# Inundation of classical quotes



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I have taken the liberty of posting my hugeous collection of classical quotes, most somewhat barbed, here:

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/classical-quotes----lots-of-them

If you have your own favorite quotes, you can post them in this thread. I'll add them to my page if I am so moved.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Wonderful! (and a hundred other positive adjectives).

I printed to PDF to save them.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I can understand when critics insult great composers, because you don't expect much from critics. But it's amazing to see almost every great composer put down some other great composer. Where they all fearing for their paychecks so much that they had to, at least unconsciously, tear down their competition?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Beecham on Karajan: "A sort of musical Malcolm Sargent". 

I did that from memory but then Googled it and also found the following Beecham quotes:

(Describing J.S. Bach) “Too much counterpoint; what is worse, too much Protestant counterpoint.”

“All the arts in America are a gigantic racket run by unscrupulous men for unhealthy women.”

(Said to a female ‘cellist in his orchestra) “Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands – and all you do is scratch it.”


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

"Look here, in nothing, no profession, no occupation in the world (except psychiatrists) are there so many prigs and humbugs and intellectual scallywags as there are in the unfortunate industry, craft and art of music."

Sir Thomas Beecham


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I always enjoyed this exchange between Arthur Rubenstein and Jascha Heifetz:


Rubinstein reported later that Heifetz was particularly perturbed by the billing in the concert programs because Rubinstein’s name always came first, followed by Heifetz and then Piatigorsky. Heifetz wondered why the billing couldn’t rotate so that each of them would be mentioned first at one time or another.

“I don’t mind,” Rubinstein supposedly replied, “but as far as I know, all trios are written for piano, violin, and cello, and traditionally one advertises the names of the players in exactly that Heifetz argued that he had seen some trios for violin and cello with piano accompaniment."

Rubinstein doubted it, Heifetz insisted. Rubinstein lost his temper, “Jascha,” he shouted, “even if God were playing the violin, it would be printed Rubinstein, God, and Piatigorsky, in that order!”


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

_"Why do our British orchestras engage so many third-rate foreign guest conductors when we have so many second-rate conductors of our own?" -- Sir Thomas Beecham. _

This was apparently a barb aimed at Kubelik when he was appointed music director of Covent Garden, a post which Beecham craved but didn't get.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

You can find this free online:

Beethoven, the Man and the Artist: As Revealed in His Own Words. It has over 300 of his quotes. He was certainly an advanced philosopher.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

It may already be there but this quote by Schubert is quite poignant.

"No one feels another's grief, 
no one understands another's joy. 
People imagine they can reach one another.
In reality they only pass each other by."


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

maybe not a quote, but an anecdote

When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Beethoven was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.

When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."

He listened a while longer, and said, "There's the Eighth Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling." So the magistrate kept listening; "There's the Seventh... the Sixth... the Fifth..."

Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, "My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Beethoven decomposing."


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Mozart's comment on Bach
In 1789, Mozart traveled from Vienna to Leipzig at an invitation to visit the St. Thomas School where Bach had been such an important figure. From Bach biographer Christoph Wolff, quoting the NBR: "the choir surprised Mozart with the performance of the double chorus motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied by Bach. Mozart knew this master more by hearsay than by his works, which had become quite rare; at least his motets, which had never been printed, were completely unknown to him. Hardly had the choir sung a few measures when Mozart sat up, startled; a few measures more and he called out 'What is this?' And now his whole soul seemed to be in his ears. When the singing was finished he cried out, full of joy: 'Now there is something one can learn from!'"﻿


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