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 am a man of order, and I believe in the order of things.
The artist must be a master of his craft.
Music is a form of communion with God.
I believe in the power of music to transform the soul.
The artist's duty is to serve his art.
I am a servant of music.
The more one limits oneself, the more one is free.
My music is an object.
The composer is a kind of aural architect.
I have always tried to be objective in my music.
Music is a temporal art.
The artist must be humble before his art.
I am not interested in psychology in music.
Music is a game, a game of sounds.
The composer's task is to put sounds in order.
I am a man of tradition, but I am also a man of progress.
I have always been a man of order, and I have always been a man of discipline.
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the chains that shackle the spirit.
Music is given to us to organize the chaos of the world.
My music is not meant to be understood, but to be felt.
Contemporaries of Igor Stravinsky
Other Musics born within 50 years of Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971).