Quotes from the great composers
Debussy on playing the piano
[There is a] "way of turning the pedal into a kind of breathing which I observed in Liszt when I had the chance to hear him in Rome. I feel Saint-Saëns forgets that pianists are poor musicians, for the most part, and cut music up into unequal chunks, like a chicken. The plain truth perhaps is that abusing the pedal is only a means of covering up a lack of technique, and that making a lot of noise is a way to drown the music you're slaughtering! In theory we should be able to find a graphic means of representing this 'breathing'...it wouldn't be impossible."
from Debussy, Correspondance, p. 1927.
Sibelius on the piano
"I dislike the piano. It is an unsatisfactory, ungrateful instrument, an instrument for which only one composer, Chopin, has succeeded in writing perfectly."
http://www.musicalheritage.com/product/Chopin-Complete-Works/8016417
