Things to Contemplate

A work of art has no importance whatever to society.  It is only important to the individual.

Vladimir Nabokov, “Strong Opinions,” 1973

All passes.  Art alone enduring stays; The bust outlives the throne.

Theophile Gautier, “L’Art,” 1876

The works of the creative spirit last, they are essentially imperishable, while the world-stirring historical activities of even the most eminent men are circumscribed by time.  Napoleon is dead — but Beethoven lives.

Bruno Walter, 1946

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

Tolstoy, “What is Art”

The notes I handle no better than many pianists.  But the pauses  between the notes—ah,  that is where the art resides!

Artur Schnabel [Chicago Daily News, 11 June 1958]

Our nation really suffers from a cultural problem more than a scientific one.  Whether we’re behind the Japanese people is secondary.  Our culture is dying from the inside.

Wynton Marsalis [National Commission on Music Education, 1991]

Music whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.

Emerson [National Commission on Music Education, 1991]

Music is an orphan and it will  always be an orphan until we get a grip on the music education of the young.

Leonard Bernstein [National Commission on Music Education, 1991]

What schools must do is provide students with the means to discover what is within them and help them develop it, not just for the sake of their own self-satisfaction, but for the good of society—indeed, the civilization. And that cannot take place if music is not a basic element of the curriculum.

Robert Marsh, music critic of the Chicago Sun-Times [[National Commission on Music Education, 1991]

We rely heavily on logic and cognitive processes and, indeed, that is half of our condition as human beings. But the other, subtler half—the intuitive, creative part—we treat like a shameful alien cousin to our personalities … In my own life, I spent my formative years feeling like a freak of nature, because that alien cousin was the part I completely identified with, but was not valued or validated by my teachers.

Rosanne Cash, Recording Artist,  [National Commission on Music Education, 1990]

The US government spends only .095 percent of what it spends on the support for science. It spends nearly 29 times more on science education than it spends on arts education.

National Commission on Music Education, 1991