Quotes

//"On this Sunday afternoon I keep playing the notes anyway, running through every piece. Because that's important too, to have each note of each score burned into my mind and my fingers. The physical part of the performance needs to feel as natural as pouring water from a pitcher.// //Still, with just two days to go, I should be feeling actual music. It should feel real. The composer's ideas ought to be burning the paint off my practice room walls. The emotions should be vaporizing the muscles and the violin and the fingers and the bow, until there's nothing left but pure thought. Because that's what a true performance is, and nothing less will do" (p. 100).//

//"Because I want things to work out the way they do when Bach is in charge. Or Paganini. Or Jane Austen. Or even Yeats. Because I'm desperate for a nice, tidy ending, maybe with a pleasant rhyme or two, or that wonderful last burst of symphonic harmony that makes me want to shout "yes!" But it's not happening that way" (Clements, 2006, p. 153).//

". . . and I feel like my world is changing. Again. And there's nothing subtle about it. Everything has shifted, like when a symphony suddenly modulates to a different key. And I wonder how many times the world can change in one week. I'm beginning to think that it's a large number" (Clements, 2006, p. 92).


 * References**

Clements, Andrew. (2006). //Things hoped for.// NY: Philomel Books.