Home > Topic > orchestral
1 " For a short while she considered the idea of orchestral courtesy. Certainly one should avoid giving political offence: German orchestras, of course, used to be careful about playing Wagner abroad, at least in some countries, choosing instead German composers who were somewhat more ... apologetic. "
― Alexander McCall Smith , The Sunday Philosophy Club (Isabel Dalhousie, #1)
2 " One Day you might desperately need to hear power chords and indulgent drum solos. Another might be a day for orchestral sounds. Picking one band above all else is just wrong. But, then again, it's not like what I say has to be etched in blood. Changing my mind later doesn't necessarily mean I'm a total waffler. "
― Kara Lee Corthron , The Truth of Right Now
3 " What is Lisztomania, and how was it cured? Who was Drog, and what was his prophecy regarding Electronic Music? What preparation do you need before throwing an artistic tantrum? Which orchestral musicians are also qualified to run a hospital?The plausible answers to these and many other tantalising questions can be found in this wickedly funny – and occasionally just wicked – book. "
4 " The embrace of present and past time, in which English antiquarianism becomes a form of alchemy, engenders a strange timelessness. It is as if the little bird which flew through the Anglo-Saxon banqueting hall, in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, gained the outer air and became the lark ascending in Vaughan Williams's orchestral setting. The unbroken chain is that of English music itself. "
― Peter Ackroyd , Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination
5 " I found a brief piece of by Antonio Vivaldi around this time which became my ‘Pinhead Mood Music’. Called Al Santo Sepolcro (At The Holy Sepulchre), it opens more like a piece of modern orchestral music, and although it it moves toward Vivaldi’s familiar harmonies, there is always the threat that it will fall back into dissonance. The piece progresses in an exquisite agony, poised on a knife edge between beauty and disfigurement, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. Perfect. "
― , Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor
6 " Greed is not a consequence of poverty. If it were so, why does the art of acquisition continue to hone and whet itself towards ever more sophisticated strategies? Why is there no end to personal betrayal, corporate espionage, and diplomatic deception among nations? In accolade to greed, even semantics and rationalization have graduated to such undreamed-of heights! History, in failing to embrace the truth, always genuflects to the orchestral swings and sways of contemporary power. "
7 " Somerset desperately needs more high-end music making on its doorstep, so the chance to share great music spanning genres as diverse as orchestral classics, trip hop and jazz, in the utterly relaxed and cathartic environment of a Somerset field, is for me the fulfilment of a long-term dream. "
