"Death is an awful thing. I don't believe in it myself"
About this Quote
“Death is an awful thing. I don’t believe in it myself” lands like a perfectly timed rest in the middle of a grim measure: the line acknowledges mortality, then instantly refuses to grant it the dignity of finality. Coming from Eugene Ormandy, a conductor whose job was to wrestle vast, living sound out of an orchestra night after night, the joke isn’t just gallows humor. It’s craft pride masquerading as metaphysics.
The first sentence is blunt, almost childlike. No philosophical padding, no heroic acceptance. Death is “awful” because it interrupts the only thing artists actually control: the making. Then comes the pivot - “I don’t believe in it” - a deliberately absurd claim, as if death were a rumor you can decline like an unwanted engagement. The humor works because it’s anchored in a musician’s worldview: you spend your life insisting that air can be shaped into meaning, that time can be organized into something that feels inevitable. A conductor, especially, is trained to treat endings as choices: cadence, cutoff, silence. Even the “end” is managed.
Subtext: Ormandy is asserting a kind of aesthetic immortality without the usual sanctimony. The body expires; the work persists; the interpretations echo. There’s also a backstage practicality here: in the performance economy, you’re only as real as your next concert. Not “believing” in death reads like a refusal to let the schedule stop.
It’s witty, yes, but also a small defense against the terror of disappearance: if you can phrase the void as a category error, you can keep conducting straight through it.
The first sentence is blunt, almost childlike. No philosophical padding, no heroic acceptance. Death is “awful” because it interrupts the only thing artists actually control: the making. Then comes the pivot - “I don’t believe in it” - a deliberately absurd claim, as if death were a rumor you can decline like an unwanted engagement. The humor works because it’s anchored in a musician’s worldview: you spend your life insisting that air can be shaped into meaning, that time can be organized into something that feels inevitable. A conductor, especially, is trained to treat endings as choices: cadence, cutoff, silence. Even the “end” is managed.
Subtext: Ormandy is asserting a kind of aesthetic immortality without the usual sanctimony. The body expires; the work persists; the interpretations echo. There’s also a backstage practicality here: in the performance economy, you’re only as real as your next concert. Not “believing” in death reads like a refusal to let the schedule stop.
It’s witty, yes, but also a small defense against the terror of disappearance: if you can phrase the void as a category error, you can keep conducting straight through it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mortality |
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