Thoughts on music from Branford Marsalis (b otd 1960): "What is jazz? It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language" "Humans are imperfect...We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life."

Relevant wisdom from Hegel (b otd 1770 - same year as Beethoven): "When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests" "Education is the art of making man ethical." "World history is a court of judgment."

Master complainer though I am, even I couldn't grumble about the setting for last night's concert here in Patmos...

Life advice from Goethe (b otd 1749): “Everyone should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of their life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

Great musical advice from Charlie Parker, b otd 1920: You learn your instrument. Then, you practise, practise, practise. And then, when you finally get up there, forget all that and just wail. If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn. Don't play the sax. Let it play you.

Warning from M. Gorbachev (d otd 2022): "Never before has so terrible a threat loomed so dark over mankind. The only reasonable way out of the situation is agreement on an immediate termination of the race in arms, above all, nuclear arms, on Earth and its prevention in Space."

Happy birthday Itzhak Perlman! My goal is to not be bored by what I do. The only way that I cannot be bored is if I play something and it's all new to me. Teaching is really very, very important...When you teach others, you teach yourself. The most important thing is to listen.

A very happy 80th to Leonard Slatkin - a much-loved musical explorer. "I use my hands like a sculptor, to mold and shape the sound I want, to clarify." "The role of an orchestra in the 21st century isn't just playing, it's about developing future audiences and performers."

Wisdom from JRR Tolkien (d otd 1973): “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” “A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.” “You can only come to the morning through the shadows.”

Advice on how to enjoy life (!) from the wonderful Turgenev (d otd 1883): “Life deceives everyone except the individual who doesn't contemplate it, the individual who demands nothing from it, the individual who serenely accepts its few gifts and serenely makes the most of them.”

Since I (so uncharacteristically) praised jeremydenk ‘s performance of Ives’ Concord sonata, it seems only fair to report that our Joshua Bell just played Wieniawski’s 2nd concerto gorgeously. So important not just to master this music, but to love it - and he does!

Anton Bruckner b otd 200 years ago!! Music of soaring, heartfelt originality and vision. "They want me to write differently. Certainly I could, but I must not. God has chosen me from thousands...How would I stand there before Almighty God, if I followed the others and not Him?"

Beloved, sorely-missed Lars Vogt d otd 2 years ago. Warm-hearted, affectionate, loud-laughed, witty, ardent, an urgently passionate musician - he changed the lives of all who knew him. "You stay with some people that you’ve impacted... Something stays with people.” Yes it does...

Pavarotti d otd 2007. He's so right! "Music making - the most joyful activity possible." "A life in music is a life beautifully spent." And: "One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we're doing and devote our attention to eating."

Challenging thoughts from Queen Elizabeth 1 (b otd 1533): "I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married." “A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.” "The past cannot be cured." “The stone often recoils on the head of the thrower.”

Antonín Dvořák b otd 1841! What a composer - so utterly natural and loveable, but also a profound master. And humbly devout: "Do not wonder that I am so religious. An artist who is not could not produce anything like this...I study with the birds, flowers, God and myself."

Richard Strauss d otd 75 years ago! Not a heroic man, alas - but an extraordinarily skilled master of music, with limitless imagination, uncanny precision, and unique sense of beauty. "Melody...is one of the most noble gifts which an invisible deity has bestowed on mankind."

Wisdom from Leo Tolstoy, b otd 1828: "An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life - becoming a better person." “Everything I know, I know because of love.”. "Music is the shorthand of emotion."

Henry Purcell b otd (?) 1659! A treasure of English music - in fact, of music generally. Such expressive, original, moving music. “As poetry is the harmony of words, so music is that of notes; and as poetry is a rise above prose and oratory, so is music the exaltation of poetry.”

Happy birthday, Arvo Pärt! Creator of pure beauty. "I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener." "Silence is the pause in me when I am near to God."