American - Critic | February 6, 1956 -
Only the tone-deaf doubt the power of music, though some feel it more strongly than others.
Terry Teachout
MusicPowerFeelDoubtOthersMore
Instrumental music is nonverbal and thus radically ambiguous. It doesn't lend itself to what might be called content-oriented analysis, though plenty of intellectuals have tried to analyze it in precisely that way.
MusicWayAnalysisAnalyzeTried
The backstage play, in which the private lives of theater people are put onstage for the world to see, is one of the diciest of dramatic genres.
PeopleWorldPlaySeeDramatic
Does film music really matter to the average moviegoer? A great score, after all, can't save a bad film, and a bad score - so it's said - can't sink a good one.
GoodMusicGreatBadSaidMatter
Well into the '40s, it wasn't uncommon for big-budget Hollywood movies to contain little or no underscoring, and many of today's directors, following the lead of Martin Scorsese in 'GoodFellas,' accompany their films with pop records, not original music.
MusicTodayMoviesHollywoodLead
Few of us boggle - though we should - at the fact that Louis Armstrong sang and played trumpet with similar panache, or that Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten were equally adept as composers, conductors and pianists.
TrumpetUsFactShouldComposers
What do you see when you look at a representational painting? Most of the time, the first thing I see is a flat piece of canvas covered with colored patterns.
TimePaintingYouLookCanvasSee
Maine likes to call itself 'America's Vacationland.' For many artists, though, it's the office. Since the 19th century, painters from all over the country - including Edward Hopper, Alex Katz, John Marin, Fairfield Porter, Neil Welliver and Andrew Wyeth - have spent large chunks of time there.
TimeAmericaCountryOfficeOver
Nobody reads a reference book to be amused, much less charmed.
BookNobodyMuchReferenceLess
Useful though they are, the vast majority of dictionaries and encyclopedias are poker-faced pieces of work that stick to the facts and present them as soberly - and unstylishly - as possible.
WorkFactsPresentPossiblePieces
The setting of 'Billy Elliot' is the British miners' strike of 1984-85, about which the average American playgoer knows absolutely nothing.
AmericanStrikeNothingBritish
I can remember - barely - when Elton John was still a good songwriter, or at least capable of writing good songs.
GoodWritingRememberI CanCapable
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Terry Teachout quotes