Saturday, June 27, 2015


The making of music is the everlasting and inescapable act of creation.  The life of music is reborn at every singing.  It actually doesn't exist on paper, but in time and in sound.  It has existed in the composer's spirit, but at each singing it seeks a new life.  And the performer, though his craft is that of representation and his proper approach that of humility, cannot escape the responsibilities of creation.  And that has some moral reference.

-- Robert Shaw

Saturday, June 20, 2015


. . . The arts have a chance to become what the history of man has shown that they should be: the guide and impetus to human understanding, individual integrity, and the common good.  They are not an opiate, an avoidance, or a barrier, but a unifying spirit and labor.

-- Robert Shaw

Saturday, June 13, 2015


It is entirely possible that out of the whole history of the Western world, Bach is the single greatest creative genius.

The thing that essentially qualifies Bach's music is that though it's technically masterful and such, it maintains a humanity that is as natural as the Negro spiritual.  It's extraordinarily human music.  The thing that makes his music last is not its intellectualization but its consummate humanity and the fact that it is simple human emotion in extraordinary persistence and renaissance.  Every time it renews itself, it's a resurrection.

-- Robert Shaw

Saturday, June 6, 2015


Since I think the Arts are sort of the last residence of personal integrity, they have a lot to say about the . . . fellowship of human beings.  People who make music together ultimately end up respecting one another and also have a good sense to respect the creator, who is the composer, more than they do their own performance.  This builds a humility and a tolerance of other human beings that I think is essential to a civilization.

-- Robert Shaw