A Quote by Bela Bartok

Competitions are for horses, not artists. — © Bela Bartok
Competitions are for horses, not artists.
As Bartok put it so succinctly: "Competitions are for horses." Nothing could be more barbaric that the practice or ranking artists as though they were divers or figure skaters....What one suspects is that the appetite for dividing the world into winners and losers, anointed and anonymous, is so compulsive that it feeds with special, vindictive hunger on the most elusive and ephemeral of subjects. For if music can be reduced to games of power and success, then innocence-love without profit-can be dealt a crushing blow.
Not all horses are going to be show jumpers, not all horses are going to be dressage horses. So you have to sort of find where the horse physically fits into what might suit him, but all horses can be comfortable and all horses can have good, solid fundamentals.
The corncob was the central object of my life. My father was a horse handler, first trotting and pacing horses, then coach horses, then work horses, finally saddle horses. I grew up around, on, and under horses, fed them, shoveled their manure, emptied the mangers of corncobs.
I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?
Well, actually I think it's very important with breeding thoroughbreds - which I did for a period - and my husband is head of the Kennel Club, and it's very important with dogs and horses, because otherwise things go wrong in the competitions.
I realized horses have personality when I bought one and I had one, who's now out to pasture, a horse named Drifter. Before that, I was a city boy. Horses, I used to go out to the LaBagh Woods and ride at a stable once every two years or something; no idea about horses. Dogs, I knew, had personalities, but not horses.
I'm used to riding horses. My father used to breed horses when I was a child. I grew up in Tipperary, in the country, and lots of people have horses there.
I ride horses, I love horses, I've owned horses.
I had been riding horses before my memory kicked in, so my life with horses had no beginning. It simply appeared from the fog of infancy. I survived a difficult childhood by traveling on the backs of horses, and in adulthood the pattern didn't change.
With horses, familiarity breeds comfort. If you haven't been around horses for a while (or ever), the best thing to do is to go to the racetrack, a horse show, a rodeo, or some other horsey activity, and watch the horses. Familiarize yourself with the way they move and behave themselves.
I'm used to riding horses. My father used to breed horses when I was a child. I grew up in Tipperary, in the country, and lots of people have horses there. If my parents hadn't been in the business, we would have them anyway, as pets. And my cousin Richard is a jockey.
I grew up riding horses since I was eight. I rode English style and competed every weekend. I had two horses, Scout and Camille, and they were my babies. It taught me a lot about responsibility and commitment. I hope horses will always be in my life.
I don't play polo anymore because I am too old. But we still have a half a dozen horses - a couple of young horses we are teaching how to play polo and older horses that are real trustworthy when you get them up in the mountains.
Since humans first huddled around campfires, stories have been told of wild horses with wind in their manes, fire in their eyes and freedom in their hearts. Those horses eluded capture, and scorned the comforts of civilization. Americans have insisted they want their wild horses to live that way, forever.
I've worked with jazz artists, country artists, classical artists, pop artists. I never wanted there to be categories, because when I was a kid there weren't.
People who are artists professionally are not artists because they want to be artists; they have to be artists. They're compelled to get that creativity out and to share that with others.
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