Friday, January 25, 2008

A Lesson with Frederick Delius

The comment on my last post left by rootlesscosmo lead me to seek out this great Delius website, I found a link to this list of Delius quotes (compiled by Bill Thompson) that is well worth sharing. Here are some of my personal favorites:

Emotion is the flesh and the blood of music.

Nothing is so wonderful as elemental feeling; nothing is more wonderful in art than elemental feeling expressed intensely.

Music is a cry of the soul. It is addressed and should appeal instantly to the soul of the listener. It is a revelation, a thing to be reverenced.

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

Always stick to your likings - there are profound reasons for them.

No composer whose chief idea is to be brilliant or startling ever lasts. Cleverness counts for very little, in my opinion.

I believe that harmony is entirely a matter of instinct.

In music, which ought to be the expression of emotion, only that which is based on emotion is capable of development, and nothing based on technique or on anything objective will develop into anything but mere intellectuality.

Form is nothing more than imparting spiritual unity to one's thought. It is contained in the thought itself, not applied as something that already exists.

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