Stephen Fry's Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music is a book ghostwritten by Tim Lihoreau for author, actor, comedian and director Stephen Fry.
It is based on Fry's regular Classic FM (UK) radio slot and is a book about the history of classical music. Fellow radio host Lihoreau has written a range of Classic FM publications along similar lines.
Fry provided a Foreword in which he states that it is "a very personal book" (p. ix). Although the book is written in the first person, the nature and extent of Fry's contribution is not otherwise explained.
Famous quotes containing the words classical music, stephen, fry, incomplete, utter, history, classical and/or music:
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always greater than its performance—Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, for instance, is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being performed.”
—André Previn (b. 1929)
“Well, at least I have the satisfaction of having destroyed a terrible monster, and in doing so rid the world of an awful curse.”
—Griffin Jay, and Harold Young. Stephen Banning (Dick Foran)
“Art is significant deformity.”
—Roger Fry (1866–1934)
“I dont think there is anything on earth more wonderful than those wistful incomplete friendships one makes now and then in an hour’s talk. You never see the people again, but the lingering sense of their presence in the world is like the glow of an unseen city at night—makes you feel the teemingness of it all.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“We are expected to put the utmost energy, of every power that we have, into the service of our fellow men, never sparing ourselves, not condescending to think of what is going to happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, to go to the utter length of self-sacrifice.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Culture is a sham if it is only a sort of Gothic front put on an iron building—like Tower Bridge—or a classical front put on a steel frame—like the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. Culture, if it is to be a real thing and a holy thing, must be the product of what we actually do for a living—not something added, like sugar on a pill.”
—Eric Gill (1882–1940)
“The music is in minors.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)