English Composer Quotes

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

The silver swan, who, living had no note,
When death approached unlocked her silent throat.

My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.

It is only that which cannot be expressed otherwise that is worth expressing in music.

On music:
Should it not rather come from the heart as well as the brain?

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Thee, wond'rous chemist! Who canst make, at will, Wash-balls from dew-drops; and canst blooms distil; With blooms and dews, Dame Nature's self canst pose, And brew, like spiders, poison from the rose!

Bear in mind that parts of the score may be devoid of direct musical relevance.

Style is the dress of thought; a modest dress,
Neat, but not gaudy, will true critics please.

The distance in form, intention, mood and expression between Schubert's songs for voice and piano and those of, say, Adele is remarkably small.

Sister, awake! close not your eyes,
The day her light discloses;
And the bright morning doth arise
Out of her bed of roses.

See the clear sun, the world's bright eye,
In at our window peeping;
Lo, how he blusheth to espy
Us idle wenches sleeping!

Therefore awake, make haste I say,
And let us without staying
All in our gowns of green so gay
Into the park a maying.

Every man and woman alive is gifted by God in some special way. People who have a self-image of worth are going to see value in what they do. This is the attitude that motivates them to be and to do their best. It's a drive that comes from within people.

The Prince of Wales' brother, along with some other,
Slaps me on the back, and says 'Come and see mother.'
I'm Bert, Bert, and Royalty's hurt when they ask me to dine,
I say 'No –
I've just had a banana with Lady Diana,
I'm Burlington Bertie from Bow.'

Roll on, thou ball, roll on! Through pathless realms of Space Roll on! What though I'm in a sorry case? What though I cannot meet my bills? What though I suffer toothache's ills? What though I swallow countless pills?

Come again: sweet love doth now invite,
Thy graces that refrain,
To do me due delight,
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die,
With thee again in sweetest sympathy.

The falling out of faithful friends, renewing is of love.

The songs I had are withered Or vanished clean. Yet there are bright tracks Where I have been.

There are no compensations to weigh against advancing years – no, not one.

With a wracking head and literally my whole body shaking as with ague I write this and tell you I have just this afternoon early finished Clavicembalisticum... The closing 4 pages are so cataclysmic and catastrophic as anything I've ever done — the harmony bites like nitric acid — the counterpoint grinds like the mills of God...

Poetry and painting have arrived to their perfection in our own country; music is yet but in its nonage [immaturity], a forward Child, which gives hope of what it may be hereafter in England, when the masters of it shall find more Encouragement.

The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behooves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c'est l homme, what is likely to happen if l homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual?

Why should we not enter into our inheritance in the church as well as the concert hall?

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
An Englishman will take you into a large room, beautifully proportioned, and will point out to you that it is white- all over white- and somebody will say what exquisite taste. You know in your own mind, in your own soul, that it is not taste at all˘that is the want of taste˘that is mere evasion. English music is white and evades everything.

If nobody likes your work, you have to go on just for the sake of the work. And you're in no danger of letting the public make you repeat yourself. Every artist ought to pray that he may not be "a success". If he's a failure he stands a good chance of concentrating upon the best work of which he's capable.