A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors.
Colin Wilson

A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors.
Colin Henry Wilson

A symphony is no joke.
Johannes Brahms

A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
Gustav Mahler

Although, I am proud of all my Symphonies as they all have something special to say, my particular favourite is the Fifth. As the great Mahler expert Donald Mitchell said that if Mahler had written another Symphony, it would have been my Fifth!
Malcolm Arnold

And at the same time, I had my very first concert at the age of 16. I hadn't heard a symphony orchestra before, and I was so deeply impressed I said I have to be a conductor.
Kurt Masur

And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.
Elvis Costello

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.
E. M. Forster

But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands.
Michael Tilson Thomas

But some people will say you just did these programs. Well, yes, the programs are important and I'm proud of the programs, but mostly I'm proud of the way the San Francisco Symphony plays these programs.
Michael Tilson Thomas

Coming to understand a painting or a symphony in an unfamiliar style, to recognize the work of an artist or school, to see or hear in new ways, is as cognitive an achievement as learning to read or write or add.
Nelson Goodman

Composers love to write for symphony orchestras because the symphony is the Rolls Royce of musical instruments.
David Del Tredici

Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
Mikhail Bakunin

For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.
Tom Glazer

God comes to us in theater in the way we communicate with each other, whether it be a symphony orchestra, or a wonderful ballet, or a beautiful painting, or a play. It's a way of expressing our humanity.
Julie Harris

I don't see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.
Danny Elfman

I learned from my uncle that jazz, like symphony music, was built to last.
David Amram

I think there's a poet who wrote once a tragedy by Shakespeare, a symphony by Beethoven and a thunderstorm are based on the same elements. I think that's a beautiful line.
Maximilian Schell

I would never have become music director of the Chicago Symphony, which would have been an extremely sad loss.
Georg Solti

I've been playing music all my life, from being a choir soloist at Symphony Hall as a youngster to playing in bands through high school and college at Kent State. Went in the service at 17, out before I was 21.
Arthur Godfrey