Top 300 Bach Quotes & Sayings

If they think they are doing something new, they ought to do what I do every day - spend at least two hours every day listening to Johann Sebastian Bach and, man, it's all there. If they want to improvise around a theme,which is the essence of jazz, they should learn from the master. He never wastes a note, and he knows where every note is going and when to bring it back. Some of these cats go way out and forget where they began or what they started to do. Bach will clear it up for them.

I think Bach is equally a romantic composer because he laid the seeds harmonically for people like Chopin and the great Romantics, Brahms, so it's difficult to you know all this like labelling and putting - I think Bach is attractive to musicians because he supersedes the labels.

The music of Bach is so timeless, so fulfilling. You don't feel like you have to be in front of it. The music has everything, and you are there to find the balance when you conduct. You don't have to give too much of your individuality. It's Bach, so it's dangerous to get in the way.

Colour does not make so much difference. Look at the Bach Chaconne: There is not one dynamic mark in the whole Bach Chaconne. Colours do not make so much difference.

When you play Bach like Chopin, and Chopin like Bach, something good happens.

I played a lot of Bach's partitas and sonatas; I like the way that Bach was abstracting already from these dance forms.

The miracle of Bach has not appeared in any other art. To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervour, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.

When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice -- and many voices have to be suggested.

B.B. King is no match for Johann Sebastian Bach.

Study Bach. There you will find everything.

I'm a nut for Bach as a composer.

Whenever you study composition you inevitably encounter Bach right off the bat. You can't get across the room without running into him and the other greats. Analyzing Bach absolutely influenced my jazz playing.

If Bach is not in Heaven, I am not going!

God listens to Bach while the angels listen to Mozart.

For me, you can put on something by Bach, and I'll feel better.

Some months ago, while I was preparing a new work, I told a young cinema executive my intention of including in a soundtrack two themes from Bach. But when he asked me which has been the last hit from that Bach?, then I knew that I had no longer place in cinema.

[Bach is the] reason I became a musician

If you play Bach every day, you are not so alone.

In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.

Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.

Perhaps the safest thing to do at the outset, if technology permits, is to send music. This language may be the best we have for explaining what we are like to others in space, with least ambiguity. I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again. We would be bragging of course, but it is surely excusable to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance. We can tell the harder truths later.

The three greatest composers are Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. All the others are cretins.

Yes, I mean like you know, having studied with Yehudi Menuhin that is like some direct route into Bach, because he was one of the foremost interpreters of Bach for the violin.

One of the tracks that I have is Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - by the way, that's Bach's second son - Emanuel Bach's variations on "Le Folie." You'll definitely hear - I mean, I think if we listen to, say, the last couple of minutes of that track, there's a wide range of colors that the harpsichord is capable of. And I think, you know, that gives lie to the assumption that it doesn't have that kind of variety. And I think it very much speaks for itself.

And it totally has transformed my relationship with someone like, say, Bach. You know, Bach is born 330 years ago but, you know, gosh, he really is alive.

There is nothing like a Bach fugue to remove me from a discordant moment... only Bach hold up fresh and strong after repeated playing. I can always return to Bach when the other records weary me.

I come from a family in which music was important, especially German music - from I come from a family in which music was important, especially German music - from Johann Sebastian Bach to Ludwig van Beethoven. I played a lot of piano, mostly Bach. I really loved Glenn Gould's interpretations. to Beethoven. I played a lot of piano, mostly Bach. I really loved Glenn Gould's interpretations.

I think in Baroque music, especially in the case of Bach, what really transformed Bach's musical language, what changed it for him was hearing Vivaldi, hearing the sort of manipulation of small cells of information and patterns in order to generate sort of huge blocks of harmony.

Bach is a colossus of Rhodes, beneath whom all musicians pass and will continue to pass. Mozart is the most beautiful, Rossini the most brilliant, but Bach is the most comprehensive: he has said all there is to say.

Menuhin was playing Bach on a fantastic spiritual level when he was a teenager.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

I think Bach is equally a romantic composer because he laid the seeds harmonically for people like Chopin and the great Romantics, Brahms, so its difficult to you know all this like labelling and putting - I think Bach is attractive to musicians because he supersedes the labels.

Bach almost persuades me to be a Christian.

When the Beatles wrote 'Paperback Writer,' it couldn't have been the same old thing. You can hear so many influences in it, from the blues to Bach, and it's not just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge chorus. They start off singing a cappella, almost like a Bach chorale, and the song goes into this bluesy guitar riff.

I think J.S. Bach's music stands among humankind's greatest accomplishments. For me, Bach's music is not only as good as music gets, but also as good as it gets, period -- as good as existence, reality, life and the world.

For me, Bach is like Shakespeare. He has known all and felt all. He is everything.

Bach was so mathematical and I liked this idea that you could have one instrument going, 'One, two, three, four', and then you have another instrument going, [double time] 'One, two, three four', and another instrument going, [doubled again] 'One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four', so you could add twos and fours and eighths, and that happens a lot in Bach.

I used to love Bach.

If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is certainly God.

I prefer Offenbach to Bach often.

I play Beethoven and Bach. At the same time, Biggie is my dog.

You want something by Bach? Which one, Johann Sebastian or Jacques Offen?

The worst constructed play is a Bach fugue when compared to life.

I think that Bach has a very nice sound on the lute. But I find that what I want to do with Bach is best revealed on the guitar.

If all the music written since Bach's time should be lost, it could be reconstructed on the foundation which Bach laid.

Bach's music is really some of the greatest. I think, in some ways, Bach is the most profound composer of all.

If somebody says, 'Well, what are your favorite composers?' really, what they are saying is, 'What are your favorite composers apart from Bach?' Because obviously, Bach is your favorite composer if you are involved in music at all.

The first music I got really into was Bach.

Beethoven was ahead of the times, Bach behind them.

Having nothing to do, I am correcting the Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by those who are supposed to understand Bach (I have no pretensions to understand better, but I do think that sometimes I can guess).

Music owes as much to Bach as religion to its founder.

Bach is the beginning and end of all music.

Bach is Bach just as God is God.

I think J. S. Bach's music stands among humankind's greatest accomplishments. For me, Bach's music is not only as good as music gets but also as good as it gets, period - as good as existence, reality, life, and the world.

If Beethoven is a prodigy of man, Bach is a miracle of God.

Composers most identified with the chamber music form are Corelli, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and, of course, Bach. Of course, Bach. If there is any one composer who gives us reason and emotion, it is Bach.

Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. Bach and Picasso didn't spring full-blown as Bach or Picasso; they needed models. This is especially true of writing.

I want to be like Johnny Bach or Pete Carril or Tex.

Bach, of course, was my first love. He still is. I mean, he's the man of my life, that's for sure. And when I say that there's been a re-evaluation, look, to be perfectly honest, I think I have a re-evaluation of my relationship with Bach probably every day, and that will never stop. And that's probably why I still get up in the morning and I do this.

Bach is really the ultimate in bass players you know