orchestra quotes

There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

- SirThomas Beecham
Quoted in Harold  Atkins and  Archie Newman Beecham Stories (1978).

Soit donc que vous composiez, soit donc que vous jouiez, ne pensez non plus au spectateur que s'il n'existait pas. Imaginez sur le bord du the  a"  tre, un grand mur qui vous se  pare du parterre; jouez comme si la toile ne se levait pas. Whether you compose or act, think no more of the spectator than if he did not exist. Imagine at the edge of the stage a large wall which separates you from the orchestra; act as if the curtain never rose.

- Denis Diderot
  Discours sur la poe  sie dramatique, introducing the theatrical concept of the'fourth wall'.

A piece for orchestra without music.

- (Joseph) Maurice Ravel
Of his Bole r o. Quoted in R Nichols Ravel (1977).

Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist. I probably am. The thing that Jesus really would've liked would be the guy that plays the kettle drums in the orchestra.

-J(erome) D(avid) Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye, ch.18.