Jonathan Biss > Quotes

“Anyone who has been in love knows that infatuation does not come without complexity and, usually, an element of danger. We fall in love — with a person, or an idea, or a work of art — not in spite of the risk of losing ourselves, but because it is a way to lose ourselves.”
― Jonathan Biss, Beethoven's Shadow

“A bad idea may ultimately lead you to a good idea, while nothing, as they say, comes of nothing.”
― Jonathan Biss, Beethoven's Shadow

“Ultimately, rather than making the mistake of trying to be someone else, I wanted to make my own mistakes. This was not simply a question of coming to terms with my intense admiration for Mr. Fleisher; it had to do with a fundamental shift in my mentality — worrying less about the approval or disapproval of the person who happened to be listening at that moment. Once I stopped looking over my shoulder and instead focused my energy on my own responses to my playing (and separating these from other people’s responses is, of course, a complex and ongoing process) the idea of erring became a lot less constricting, and my desire to take on the most challenging music thus became far less mitigated by anxiety.”
― Jonathan Biss, Beethoven's Shadow

“This, I believe, is what is behind the (useful) cliché that a recording is merely a snapshot of one’s relationship with a piece of music at a particular point in time.”
― Jonathan Biss, Beethoven's Shadow

“The very qualities that make music so tempting to write about are the ones that make it impossible to write about. No other art form is quite so defiantly abstract. It inspires the most intense feelings, but these feelings are difficult to describe, and more so to explain. Unlike words or images, our relationship to sounds is one we barely understand.”
― Jonathan Biss, Beethoven's Shadow

“Music is simply difficult — bloody difficult — no matter the time or place.”
― Jonathan Biss, A Pianist Under the Influence

“There are, for all of us, the things we tell everyone, the things we tell just a few people, the things we tell only loved ones (and perhaps therapists), and the things we tell only ourselves. And then, of course, there are the things we do not even admit to ourselves:”
― Jonathan Biss, A Pianist Under the Influence