British - Composer | November 22, 1961 -
In every generation, politicians let us down, but music can lift us above the fighting and the mistakes. It does not offer answers to specific political questions. Instead, it looks beyond them.
Stephen Hough
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One of the things that touches me most when I play for an audience is that although we may be unable to communicate in words or have diametrically opposed views on hot-button issues, while the music sounds we can be at peace, we can be friends. The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided.
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In superficial terms, to have an orchestral career is to be better than others, or at least to be chosen over others on that particular occasion; it is a form of survival.
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If 'ecstasy' means to stand outside ourselves, then what better ambition can there be as we wait in the wings of the Royal Albert Hall: to leave self-obsession behind and take the audience on a journey across the high wire of Beethoven or the flying trapeze of Liszt.
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Playing the piano is incredibly personal... But when it's your own piece, it's doubly so.
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In Britten or Berg, there's a tension between the sweet and the sour, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the tonal and the atonal, the happy and the sad. That, to me, is what all western art is about - that tension. It's why we want to say anything at all.
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Freedom comes with the impossibility of choosing.
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If they say they don't like the way I play Beethoven, then I can swallow that, and maybe they're right. But if they don't like what I've written, then it's about me.
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Bach and Beethoven erected temples and churches on the heights. I only wanted to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home.
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Learning great works like the Liszt Sonata or Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier' should be a struggle to a certain extent, where you need to labor intensely with your own brain and soul for the meaning of the work instead of cutting and pasting a bunch of stuff together from the Internet and - boom! - there you are with a performance ready to go.
WorkLearningGreatStruggleSoul
I remember, in school during English lessons, I would ask the teacher what were the most difficult books to read, and when she'd say 'Ulysses' or something, I'd run off to the library to check out a copy, eager to attempt the most difficult mountain.
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I don't watch television! At least not when I'm traveling. For some reason, I have always found it depressing to watch television in hotel rooms. I try to use that time, as well as time on planes, to write.
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