David W. Barber > Quotes

“Mozart is just God's way of making the rest of us feel insignificant.”
― David W. Barber, Bach, Beethoven and the Boys: Music History as It Ought to Be Taught

“Too many musicians — singers and instrumentalists — performed it so many times that it’s hard not to just go through the motions of playing (or singing) the notes, rather than remembering that you have to turn the notes into real music.”
― David W. Barber, Getting a Handel on Messiah

“Between 1714 and 1830, every king of England was named George. They were all members of the House of Hanover, which is in Germany. It rather embarrassed the English to have to import their royal family from Germany, but they didn’t have much choice. They’d more or less run out of Stewarts. (Well, no entirely, but that’s another story.) Anyway, the first four Hanoverians were all called George. To make them easier to tell apart, they were numbered, with typical Germanic efficiency, George I, George II, George III, and George IV.”
― David W. Barber, Getting a Handel on Messiah