Nigel Kennedy quotes

Nigel Kennedy is a British violinist, celebrated for his virtuosity and innovative interpretations of classical and contemporary music. His breakthrough performance of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" became one of the best-selling classical recordings of all time. He is renowned for his distinctive style, blending genres and redefining the image of the modern classical musician. Here are 15 of his quotes:

If you're playing within your capability, what's the point? If you're not pushing your own technique to its own limits with the risk that it might just crumble at any moment, then you're not really doing your job.

Nigel Kennedy

I think Bach is equally a romantic composer because he laid the seeds harmonically for people like Chopin and the great Romantics, Brahms, so its difficult to you know all this like labelling and putting - I think Bach is attractive to musicians because he supersedes the labels.

Nigel Kennedy

Why would you want to stand there waving a stick when you could be playing an instrument?

Nigel Kennedy

Yes, I mean like you know, having studied with Yehudi Menuhin that is like some direct route into Bach, because he was one of the foremost interpreters of Bach for the violin.

Nigel Kennedy

I can think and play stuff in classical music that possibly violinists who didn't have access to other types of music could never do. It means I'm more flexible within classical music, to be a servant to the composer.

Nigel Kennedy

I see it as my job to try to keep Bach in the mainstream and present his music with, rather than without, its emotional core.

Nigel Kennedy

Menuhin was playing Bach on a fantastic spiritual level when he was a teenager.

Nigel Kennedy

You can't learn pathos or profundity.

Nigel Kennedy

Bach was a top harmonist geezer, which is why the jazz cats love him.

Nigel Kennedy

I'm always improving and I want to get better and never hit a plateau. I find it an amazing adventure.

Nigel Kennedy

Maybe it's egocentric or whatever, but when I'm playing Beethoven, Bach, Hendrix, or whoever it is, in the end, it just feels like my own music and I'm making it up as I'm going along.

Nigel Kennedy

If you do the same thing every night, that's the death of music.

Nigel Kennedy

Even if you're playing Brahms or a Beethoven concerto, you've got to have a different vantage point, slightly, each time.

Nigel Kennedy