceased to make an effort.
For myself, I have no faith in the future of music, if it is to be based on the past.
I am not a man of theories. I am a man of instinct.
My music is not about ideas, it is about sounds.
The phenomenon of music is nothing other than a phenomenon of time.
The true creator is a man who is not afraid to stand alone.
My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow limits that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings.
I am against the idea of 'expression' in music. Music is not meant to express anything.
The artist is a kind of a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place.
I have always tried to be true to myself, and to my music.
The only thing that matters is the music itself.
I am a religious man, and I believe in God.
The creator is a man who is not afraid to stand alone.
Music is a gift from God.
The artist is a kind of a medium through which the music passes.
I believe in the power of music to transform lives.
Contemporaries of Igor Stravinsky
Other Musics born within 50 years of Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971).