The Saunterer

Claude Debussy on the role of rules in art

    It is this way, he says:

    Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.

    (Quoted from page 296 of What Makes It Great?—Short Masterpieces, Great Composers, by Rob Kapilow. John Wiley and Sons, 2011.)

    For a brief biography of Claude Debussy, click here. For images of or relating to Claude Debussy, click here.

Joseph Fort Newton's definition of education

    These words of Joseph Fort Newton apply to education all arts:

    A man is educated when he can look out upon the universe with a sense of his own littleness in the great scheme of things, and yet have faith and courage. When he loves flowers, can hunt for birds without a gun, and feels the stir of a forgotten joy in the laugh of a child. When he can be happy alone, and high-minded amid the meaner drudgeries of life. When he can look into a wayside puddle and see something beside mud, and into the face of the most forlorn mortal and see something beyond sin. When he knows how to live, and love, and pray, and is not afraid to die.

    (Quoted from “Basic Objectives of Music Education at the Secondary Level,’ by Chester C. Travelstead. Music Educators Journal. 1958.)

    For a brief biography of Joseph Fort Newton, click here.

 

Thomas Alva Edison on the value of failing

  To find the needle in a haystack, it helps to eliminate where it is not.  Hear Thomas Alva Edison:

    Results? Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.

    (Quoted on page 74 of The Mind of God & Other Musings, by Shirley A. Jones. New World Library.)

    For a brief biography of Thomas Alva Edison, click here.

Samuel Butler on the inadequacy of language

    Every writer is frustrated with trying to say more than language permits. Samuel Butler explains the problem:

        We want words to do more than they can. We try to do with them what comes to very much like trying to mend a watch with a pickaxe or to paint a miniature with a mop; we expect them to help us to grip and dissect that which in ultimate essence is as ungrippable as shadow.

    (Quoted on page 13 of Virginia Woolf, by Allen McLaurin. Cambridge University Press. 1973.)

    For a brief biography of Samuel Butler, click here.

 

Leopold Stokowski's hope for the future of the arts

    Hear Leopold Stokowski:

    The future of all the arts is very important to the future of humanity. It has to do with the sensitivity to everything cultural. If the life of humanity in the future becomes chiefly material, the level of human life will not be very high. If we enjoy the material things of life and also enjoy the beauty of the arts, and particularly of, for me, music, then the level of human life and the enjoyment of life can be great and high. This is what I hope will happen.

(Quoted from page 25, Music Journal, 1967 Annual Anthology) 

    For a brief biography of Leopold Stokowski, click here.