How could anybody think of Bach as 'cold' when these [cello] suites seem to shine with the most glittering kind of poetry," Casals said. "As I got on with the study I discovered a new world of space and beauty... the feelings I experienced were among the purest and most intense in my artistic life!
Interpretation
Pablo Casals emphasizes the emotional depth and beauty found in Bach's cello suites.
In this quote, Pablo Casals expresses his profound appreciation for the emotional richness and poetic quality of Bach's cello suites. He challenges the perception of Bach as 'cold' by highlighting the intense feelings and beauty he discovered through his study of the music, suggesting that true artistry invites deep emotional engagement and reveals a world of beauty and space that resonates with the human spirit.
In practice
During a concert, I might quote Casals to illustrate how deeply music can evoke emotions.
Bach is the supreme genius of music... This man, who knows everything and feels everything, cannot write one note, however unimportant it may appear, which is anything but transcendent. He has reached the heart of every noble thought, and has done it in the most perfect way.
In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness... I see what people call God in all these things.
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.
I am an old man but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life.
To the whole world you might be just one person, but to one person you might just be the whole world.
Hip-hop is a perfect mix between poetry and boxing.
C'est véritablement utile puisque c'est joli. It is truly useful since it is beautiful.
Compare the silent rose of the sun And rain, the blood-rose living in its smell, With this paper, this dust. That states the point.
I think literary theory satisfied a deep love I have for big, encompassing narratives about the world and how it works - which are usually, in the end, more creative visions unto themselves than illuminating explanations.
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
Until I saw Chardin's painting, I never realized how much beauty lay around me in my parents' house, in the half-cleared table, in the corner of a tablecloth left awry, in the knife beside the empty oyster shell.
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