Bruce Haynes > Quotes

“We are not the same musicians, mentally nor the same human beings, and not being the same, it is very difficult to read an old music treatise in its proper meaning and context. The solution, of course, is to read less about music and more about context.1”
― Bruce Haynes, The Pathetick Musician: Moving an Audience in the Age of Eloquence

“Rhetoric is the performing artist’s toolbox, the lore of “playing an audience,” a set of techniques and skills, practiced for many centuries, that can be drawn from to produce specific results. That”
― Bruce Haynes, The Pathetick Musician: Moving an Audience in the Age of Eloquence

“It may seem at times that I speak rather dictatorially, basing my arguments on nothing more than a simple one must, without offering further evidence. . . . I can only say that anyone who doesn’t wish to trust my taste, which I have attempted to purify over the years and which I have carefully considered, is welcome to try the reverse of that I teach, after which he can choose that which seems to suit him best. I don’t wish to claim infallibility. If I am shown with reason and moderation something that’s better than what I’ve said, I will be the first to accept and publicize it. I continue to investigate the issues I have treated here.3”
― Bruce Haynes, The Pathetick Musician: Moving an Audience in the Age of Eloquence

“Expression in music can be compared to that of an orator. The orator and the musician have the same goal, both in the composition of their productions and in their expression. They want to seize hearts, to excite or calm the movements of the soul, and transport the listener from one passion to another. It is in their interests to have some idea of each other’s abilities.13”
― Bruce Haynes, The Pathetick Musician: Moving an Audience in the Age of Eloquence

“Our intention is to demonstrate how vital it is for all involved in early music—performers, scholars, programmers, and audiences—to continue to think about what performing this music means—as much to the culture that created it as in today’s world. Examining”
― Bruce Haynes, The Pathetick Musician: Moving an Audience in the Age of Eloquence

“When a musician . . . does not have the ability to bend the souls of listeners to where he wishes, his skill and knowledge may be considered null and vain. —Vincenzo Galilei, 1581”
― Bruce Haynes, The Pathetick Musician: Moving an Audience in the Age of Eloquence

“The main accent has to lie on diction, narratorship, not of course in a modern sense . . . but in an old Quintillian-based sense. —Frans Brüggen11”
― Bruce Haynes, The Pathetick Musician: Moving an Audience in the Age of Eloquence