# Classical quotes



## KenOC

I see a quotes thread, but none dedicated to music. I have a barrelful of these! Hope others have some. Anyway, unable to resist...

On Brahms: "I do not deny that the Requiem is a solid piece of musical manufacture. You feel at once that it could only have come from the establishment of a first-class undertaker." -- George Bernard Shaw


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## Stargazer

"The G-major Concerto took two years of work, you know. The opening theme came to me on a train between Oxford and London. But the initial idea is nothing. The work of chiseling then began. We’ve gone past the days when the composer was thought of as being struck by inspiration, feverishly scribbling down his thoughts on a scrap of paper. Writing music is seventy-five percent an intellectual activity." -Ravel

"On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind." -Brahms, on Bach's Chacconne from Partita 2

"And why didn't they encore the Fugue? That alone should have been repeated! Cattle! Asses!" -Beethoven on his Große Fuge, I love this one lol


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## GreenMamba

"Stockhausen, Berio, and Boulez were portraying in very honest terms what it was like to pick up the pieces of a bombed-out continent after WWII. But for some Americans in 1948 or 1958 or 1968--in the real context of tail-fins, Chuck Berry and millions of burgers sold--to pretend that instead we are going to have the dark brown angst of Vienna is a lie, a musical lie."

-Steve Reich


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## KenOC

Max Reger, writing to a hostile critic: "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me."


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## Couchie

_If one has not heard Wagner at Bayreuth, one has heard nothing! Take lots of handkerchiefs because you will cry a great deal! Also take a sedative because you will be exalted to the point of delirium!_
-- Gabriel Fauré

_Not until the turn of the century did the outlines of the new world discovered in Tristan begin to take shape. Music reacted to it as a human body to an injected serum, which it at first strives to exclude as a poison, and only afterwards learns to accept as necessary and even wholesome._
-- Paul Hindemith


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## KenOC

Speaking of Wagner...John Ruskin on Die Meistersinger: "Of all the bête, clumsy, blundering, boggling, baboon-blooded stuff I ever saw on a human stage, ... and of all the affected, sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless, topless, bottomless, topsiturviest, tongs and boniest doggerel of sounds I ever endured the deadliness of, that eternity of nothing was the deadliest, so far as the sound went. I never was so relieved, so far as I can remember in my life, by the stopping of any sound - not excepting railway whistles - as I was by the cessation of the cobbler's bellowing."


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## Couchie

KenOC said:


> Speaking of Wagner...John Ruskin on Die Meistersinger: "Of all the bête, clumsy, blundering, boggling, baboon-blooded stuff I ever saw on a human stage, ... and of all the affected, sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless, topless, bottomless, topsiturviest, tongs and boniest doggerel of sounds I ever endured the deadliness of, that eternity of nothing was the deadliest, so far as the sound went. I never was so relieved, so far as I can remember in my life, by the stopping of any sound - not excepting railway whistles - as I was by the cessation of the cobbler's bellowing."


What a cruel man.


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## KenOC

Couchie said:


> What a cruel man.


Ruskin was writing to a friend, so I'm not sure who he was being cruel to.


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## SiegendesLicht

And just who on earth is this John Ruskin and who gave him the right to talk with such comtempt about the Master of all masters?


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## superhorn

But Ruskin certainly had a way with words, you must admit !


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## Carpenoctem

"What?!" - Beethoven


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## KenOC

Sir Thomas Beecham: "The sound of a harpsichord: two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm."


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## Huilunsoittaja

"If you want Richard, try Wagner, if Strauss, try Johann." - Glazunov

Get what he is implying?  :tiphat:


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## KenOC

"There are three levels of intelligence: 'stupido', 'stupidissimo', and 'tenore'." -- Arturo Toscanini


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## Arsakes

"Straight-away the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God, and not only do I see distinct themes in my mind's eye, but they are clothed in the right forms, harmonies, and orchestration."
- Johannes Brahms

"Even if I know I shall never change the masses, never transform anything permanent, all I ask is that the good things also have their place, their refuge."
- Richard Wagner

"To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist."
- Robert Schumann
:angel:


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## KenOC

"I have played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless *******!" -- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1886


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## tdc

"I am not a modern composer in the strictest sense of the word, because my music is an evolution, not a revolution. While I have always been receptive to new ideas in music, I have never tried to throw the laws of harmony and composition into the discard. On the contrary, I have always drawn inspiration generously from the masters. I have never stopped studying Mozart. To the greatest extent possible my music is built upon the traditions of the past and grows out of them..."

-Ravel


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## Arsakes

"In the Negro melodies of America I find all that is needed for a great and noble school of music."
"Mozart is sunshine."
- Dvorak

"A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything."
- Gustav Mahler


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## KenOC

"As soon as anyone says two words about music, one word will be wrong." -- Stravinsky


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## KenOC

Schumann describing Haydn: "...an old family friend whom one receives gladly and respectifully but who has nothing new to tell us."


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## ahammel

KenOC said:


> Schumann describing Haydn: "...an old family friend whom one receives gladly and respectifully but who has nothing new to tell us."


That's the problem with being dead, I suppose.


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## Huilunsoittaja

KenOC said:


> Schumann describing Haydn: "...an old family friend whom one receives gladly and respectifully but who has nothing new to tell us."


Burrrn :fire: :fire: :fire:

:tiphat:


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## Lunasong

Music is the only sensual pleasure without vice.

~Samuel Johnson


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## science

attributed to diva Zinka Milanov: 

"Dollink, either you got the voice or you don't got the voice: and I got the voice."


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## KenOC

Asked what he thought of Stockhausen, Sir Thomas Beecham replied that he thought he had trodden in some once.


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## ahammel

More Beecham, on the topic of Beethoven's Seventh:



Sir Thomas Beecham said:


> What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.


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## KenOC

"Karajan? He enthuses the masses. So does Coca Cola." --Sergiu Celibidache


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## Carpenoctem

Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass? -- Michael Torke

His music used to be original. Now it's aboriginal. -- Sir Ernest Newman on Igor Stravinsky


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## KenOC

George Bernard Shaw again, and again on Brahms: "His wantonness is not vicious: it is that of a great baby, gifted enough to play with harmonies that would baffle most grown-up men, but still a baby, never more happy than when he has a crooning song to play with, always ready for the rocking horse and the sugar-stick, and tiresomely addicted to dressing himself up as Handel or Beethoven and making a prolonged and intolerable noise."


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## clavichorder

KenOC said:


> "As soon as anyone says two words about music, one word will be wrong." -- Stravinsky


That snarky rascal Stravinsky.


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## KenOC

More Beecham! "Why do our British orchestras engage so many third-rate foreign guest conductors when we have so many second-rate conductors of our own?"


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## Lisztian

Beecham's opinion's of the three B's:

Beethoven: "a tub-thumper."
Brahms: "That old bore."
Bach: "Too much counterpoint - and what is worse, Protestant counterpoint."

Beechham has to be my favourite personality of any musician in the 20th century.


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## mud

Martinu says: "I think the greatest danger facing contemporary music is that it seeks, through analyses and explanations, to justify itself; it seems afraid of not appearing sufficiently 'contemporary' or 'modern'. All this can only end in creating a mental attitude which is not at all favourable to the composer in giving free play to his ideas. It can only restrain him from expressing himself fully, completely, and honestly. We play continually with the words 'modern' and 'contemporary,' and by doing so we complicate for ourselves the creative process, which is, in itself, quite mysterious and complicated. To chase after novelty, at any price, is obviously not a good system. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the desire to seek new musical expression. New musical expression should arise from the subject-matter, should be the result of a composer's personality and experiences, it should not be the result of unusual technical means. Technical means are the artist's private business. The technique comes out of the work itself; not from the technique. Music is not a question of calculation. The creative impulse is identical with the wish to live, to feel alive." [1943]

I had gleaned as much just from listening to contemporary music, so his point was right on for me.


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## KenOC

"Conducting is the last bastion of quackery outside the medical profession." -- Stephen Kovacevich


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## Xaltotun

_Originally Posted by Sir Thomas Beecham 
What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about._

I actually refer to the 7th as "the Yak symphony" because of this. And it's one of Beethoven's best, so hooray for the yaks!


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## superhorn

Here are two quotes by the inimitable otto Klemperer :

"George Szell conducts like a machine . But a first-rate machine !"

" A musicologist is someone who knows everything about ology, but nothing about music ".


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## KenOC

Oh-oh. "He was refreshing but not very bright. His freshness came from an absence of knowledge."
-- Pierre Boulez, on John Cage


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## pendereckiobsessed

Music is at once the product of feeling and knowledge, for it requires from its disciples, composers and performers alike, not only talent and enthusiasm, but also that knowledge and perception which are the result of protracted study ection
- Alban Berg


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## KenOC

"The worst musician among the musical geniuses." -- Maurice Ravel on Hector Berlioz


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## Arsakes

"How vulgar and rude are the composers of 20th century" - Arsakes


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## KenOC

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung." --Voltaire


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## KenOC

Still picking on Igor.

"Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?" - Stravinsky


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## ahammel

Eugene Ormandy is a rich source of these. My favourite:



Eugene Ormandy said:


> That's the way Stravinsky was. Bup, bup, bup, bup. The poor guy's dead now. Play it legato.


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## brianwalker

_But Tosca we have with us always, like the poor, like death and taxes -_ Joseph Kerman

_Otello and Falstaff, the two late Shakespeare operas, have long been admired almost universally down to the last acciaccatura, even by those who do not otherwise warm to Verdi._ - Same guy


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## Huilunsoittaja

KenOC said:


> Still picking on Igor.
> 
> "Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?" - Stravinsky


Holy cow, YOU'RE NOT A GOD THAT WE MUST HANG ON YOUR EVERY WORD, STRAVO! :scold:

Old favorite:
"You may criticize my compositions, but you can't deny that I am a good conductor and a remarkable conservatory Director." - Glazunov (being tongue-in-cheek as he often was)

One of my recent favorites:
"Arensky's a man of enormous talent, but there is something strange, unstable, unhealthily nervous and slightly, as it were, not quite normal mentally." - Tchaikovsky


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## KenOC

Alex Ross, from "The Rest Is Noise":

"When in 1999, he (Boulez) was asked why so few major works of the fifties and sixties had become repertory pieces, he blandly replied... 'Well, perhaps we did not take sufficiently into account the way music is perceived by the listener.' "

Ya think, Pierre?


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## PetrB

Couchie said:


> What a cruel man.


Yes, Wagner is known to have been egocentric, thoughtless and mean


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## PetrB

"I don't think it means anything to be popular."
"When we see the popular tastes and the popular opinion constantly being manipulated by all sorts of different ways, it seems to me popularity is a meaningless matter."

Elliott Carter


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## PetrB

"“I firmly believe that compositions have a will of their own, though some people smile at the concept.” ~ Einojuhani Rautavaara


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## Vaneyes

KenOC said:


> "Conducting is the last bastion of quackery outside the medical profession." -- Stephen Kovacevich


Said before his inclusion?


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## GreenMamba

"I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer."

Richard Strauss


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## Vaneyes

"There's Pa Szell, and then there's Maazel."

- Ray Still


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## KenOC

"I think a lot of Bernstein - but not as much as he does." -- Oscar Levant


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## jani

KenOC said:


> "I think a lot of Bernstein - but not as much as he does." -- Oscar Levant


I don't think that he was too egoistic.


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## SpanishFly

I will definitely be taking some flak for this one, but I couldn't resist 

'The piano is a monster that screams when you touch it's teeth.' 
-Andres Segovia

Perhaps this one will be better recepted:

'Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.'
-W. A. Mozart


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## Carpenoctem

SpanishFly said:


> 'Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.'
> -W. A. Mozart


That's actually misattributed. Mozart didn't say it.


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## KenOC

I've seen that attribution before. If Mozart didn't say it, do you know who did?


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## Carpenoctem

Sure, scroll to misattributed quotes, you'll find the source there.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart


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## KenOC

Aha! Thanks!


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## KenOC

"As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note." -- Georges Bizet

Also from GB: "Religion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against the weak; 
religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice."


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## Andreas

During a 1913 concert in Vienna, which featured works by Webern, Schoenberg and Berg, a fight errupted in the audience over the apparently provocative works. Viennese composer Oscar Straus was present at the scene and later said that "the thud of the punch had been the most harmonious sound at the entire concert".


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## Andreas

Huilunsoittaja said:


> "Arensky's a man of enormous talent, but there is something strange, unstable, unhealthily nervous and slightly, as it were, not quite normal mentally." - Tchaikovsky


Such criticism coming from _Tchaikovsky_!


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## KenOC

Napoleon Bonaparte: "My dear Cherubini, you are certainly an excellent musician; but really, your music is so noisy and complicated, that I can make nothing of it."

Luigi Cherubini: "My dear general, you are certainly an excellent soldier; but, in regard to music, you must excuse me if I don't think it necessary to adapt my compositions to your comprehension."

I didn't believe this when I read it, but have verified it. The author adds, "This is said to have been the beginning of their estrangement."


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## Huilunsoittaja

Andreas said:


> Such criticism coming from _Tchaikovsky_!


Well, a disturbed man would recognize another, eh? Makes Tchaikovsky look more stable actually.


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## KenOC

Oops! Another: "One should try everything once, except incest and folk dancing." -- Sir Arnold Bax


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## KenOC

Sir George Grove on Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, 1896:

"In taking leave of the Symphony it is impossible not to feel deep gratitude to this great composer for the complete and unalloyed pleasure which he here puts within our reach. Gratitude, and also astonishment... What boldness, what breadth, what beauty! What a cheerful, genial, beneficent view over the whole realm of Nature and man... To hear it is like contemplating, not a work of art, or man's device, but a mountain, or forest, or other immense product of Nature -- at once so complex and so simple; the whole so great and overpowering; the parts so minute, so lovely, and so consistent; and the effect so inspiring, so beneficial, and so elevating."


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## KenOC

"In my day, Furtwängler and Bruno Walter and Kleiber and I HATED each other. It was more healthy."
--Otto Klemperer


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## clavichorder

A Sorabji quote about Medtner:
"Like Sibelius, Medtner does not flout current fashions, he does not even deliberately ignore them, but so intent going his own individual way is he that he is simply unconscious of their very existence... he has made for himself, by the sheer strength of his own personality, that impregnable inner shrine and retreat that only the finest spirits either dare or can inhabit."

The thing about Medtner not flouting current fashions may have been true in the public sense, but in his book he's one of the harshest gifted 20th century composers about modernism that I've encountered. Still, I love the other parts of the quote.


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## Arsakes

"Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries." - Richard Wagner


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## KenOC

"No one has a mind any more for what is good, what is vigorous -- in short, for real music! Yes, yes, that's how it is, you Viennese! Rossini and his pals, they're your heroes. You want nothing more from me! Sometimes Schuppanzigh gets a quartet out of me, but you've no time for the symphonies, and you don't want Fidelio. It's Rossini, Rossini above everything. Perhaps your soulless strumming and singing, your own shoddy stuff that you take for real art -- that's your taste. Oh, you Viennese!"

-- Beethoven, 1824


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## KenOC

"I'd pay another kreuzer if they'd stop!" (overheard by Czerny at an early performance of the Eroica)


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## GreenMamba

"If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles "

-Aaron Copland


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## peeyaj

"Here, there is, besides masterly musical technique and composition, still life in all its fibers, finest nuances in color, meaning everywhere, clearest expression of detail, and over all of it, finally, there is poured a romanticism as one already knows it of Franz Schubert from elsewhere. And this *heavenly length* of the symphony, like a long novel in four volumes as for example by Jean Paul, who can also never find an end, and that for the best reasons, in order to let the reader re-create, afterward."

Robert Schumann on discovering Schubert's Great C Major..


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## peeyaj

*Beethoven:* "Truly, the spark of Divine genius resides in this Schubert".

*Schumann: *"Schubert, whose name, I thought, should only be whispered at night to the trees and stars … will always remain the favourite of youth … Time, though producing much that is beautiful, will not soon produce another Schubert".

*Franz Liszt:* "...the most poetic musician that ever lived".

*Anton Rubinstein:* "Once more, and a thousand times more, Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert are the highest summits in music".

*Dvorak: *"In his gift of orchestral colouring, Schubert has had no superior".

*Richard Strauss:* "Lucky Schubert, who could compose what he wanted, whatever his genius made him do".

*Artur Schnabel:* " .. the composer nearest to God".


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## Arsakes

"Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought." - Arthur Schopenhauer


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## KenOC

Haydn the businessman (after a Salomon concert, contemplating his take):
"3,000 gulden in one night. Only in London!"


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## KenOC

"Do you think me so devoid of taste that I would stand there in front of the orchestra, violin in hand, but like a listener, while the oboe plays the only melody in the entire work?"

-- Pablo de Sarasate, explaining his refusal to play the Brahms Violin Concerto


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## KenOC

Can't help myself. Another.

"Rightness -- that's the word! When you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds the last is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant, in that context, then chances are you're listening to Beethoven. Melodies, fugues, rhythms - leave them to the Tchaikovskys and Hindemiths and Ravels. Our boy has the real goods, the stuff from Heaven, the power to make you feel at the finish: Something is right in the world. There is something that checks throughout, that follows its own law consistently: something we can trust, that will never let us down."

--Leonard Bernstein


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## KenOC

Nobody else with any quotes?

"Musicians talk of nothing but money and jobs. Give me businessmen every time. They really are interested in music and art." -- Jean Sibelius


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## tdc

"Copy, and if while copying, you remain yourself, that's because you have something to say."

- Ravel


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## tdc

"Do not interpret my music, just play it!"

-Ravel

"I declare then that my pieces must be performed as I have marked them."

-Francois Couperin


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## tdc

When Ravel was asked what he meant by the terms 'evolution' and 'revolution' in the context of composition:

"Suppose you are in a room, studying...; after a few hours you feel that the atmosphere is a little stuffy and you need to change the air, and you open the window. You let the fresh air enter the room, after a while you close the window, that's all. That's evolution. You are in the room and you feel that you need a change of air, and you take a stone, put that through the window and break the window. Of course the fresh air enters, but after that you have to repair the window. That's revolution!... I don't see myself needing to break a window; I know how to open it!"

-Ravel


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## tdc

"Debussy's great service to music was to reawaken among all musicians an awareness of harmony and its possibilities. In that, he was just as important as Beethoven, who revealed to us the possibilities of progressive form, or as Bach, who showed us the transcendent significance of counterpoint. Now, what I am always asking myself is this: is it possible to make a synthesis of these three great masters, a living synthesis that will be valid for our time?"

-Bartok


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## KenOC

A young Daniel Barenboim was about to go onstage to perform a piano concerto with the elderly Barbirolli when he noticed that Sir John's fly was open. "Don't worry, my boy...dead birds never fly away."


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## PetrB

KenOC said:


> "Do you think me so devoid of taste that I would stand there in front of the orchestra, violin in hand, but like a listener, while the oboe plays the only melody in the entire work?"
> 
> -- Pablo de Sarasate, explaining his refusal to play the Brahms Violin Concerto


LOL - showing exactly what he did, and did not understand. "Where is the melody" is a common, and simplistic statement, but does show that most people, even the lovers of 'classical music' listen if not completely, mainly then, to only 'the top.'


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## PetrB

Musical theater composer Noel Coward on inspiration:

"My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director" (translates as 'a check.')


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## pendereckiobsessed

Music should be able to invoke the natural emotions in all human beings. Music is not notes fixed on apiece of paper.

- Toru Takemitsu

Music is a means capable of expressing dark dramatism and pure rapture, suffering and ecstasy, fiery and cold fury, melancholy and wild merriment – and the subtlest nuances and interplay of these feelings which words are powerless to express and which are unattainable in painting and sculpture.
- Dmitri Shostakovich


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## PetrB

"One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles." ~ Igor Stravinsky


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## PetrB

That most famous Stravinsky quote....

*"For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music.* That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention - in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being."

Years later, he clarified that to...

"The over-publicized bit about expression (or non-expression) was simply a way of saying that _music is_ supra-personal and super-real and as such _beyond verbal meanings and verbal descriptions._ *It was aimed against the notion that a piece of music is in reality a transcendental idea "expressed in terms of" music, with the reductio ad absurdum implication that exact sets of correlatives must exist between a composer's feelings and his notation.* It was offhand and annoyingly incomplete, but _even the stupider critics could have seen that it did not deny musical expressivity, but only the validity of a type of verbal statement about musical expressivity._ I stand by the remark, incidentally, though _today I would put it the other way around: *music expresses itself.*"_


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> LOL - showing exactly what he did, and did not understand. "Where is the melody" is a common, and simplistic statement, but does show that most people, even the lovers of 'classical music' listen if not completely, mainly then, to only 'the top.'


Sarasate, it seems, did love a good tune. A coarse and plebian taste? Probably his most popular composition is _Fantasy on Carmen_. Quite fine, but perhaps only for those who do appreciate melody.


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## KenOC

"Too much counterpoint; what is worse, Protestant counterpoint." --Beecham on Bach


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## KenOC

On Shostakovich's music: "...battleship-grey in melody and harmony, factory-functional in structure; in content all rhetoric and coercion." --Robin Holloway


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## tdc

"The greatest source of inspiration is hard work. Of course, I also believe in inspiration itself, but sometimes you have to provoke it, call on it repeatedly, even though it may take a while. There are times when I feel uninspired and I don't want to compose. I call these my 'bewitched' periods. I have to be touched with a magic wand."

- Joaquin Rodrigo


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## tdc

“Spanish dance, Spanish poetry, the forms of older Spanish composers all found their place in Rodrigo’s output. And, for all the popularity of the Concierto de Aranjuez, the best of that output is still unknown, works like the exquisitely beautiful Música para un códice salmantino, (a setting of a poem called “Ode to Salamanca” 1953), a cantata for bass, chorus and eleven instruments, or the extraordinarily stark Himnos de los neófitos de Qumran (1965-74), for three sopranos and chamber orchestra, to texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. If such pieces were better known, the popular image of the lightweight, folky composer, on whom more “serious” connoisseurs rather look down their noses, would have to be drastically revised. Rodrigo’s art may well have been modest in its outward expression, but in addition to its delicate sweetness it also contained the epic and the profound.”

-Martin Anderson

"...His preference for forms rooted in popular tradition, not to be confused with the commonplace, led to clashes with avant-garde circles. And, in all truth, led also to jealousy on the part of many frustrated avant-garde circles. "

-Editorial: “En busca del más allá”. From the article published in the Opinion section of Diario 16, Madrid July 7, 1999. 

“The success of Concierto de Aranjuez has somehow eclipsed Rodrigo’s other works. They need to be brought out and rediscovered, and Rodrigo should not be considered the author of only one work because the future will undoubtedly reveal other treasures to us.”

-Julian Bream

“My cup may be small, but I drink from my own cup”

-Joaquin Rodrigo


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## KenOC

"Art is long and life is short; here is evidently the explanation of a Brahms symphony." --Edward Lome


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> "Art is long and life is short; here is evidently the explanation of a Brahms symphony." --Edward Lome


Ha ha ha!!


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## KenOC

"Wagner, thank the fates, is no hypocrite. He says out what he means, and he usually means something nasty." -- James Huneker


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## KenOC

"I care not who makes a nation's laws, just let me write its songs." --Confucius


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## tdc

"To listen only to records is a sin of narcissism. It is important to hear live music, in concert, which is a source of emotions that a record can never convey."

-Joaquin Rodrigo


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## KenOC

Ludwig Spohr taking on Beethoven's late quartets and 9th Symphony: "It is true that there are people who imagine they can understand them, and in their pleasure at the claim, rank them far above his earlier masterpieces. But I am not of their number and freely confess that I have never been able to relish the last works of Beethoven. Yes, I must even reckon the much admired Ninth Symphony among these, the three first movements of which seem to me, despite some solitary flashes of genius, worse than all the eight previous symphonies. The fourth movement is, in my opinion, so monstrous and tasteless and, in its grasp of Schiller's Ode, so trivial that I cannot understand how a genius like Beethoven could have written it."


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## Lunasong

What makes Stravinsky so quotable?

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."

"A good composer does not imitate; he steals."


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

Lunasong said:


> What makes Stravinsky so quotable?
> 
> "Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
> 
> "A good composer does not imitate; he steals."


Cuz he was a back-stabbing, good-for-nothing rarhgharahgharh that's why!


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## Mahlerian

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Cuz he was a back-stabbing, good-for-nothing rarhgharahgharh that's why!


And a heck of an elitist, to boot!

But he was a great composer.


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## KenOC

"Why cannot we understand that in art, as in everything else, there are some things to which we must not accustom ourselves?"

--Camille Saint-Saëns


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## KenOC

Beecham on Bach: "Too much counterpoint; what is worse, Protestant counterpoint."


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## KenOC

"You could say: 'Why not invent a completely new language of music that uses none of the existing ideas?' Well, Pierre Boulez said he would do that, and who listens to Pierre Boulez?"

-- Richard Stallman


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## KenOC

"Beethoven's reputation is based entirely on gossip. The middle Beethoven represents a supreme example of a composer on an ego trip." -- Glenn Gould


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## KenOC

Why who could be drumming away there?
If it isn't little Modernsky!
He's had his pigtails cut.
Looks pretty good!
What authentic false hair!
Like a peruke!
Quite (as little Modernsky conceives of him),
Quite the Papa Bach!

--Schönberg rankling Stravinsky


----------



## KenOC

Oops, another. John Ruskin on Die Meistersinger: "Of all the bête, clumsy, blundering, boggling, baboon-blooded stuff I ever saw on a human stage, ... and of all the affected, sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless, topless, bottomless, topsiturviest, tongs and boniest doggerel of sounds I ever endured the deadliness of, that eternity of nothing was the deadliest, so far as the sound went. I never was so relieved, so far as I can remember in my life, by the stopping of any sound - not excepting railway whistles - as I was by the cessation of the cobbler's bellowing."


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## science

KenOC said:


> Nobody else with any quotes?
> 
> "Musicians talk of nothing but money and jobs. Give me businessmen every time. They really are interested in music and art." -- Jean Sibelius


I don't know who said it and I'll have to paraphrase, but some painter said something like, "The critics talk of movements and styles and genres and manifestos. The artists talk of the price of paint and brushes."


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## science

PetrB said:


> That most famous Stravinsky quote....
> 
> *"For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music.* That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention - in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being."
> 
> Years later, he clarified that to...
> 
> "The over-publicized bit about expression (or non-expression) was simply a way of saying that _music is_ supra-personal and super-real and as such _beyond verbal meanings and verbal descriptions._ *It was aimed against the notion that a piece of music is in reality a transcendental idea "expressed in terms of" music, with the reductio ad absurdum implication that exact sets of correlatives must exist between a composer's feelings and his notation.* It was offhand and annoyingly incomplete, but _even the stupider critics could have seen that it did not deny musical expressivity, but only the validity of a type of verbal statement about musical expressivity._ I stand by the remark, incidentally, though _today I would put it the other way around: *music expresses itself.*"_


Thanks for posting that. I've never seen the second one.


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## Huilunsoittaja

KenOC said:


> Why who could be drumming away there?
> If it isn't little Modernsky!
> He's had his pigtails cut.
> Looks pretty good!
> What authentic false hair!
> Like a peruke!
> Quite (as little Modernsky conceives of him),
> Quite the Papa Bach!
> 
> --Schönberg rankling Stravinsky


Nothing better than division at the musical war-front. :tiphat:


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Why who could be drumming away there?
> If it isn't little Modernsky!
> He's had his pigtails cut.
> Looks pretty good!
> What authentic false hair!
> Like a peruke!
> Quite (as little Modernsky conceives of him),
> Quite the Papa Bach!
> 
> --Schönberg rankling Stravinsky


Interestingly enough, Schoenberg loved Petrushka, which is in some ways one of the most Russian of Stravinsky's Russian works. He found Oedipus Rex odd and off-putting, along with Neoclassicism in general.

He admired Shostakovich, and defended him from his students' attacks.


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## KenOC

"No one's ever really pointed out how few chords there are in any given century! Impossible to count how often since Gluck people have died to the chord of the sixth and now, from Manon to Isolde, they do it to the diminished seventh! And as for that idiotic thing called the perfect triad, it's only a habit, like going to a café." --Claude Debussy


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## KenOC

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." --Hunter S. Thompson


----------



## science

Not specifically about music but probably relevant to a few of the recurring discussions here: 

"It isn't the man who wants to who continues the tradition, it's the man who can, and sometimes he's the man who knows the least about it." -- Eugenio Montale


----------



## science

I have shared this one before, but I don't know if it's in this thread. I got it from Clive James' _Cultural Amnesia_, p. 482. He writes that it is attributed to Zinka Milanov:

"Dollink, either you got the voice or you don't got the voice: and I got the voice."


----------



## science

Here is another from Clive James, this time on page 602: 

"There are no genres, there are only talents." -- Jean-François Revel


----------



## KenOC

"Rimsky-Korsakov- what a name! It suggests fierce whiskers stained with vodka." --correspondent in the New York Musical Courier (1897)


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## Huilunsoittaja

KenOC said:


> "Rimsky-Korsakov- what a name! It suggests fierce whiskers stained with vodka." --correspondent in the New York Musical Courier (1897)


Wahahaaa! Yes, those Russian barbarians, trying to be civil like everyone else, but couldn't quite achieve it.


----------



## GreenMamba

"It's hard to make a revolution when, two revolutions ago, they said that everything is permitted."
-Charles Wuorinen


----------



## KenOC

"I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equaled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig."

--Alfred Hitchcock


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

KenOC said:


> "I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equaled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig."
> 
> --Alfred Hitchcock


Q. If you were lost in the woods, who would you trust for directions, an in-tune bagpipe player, an out of tune bagpipe player, or Santa Claus? 
A. The out of tune bagpipe player. The other two indicate you have been hallucinating.


----------



## KenOC

"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven."

--Jascha Heifetz


----------



## Bone

"Never look at the trombones; it only encourages them." R. Strauss


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

"Is such music needed by anyone? I must tell you how I dislike it all. Beethoven is nonsense, Pushkin and Lermontov also" - Leo Tolstoy - speaking of Rachmaninoff's composition "fate"

"Only Scriabin tonight" - Rachmaninoff.


----------



## pendereckiobsessed

This may have been posted earlier, but this is one of my favorite quotes about modern music

I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that modern music and modern art is not a conspiracy, but is a form of truth and integrity for those who practise it honestly, decently and with all their being.

- Michael Tippett


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## rrudolph

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…

-Frank Zappa


----------



## jani

Why this thread only has three stars?
This is a great thread!
Did some users downvote it because some of the quotes slandered their favorite composer&era?

Woohoo, my vote promoted it as a four star thread!


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## KenOC

Vaughan Williams on Ludwig's 9th: "Beethoven obviously thought the stars were jolly good fellows, fond of a rousing chorus, a pitcher of beer and a kiss from the barmaid."


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## GreenMamba

"A melody is not merely something you can hum. It may be too complex for that, too torturous or jagged or fragmentary, and in instrumental writing, it may go far beyond the limitations of the human voice. You must broaden our conception of what a melody may be if you want to follow what goes on in the composer's mind."

Aaron Copland


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## rrudolph

The word 'beauty' is as easy to use as the word 'degenerate.' Both come in handy when one does or does not agree with you. 

-Charles E. Ives


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## science

KenOC said:


> Vaughan Williams on Ludwig's 9th: "Beethoven obviously thought the stars were jolly good fellows, fond of a rousing chorus, a pitcher of beer and a kiss from the barmaid."


A kiss from the barmaid. Never thought of that. Just added it to my bucket list. Hopefully I can do that during Oktoberfest, get two birds with one stone. (Oh, that's a pun, and that'd make three things off the list....)


----------



## rrudolph

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.

-John Cage


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

"I dream of instruments obedient to my thought and which, with their contribution of a whole new world of unsuspected sounds, will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm." 

Edgard Varese


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## KenOC

George Bernard Shaw on Brahms: "I do not deny that the Requiem is a solid piece of musical manufacture. You feel at once that it could only have come from the establishment of a first-class undertaker."


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## jani

“Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on the backside.”

Ludwig van Beethoven


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## userfume

- "I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces."
Ravel


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## Andreas

"After extensive analysis of Bach, even Beethoven appears as some kind of decorative entertainment music."
Theodor W. Adorno


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## Taggart

Not one I agree with but good none the less:

Johann Sebastian Bach:
All Bach's last movements are like the running of a sewing machine.
-- Arnold Bax


----------



## science

Not strictly about classical but inevitably relevant - this is Gioia, in _The History of Jazz_:

"...the accepted discourses relating to twentieth-century music are poorly equipped to cope with figures who straddle different idioms. For example, most chronicles of musical activity in the 1920s will draw an implicit delineation between popular music, jazz, and classical composition.... Such categorizations may make the narrative structure of a music history book flow more smoothly, but much is lost in the process.... Perhaps this would not be so much of a problem if genres rarely crossed paths, but--for better or worse--the modern age is marked by the tendency for distinct styles to coalesce and cross-fertlize. *In music, purity is a myth, albeit a resilient one.* The historian who hopes to come to grips with the powerful currents of creativity in modern times must learn to deal with these composite art forms on their own terms or not at all. There is no high road on the postmodern map, just a myriad of intersecting and diverging paths."

I added the bold.


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## LordBlackudder

''sod it i've broken my quill.'' - ben dover


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

International Composers' Guild

"The International Composers' Guild refuses to admit any limitations, either of volition or of action. The International Composers' Guild disapproves of all 'isms'; denies the existence of schools; recognizes only the individual."


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## Taggart

Handel

(To a singer who had threatened to jump on Handel's harpsichord) "Let me know when you will do that and I will advertise it. For I am sure that more people will come to see you jump than to hear you sing."


----------



## Skilmarilion

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, one of my favourites ...

"The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven's. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart's jewel, is Mendelssohn's." _-- Joseph Joachim_


----------



## tdc

Skilmarilion said:


> Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, one of my favourites ...
> 
> "The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven's. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart's jewel, is Mendelssohn's." _-- Joseph Joachim_


I'm guessing Bach's masterpieces in the genre weren't well known to Mr. Joachim at the time.


----------



## CypressWillow

KenOC said:


> Max Reger, writing to a hostile critic: "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me."


I must admit this is one of my favorite quotes of all time!


----------



## Op.123

I don't know if it has been mentioned yet but.. "I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them." Frederic Chopin


----------



## GraemeG

Richard Strauss, to the string players before the rising phrase at the opeing of _Don Juan_: "Gentlemen, I would ask those of you who are married to play this phrase as though you were engaged."
GG


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## ahammel

"[The string quartet] is a genre which Beethoven in particular made famous, and causes all those who are not Beethoven to be _terrified_ of it."

-Gabriel Fauré


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## SottoVoce

KenOC said:


> "Too much counterpoint; what is worse, Protestant counterpoint." --Beecham on Bach


Reminds me of the common complaint thrown towards Mozart by his less able contemporaries: "Too many notes..."


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## SottoVoce

Schenker's last words: "From the St. Matthews Passion, something occured to me.."


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## Mahlerian

Pauline Strauss on her husband, Richard: "And they've got the nerve to encourage him to write pieces no one wants to play? Whom do they please? One or two people! In any case not me, because I can't make any sense of them at all. He should sit down and write pieces that will be played everywhere!"


----------



## Andreas

"There are orchestras who have never played Bruckner in their life - even though they play Bruckner cycles every year." - Celibidache (addressing the Berlin Philharmonic during rehearsals, 1992)


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## KenOC

"Remember the music of Java [at the Universal Exhibition of 1889], which contained every nuance, even the ones we no longer have names for. There tonic and dominant had become empty shadows of use only to stupid children."

--Claude Debussy


----------



## PetrB

“It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.” ~ Nick Hornby


----------



## Simon Moon

The battle of the egos within the 'million dollar trio'.

Rubinstein to Heifitz on Heifitz' insistence that he gets top billing sometime:

“Jascha,” he shouted, “even if God were playing the violin, it would be printed Rubinstein, God, and Piatigorsky, in that order!”


----------



## Couac Addict

_"I'm just riding down to the bike shop for some new brake pads"._ - Ernest Chausson


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## KenOC

"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." -Anton Webern (last words)


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## PetrB

KenOC said:


> "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." -Anton Webern (last words)


But wasn't that Groucho Marx _as_ Webern in Mel Brooks' "Frankenstein." ?????


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## Taggart

KenOC said:


> "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." -Anton Webern (last words)


That quotation definitely rings a Bell - didn't know Webern was a Kipling fan. Interesting that Peter Greenaway who wrote the libretti Death of a Composer about Webern and others also made "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover". What *did* he know?


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## KenOC

"Anton, you're smoking that smelly thing outside and that's all there is to it!"


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## PetrB

SottoVoce said:


> Schenker's last words: "From the St. Matthews Passion, something occured to me.."


Well, we're spared whatever _that_ was


----------



## Aramis

Πᾶν μοι συναρμόζει ὃ σοὶ εὐάρμοστόν ἐστιν, ὦ κόσμε· οὐδέν μοι πρόωρον οὐδὲ ὄψιμον ὃ σοὶ εὔκαιρον. πᾶν μοι καρπὸς ὃ φέρουσιν αἱ σαὶ ὧραι, ὦ φύσις· ἐκ σοῦ πάντα, ἐν σοὶ πάντα, εἰς σὲ πάντα. ἐκεῖνος μέν φησιν·


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## KenOC

Aramis said:


> Πᾶν μοι συναρμόζει ὃ σοὶ εὐάρμοστόν ἐστιν, ὦ κόσμε· οὐδέν μοι πρόωρον οὐδὲ ὄψιμον ὃ σοὶ εὔκαιρον. πᾶν μοι καρπὸς ὃ φέρουσιν αἱ σαὶ ὧραι, ὦ φύσις· ἐκ σοῦ πάντα, ἐν σοὶ πάντα, εἰς σὲ πάντα. ἐκεῖνος μέν φησιν·


I can translate that! "PAN me the mounts thee evarmoston Estin, my world; nothing to me premature nor late than thee opportunity. everything they bring me fruit Fruit Ai Sai nice, my nature · of thee always in thee forever, thee forever. Now they do it fisin." There. :lol:


----------



## Taggart

Aramis said:


> Πᾶν μοι συναρμόζει ὃ σοὶ εὐάρμοστόν ἐστιν, ὦ κόσμε· οὐδέν μοι πρόωρον οὐδὲ ὄψιμον ὃ σοὶ εὔκαιρον. πᾶν μοι καρπὸς ὃ φέρουσιν αἱ σαὶ ὧραι, ὦ φύσις· ἐκ σοῦ πάντα, ἐν σοὶ πάντα, εἰς σὲ πάντα. ἐκεῖνος μέν φησιν·





KenOC said:


> I can translate that! "PAN me the mounts thee evarmoston Estin, my world; nothing to me premature nor late than thee opportunity. everything they bring me fruit Fruit Ai Sai nice, my nature · of thee always in thee forever, thee forever. Now they do it fisin;" There. :lol:


Just goes to show you that Google translate can translate Marcus Aurelius into gibberish.

A slightly better translation might be :

Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. (Book IV 23)

See also Wiki.


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## KenOC

"...they bring me fruit Fruit Ai Sai..."

But that translation doesn't say what "fruit ai sai" is. Sounds good!


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## Mahlerian

Taggart said:


> Just goes to show you that Google translate can translate Marcus Aurelius into gibberish.


Google Translate turns just about anything into gibberish!


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## Cheyenne

Celibidache (to orchestra members): "No, no, you're just playing notes! Where's the human being?"
Furtwängler (to Swedish orchestra, after they flawlessly played a passage on their own accord because Furtwänglers approach was needlessly complicated to them): "It's well played, but isn't it so horribly... direct?"

Ralph Vaughan Williams (responding to theories about the supposedly programmatic nature of his sixth symphony): "It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music." (Unconfirmed)

From Shaw:
"Do not be alarmed, I am not going to perpetrate an 'analysis.' Those vivid emotions which the public derives from descriptions of 'postludes brought to a close on the pedal of A, the cadence being retarded by four chords forming an arpeggio of a diminished seventh, each grade serving as a tonic for a perfect chord,' must be sought elsewhere than in these columns. It is perhaps natural that gentlemen who are incapable of criticism should fall back on parsing; but, for my own part, I find it better to hold my tongue when I have nothing to say."

"A hundred years ago a crusty old bachelor of fifty-seven, so deaf that he could not hear his own music played by a full orchestra, yet still able to hear thunder, shook his fist at the roaring heavens for the last time, and died as he had lived, challenging God and defying the universe."

"It was this turbulence, this deliberate disorder, this reckless and triumphant mockery of conventional manners, that set Beethoven apart from the musical geniuses of the ceremonious seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was a giant wave in that storm of the human spirit which produced the French Revolution. He called no man master."

"What we want is not music for the people, but bread for the people, rest for the people, immunity from robbery and scorn for the people, hope for them, enjoyment, equal respect and consideration, life and aspiration, instead of drudgery and despair. When we get that I imagine the people will make tolerable music from themselves, even if all Beethoven's scores perish in the interim."

From Mencken:
"It was simply impossible for him [Brahms], at least after he had learned his trade, to be obvious or banal. He could not write even the baldest tune without getting into it something of his own high dignity and profound seriousness; he could not play with that tune, however light his mood, without putting an austere and noble stateliness into it. Hearing Brahms, one never gets any sense of being entertained by a clever mountebank. ... In all his music done after his beard had sprouted, there is not the slightest sing of bewilderment and confusion, of trial and error, of uncertainty and irresolution. He knew precisely what he wanted to say, and he said it colossally."

"Haydn was undeniably a genius of the first water, and, after Mozart's death, had no apparent reason to fear a rival. If he did not actually create the symphony as we know it to-day, then he at least enriched the form with its first genuine masterpieces - and not with a scant few, but literally with dozens. Tunes of the utmost loveliness gushed from him like oil from a well. More, he knew how to manage them; he was a master of musical architectonics. If his music is sniffed at to-day, then it is only by fools; there are at least six of his symphonies that are each worth all the cacophony hatched by a whole herd of Schönbergs and Eric Saties, with a couple of Korngolds thrown into flavor the pot." (Poor Mencken never did like the most progressive composers of his time.)

"It is almost a literal fact that there is not a trace of cheapness in the whole body of his [Beethoven's] music. He is never sweet and romantic; he never sheds conventional tears; he never strikes orthodox attitudes. In his lighter moods there is the immense and inescapable dignity of the ancient Hebrew prophets. He concerns himself, not with the puerile agonies of love, but with the eternal tragedy of man."

"My lack of sound musical instruction was really the great deprivation of my life. When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music. I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words in English, and continue to this day to pour out more and more. But all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only like a child."

From John F Runciman:
"When we talk of classical music we mean Haydn's. He created the thing, and it ended with him. He has sanity lucidity, pointedness, sometimes epigrammatic piquancy of expression, dignity without pompousness or grandiloquence, feeling without hysteria. His variety seems endless, his energy never flags, and often he has more than a touch of the divine quality. He did not attempt to compose tragedies of life, for his temperament forbade it; but in his finest music he is never commonplace, because he had a strongly marked temperament and was poetically inspired. By dint of a sincerity that was perfect he made music which, though it is shaped in outline by the classical spirit, will be for ever interesting. To listen to him immediately after Tschaikowsky is hard, sometimes impossible, yet to me it seems anything but impossible that our descendants will be listening to him when students are turning to the biographical dictionaries to find out who Tschaikowsky was. A century ago Haydn was as fresh and novel as Tschaikowsky is now, and as overwhelming a personality in the world of music as the mighty Wagner. But time equalizes and evens things, and in another hundred years all that is merely up-to-date in musical speech and phraseology will have lost its flavour and seductiveness; but the voice that is sincere, whether the word is spoken to-day or was spoken a century ago, will sound as clear as ever, and the one voice shall not be clearer nor more convincing than the other."

To end in the key of C major with a comedic touch:

Richard Strauss as a young man: "We can be certain that in ten years nobody will know who Richard Wagner is."

:lol:


----------



## Taggart

KenOC said:


> "...they bring me fruit Fruit Ai Sai..."
> 
> But that translation doesn't say what "fruit ai sai" is. Sounds good!


Yup. The fruit baskets going to Aisai definitely look good!


----------



## KenOC

Taggart said:


> Yup. The fruit baskets going to Aisai definitely look good!


Genius is staggering wherever met.


----------



## Taggart

"The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has a medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball...I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon." 
- Frank Zappa


----------



## KenOC

"Art is long and life is short: here is evidently the explanation of a Brahms symphony." --Edward Lorne


----------



## KenOC

"You cannot make art out of fear and suspicion; you can make it only out of affirmative beliefs. This sense of affirmation can be had only in part from one's inner being; for the rest it must be continually reactivated by a creative and yea-saying atmosphere in the life about one. The artist should feel himself affirmed and buoyed up by his community. In other words, art and the life of art must mean something, in the deepest sense, to the everyday citizen."

--Aaron Copland


----------



## Cheyenne

I have some romantic ones too - heavily romanticized, so be warned! Two from Jean Paul (Richter)'s novel Titan, based on which Mahler initially titled his first symphony:

"Ah, thou dear one! what is more painfully and longer sought, then, than a heart? When man stands before the sea and on mountains, and before pyramids and ruins, and in the presence of misfortune, and feels himself exalted, then does he stretch out his arms after the great Friendship. And when music, and moonlight, and spring and spring tears softly move him, then his heart dissolves, and he wants Love. And he who has never sought either is a thousand times poorer than he who has lost both."

"But to me, when I hear music, it is as if I heard a loud past or a loud future. Music has something holy; unlike the other arts, it cannot paint anything but what is good." (He added as a note: "This proposition, that pure music, without text, cannot represent anything immoral, deserves to be more investigated and developed by me.")

And from De Quincey:

"I am satisfied that music involves a far greater mystery than we are aware of. It is that universal language which binds together all creatures, and binds them by a profounder part of their nature than anything merely intellectual ever could."

And again, from a character in a dialogue written by him:
"Somebody once said, that to a deaf person who cannot hear the music, a set of dancers must look like so many patients for a mad-house; but, in my opinion, this dreadful music itself, this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each treading on its own heels, in those accursed tunes which ram themselves into our memories, yea, I might say, mix themselves up with our very blood, so that one cannot get rid of their taint for many a miserable day after--this to me is the very trance of madness; and if I could ever bring myself to think dancing endurable, it must be dancing to the tune of silence."

Then, from Nietzche's _Human, All-Too-Human_, a few reflections on composers and music.

"In so far as we do not hear Bach's music as perfect and experienced in connoisseurs of counterpoint and al the varieties of the fugal style (and accordingly must dispense with real artistic enjoyment), we shall feel in listening to his music - in Goethe's magnificent phrase - as if 'we were present at God's creation of the world.' In other words, we feel here that something great is in the making but not yet made - our mighty modern music, which by conquering nationalities, the Church, and counterpoint, has conquered the world. In Bach there is still too much crude Christianity, crude Germanism, crude scholasticism. He stands on the threshold of modern European music, but turns from thence to look at the middle ages."

"Händel, who in the invention of his music was bold, original, truthful, powerful, inclined to and akin to all the heroism of which a nation is capable, often proved stiff, cold, na even weary of himself in composition. He applied a few well-tried methods of execution, wrote copiously and quickly, and was glad when he was finished - but that joy was not the joy of God and other creators in the eventide of their working day."

"So far as genius can exist in a man who is merely _good_, Haydn had genius. He went just as far as the limit which morality sets to intellect, and only wrote that has 'no past'."

"Beethoven's music often appears like a deeply emotional meditation on unexpectedly hearing once more a piece long thought to be forgotten, 'Tonal Innocence': it is music about music. In the song of the beggar and the child in the street, in the monotonous airs of vagrant Italians, in the dance of the village inn or in carnival nights he discovers his melodies. He stores them together like a bee, snatching here and there some notes or a short phrase. To him these are hallowed memories of the 'better world', likes the ideas of Plato. Mozart stands in quite a different relation to his melodies. He finds his inspiration not in hearing music but in gazing at life, at the most stirring life of southern lands. He was always dreaming of Italy, when he was not there."

"Franz Schubert, inferior as an artist to the other great musicians, had nevertheless the largest share of inherited musical wealth. He spent it with a free hand and a kind heart, so that for a few centuries musicians will continue to _nibble_ at his ideas and inspirations. In his works we find a store of _unused_ inventions; the greatness of others will lie in making use of those inventions. If Beethoven may be called the ideal listener for a troubadour, Schubert has a right to be called the ideal troubadour."

"Felix Mendelssohn's music is the music of the good taste that enjoys all the tood things that have ever existed. It always points behind. How could it have much 'in front', much of a future? - But did he want it to have a future? He possessed a virture rare among artists, that of gratitude without arrière-pensée. This virtue, too, always points behind."

"[The] stripling was completely translated into song and melody by Robert Schumann, the eternal youth, so long as he felt himself in full possession of his powers. There are indeed moments when his music reminds one of the enteral 'old maid'."

"_The music of today._ This ultra-modern music, with its strong lungs and weak nerves, is frightened above all things of itself."

"_As friends of music_. Ultimately we are and remain good friends with music, as we are with the light of the moon. Neither, after all, tries to supplant the sun: they only want to illumine our nights to the best of their powers. Yet we may jest and laugh at them, may we not? Just a little, at least, from time to time? At the man in the moon, at the woman in music?"

And from Theodor Adorno's essays:

"The majority of the late works of significant artists does not resemble the kind one finds in fruit. They are, for the most part, not round, but furrowed, even ravaged. Devoid of sweetness, bitter and spiny, they do not surrender themselves to mere delectation. They lack all the harmony that the classicist aesthetic is in the habit of demanding from works of art, and they show more traces of history than of growth. The usual view explains this with the argument that they are products of an uninhibited subjectivity, or, better yet, 'personality,' which breaks through the envelope of form to better express itself, transforming harmony into the dissonance of its suffering, and disdaining sensual charms with the sovereign self-assurance of the spirit liberated." (From an essay on Beethoven's late works.)

"The [Mahlerian] march is meant for the collective and for moving in solidarity - but heard from the perspective of the individual. It does not give orders so much as it carries you along; and if it carries along even the meanest things and those that are the most mutilated, it does not itself mutilate. The individual who is carried along is not eliminated. The community of lovers is made available to him. The human being survives in the march on the strength of the variant, the determining symmetry - this is what makes it so completely impossible to misuse Mahler's music. The men who otherwise were simply forced to die when they fell out of linfe, the line above Strasbourg's trenches; the nighttime sentry, the [soldier] who is laid to rest in the beauty of the cornets, and the poor little drummer boy - Mahler forms them out of freedom. He promises victory to the losers. All his symphonic music is a reveille. Its hero is the deserter."

"The difficulties that Schoenberg had to endure can scarcely be exaggerated. Once again as happened repeatedly in his life, he had to forget what he knew in order to be able to do it truthfully." (On Schoenberg first starting to write using the twelve-tone technique.)


----------



## KenOC

"There is a definite limit to the length of time a composer can go on writing in one dance rhythm (this limit is obviously reached by Ravel towards the end of _La valse _and towards the beginning of _Boléro_)." --Constant Lambert


----------



## Couac Addict

_"How Much?"_ - Claude Vivier


----------



## SarahO

When the great Hungarian violin teacher, Leopold Auer, was asked to name his best pupils, he left Heifetz off the list. Why? "Heifetz is not my student. He is God's student," answered Auer.


----------



## SarahO

Heifetz made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1917 at the age of 16. During the intermission, the great violinist Mischa Elman turned to his friend, the pianist Leopold Godowsky, and said, “Isn’t it very hot in here?” Godowsky turned to Elman and replied, “Not for pianists.”


----------



## SarahO

To the common criticism that Heifetz' playing was "cold," violinist Ida Haendel stated emphatically, "His playing was so passionate; I'm just astounded that people don't realize it. They thought that he was cold -- and it was fire! Absolute fire!"

Violinist Ivry Gitlis also dismissed the charge that Heifetz was cold. "Sure, his face was stoic, but if that bothers you, close your eyes, for God's sake!"


----------



## SarahO

"I am hitting my head against the wall, but the wall is giving way." Gustav Mahler


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## ahammel

SarahO said:


> "I am hitting my head against the wall, but the wall is giving way." Gustav Mahler


"Gustav, will you please for God's sake stop making that racket! And what have you done to that wall?"

---Alma Mahler


----------



## Blake

"Can I get fries with that?" - Bernstein


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## SarahO

"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven." Jascha Heifetz


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## SarahO

"Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there also a dropped hammer."

Glenn Gould


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## SarahO

"I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. I really can’t think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that — its humanity."

Glenn Gould


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## SarahO

"Mozart died too late rather than too soon."

Glenn Gould


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## KenOC

SarahO said:


> "Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there also a dropped hammer."
> 
> Glenn Gould


Believe that one is from John Ruskin.


----------



## ahammel

Probably been posted in this thread before, but Ruskin's opinion of _Die Mesitersinger_ is well worth repeating:



> Of all the bête, clumsy, blundering, boggling, baboon-blooded stuff I ever saw on a human stage, ... and of all the affected, sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless, topless, bottomless, topsiturviest, tongs and boniest doggerel of sounds I ever endured the deadliness of, that eternity of nothing was the deadliest, so far as the sound went. I never was so relieved, so far as I can remember in my life, by the stopping of any sound-not excepting railway whistles-as I was by the cessation of the cobbler's bellowing.


Must've been the production.


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## shangoyal

Reviewing the premiere of *Schubert's "Unfinished" symphony* in 1865, the music critic Eduard Hanslick wrote:

"When, after a few introductory bars, clarinet and oboe sound una voce a sweet melody on top of the quiet murmuring of the strings, any child knows the composer and a half-suppressed exclamation "Schubert" runs hummingly through the hall. He has hardly entered, but it is as if you knew his steps, his very way of opening the door... The whole movement is a sweet stream of melodies, in spite of its vigor and geniality so crystal-clear that you can see every pebble on the bottom. And everywhere the same warmth, the same golden sunshine that makes buds grow! The Andante unfolds itself broadly and [even] more majestically [than the opening Allegro]. Sounds of lament or anger rarely enter this song full of intimate, quiet happiness, clouds of a musical thunderstorm reflecting musical effect rather than dangerous passion... The sonorous beauty of both movements is enchanting. With a few horn passages, an occasional brief clarinet or oboe solo on the simplest, most natural basis of orchestration, Schubert achieves sound effects which no refinement of Wagner's instrumentation ever attains."

(taken from Wikipedia)


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## SarahO

After a concert, a member of the audience went up to Jascha Heifetz. He said, "Wow, your violin sounds really great." Heifetz then held the violin up close to his ear and replied, "Funny, I don't hear anything."


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## ahammel

SarahO said:


> After a concert, a member of the audience went up to Jascha Heifetz. He said, "Wow, your violin sounds really great." Heifetz then held the violin up close to his ear and replied, "Funny, I don't hear anything."


That sounds apocryphal, but it's awesome anyway.


----------



## Wandering

_"Four daughters! What on earth can you do with four daughters? A string quartet is all I could come up with."_ Hope and Glory 1987


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## SarahO

"We cannot despair about mankind, knowing that Mozart was a man." - Einstein


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## SarahO

“We realized the extent of my father’s fame when we were watching The Flintstones as kids,”’ “In one episode, Wilma and Betty went to hear Leonard Bernstone conduct. That was big time!” Jamie Bernstein


----------



## SarahO

“The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has a medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball...I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon.” Frank Zappa


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## SarahO

“I just can't listen to any more Wagner, you know...I'm starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.”
― Woody Allen


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## shangoyal

“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

― Frédéric Chopin


----------



## ahammel

Schoenberg was allegedly pretty sharp when provoked. Paraphrasing (they're probably apocryphal anyway):

_Schoenberg's CO_: "So you're this notorious Schoenberg then."
_Schoenberg_: "Beg to report, sir, yes. Nobody wanted to be, someone had to be, so I let it be me."

_Heifetz_: "This violin concerto is unplayable! It would take a violinist with six fingers!"
_Schoenberg_: "I can wait."


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## PetrB

Theory in musical composition is hindsight. It doesn't exist. There are compositions from which it is deduced. Or, if this isn't quite true, it has a by-product existence that is powerless to create or even justify. Nevertheless, composition involves a deep intuition for theory. ~ Igor Stravinsky


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## SarahO

"I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet." -Niccolo Paganini


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## SarahO

“When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.”
Leonard Bernstein


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## SarahO

Sir Thomas Beecham to a hapless female cellist: 

“Madam, you have between your legs one of the most beautiful things known to man and all you can do is sit there and scratch it.”


----------



## SarahO

When Casals (then age 93) was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day, he replied, “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.”


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## Blake

SarahO said:


> When Casals (then age 93) was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day, he replied, "I'm beginning to notice some improvement."


It's been said that no one ever "learns" how to play an instrument. You just continuously improve.


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## PetrB

SarahO said:


> "When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer."
> Leonard Bernstein


Neatly dodging the responsibility of being accountable for what you do. It is a perfect Waffle, an apposite model for politicians and spin doctors.


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## KenOC

"The artist needs an ivory tower, not as an escape from the world, but as a place where he can view the world and be himself. This tower is for the artist like a lighthouse shining out across the world."

--Charles Koechlin (his birthday today)


----------



## KenOC

Oscar Levant quotes:

"I am no more humble than my talents require."
"I don't drink. I don't like it. It makes me feel good."
"I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself."
"I think a lot of Bernstein -- but not as much as he does."

Gershwin asked, "I wonder if my music will still be heard a hundred years from now." Levant replied, "Of course, should you still be alive then."


----------



## Mahlerian

"Even Mozart is hard to understand sometimes, *if one really listens*. I have often been puzzled when hearing some Mozart work for the first time." - Arnold Schoenberg

The second clause of the first sentence is, I think, the key here. It's not about how easily the music enters the ear, but how easily it gives up all of its secrets.


----------



## Mahlerian

"At the first performance of works whose ideas are not superficial, correct tempi can, for the most part, not be taken at all, because this would make everything too hard to understand, and too unusual. Thus I could not understand Mahler's First Symphony until I heard it under a mediocre conductor who got all the tempo relationships wrong." - Arnold Schoenberg


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## ahammel

Mahlerian said:


> "At the first performance of works whose ideas are not superficial, correct tempi can, for the most part, not be taken at all, because this would make everything too hard to understand, and too unusual. Thus I could not understand Mahler's First Symphony until I heard it under a mediocre conductor who got all the tempo relationships wrong." - Arnold Schoenberg


Interesting.

In a similar vein, I once heard of a conductor who said she likes to conduct premiers because those are the only occasions on which nobody complains that the tempo is all wrong.


----------



## MozartEarlySymphonies

"There's nothing remarkable about it. All on has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." Johann Sebastian Bach

"To compose music, all you have to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of." Robert Schumann 

"My father feared that women would trouble my existence and dominate me." Franz Liszt

"The (Ring Cycle) as a whole will be...the greatest thing ever written." Richard Wagner 

"Now that I am not manufacturing any more notes, I am planting cabbages and beans." Giuseppe Verdi 

"If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon." Johannes Brahms 

"There has never been a great artist yet, who thousands of people didn't think he was mad." Richard Strauss 

"My music is not really modern, just badly played." Arnold Schoenberg 

"The word beauty is as easy to use as the word degenerate, both come in handy when one does or does not agree with you." Charles Ives 

"We are not made for marriage, we artists. We are seldom normal, and our life still less so." Maurice Ravel 

"My music is best understood by children and animals." Igor Stravinsky 

"The one who doesn't want me can kiss my ***." Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Source-Secret Lives of Great Composers By Elizabeth Lunday


----------



## Gabba

Something a little different.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a press report over the wireless. We hope that it is unconfirmed, but we have to doubt it. That the president of the United States has been the victim of an assassination. We will play the funeral march from Beethoven's Third Symphony." - Erich Leinsdorf (22nd November 1963)


----------



## hpowders

"To some it is Napoleon, to some it is a philosophical struggle, to me it is allegro con brio". Arturo Toscanini's take on the first movement of Beethoven's Eroica symphony.


----------



## ahammel

"We are musicians and our model is sound not literature, sound not mathematics, sound not theatre, visual arts, quantum physics, geology, astrology or acupuncture"
—Gérard Grisey


----------



## musicrom

"If that's a bassoon, I'm a baboon!"

- Camille Saint-Saëns on Stravinsky's Rite of Spring


----------



## clara s

two special quotes from the best of friends

_"How lucky is the man who, like Mozart and others, goes to the tavern of an evening
and writes some fresh music. 
For he lives while he is creating."_

* Johannes Brahms*

_"I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; 
a woman must not desire to compose - 
there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?"_

*Clara Schumann*


----------



## hpowders

_"Without craftsmanship inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind!"_

*Johannes Brahms*


----------



## hpowders

"_If anyone tries to pass off a 10th symphony written by me, don't listen!!!"_*

*Gustav Mahler*

*Nah! Just kidding!!!


----------



## ahammel

clara s said:


> _"I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea;
> a woman must not desire to compose -
> there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?"_
> 
> *Clara Schumann*


Poor Clara. She wasn't half bad.


----------



## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> "_If anyone tries to pass off a 10th symphony written by me, don't listen!!!"_*
> 
> *Gustav Mahler*
> 
> *Nah! Just kidding!!!


Actually, he did tell Alma to burn the manuscript. But, if you tell Alma to do something...


----------



## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, he did tell Alma to burn the manuscript. But, if you tell Alma to do something...


He should have told her if she didn't burn it, he would have his Cooke transcribe her into Fillet of Alma.

Alma en español es????


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## clara s

ahammel said:


> Poor Clara. She wasn't half bad.


she wasn't bad at all, but she could see far


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Alma en español es????


en espanol?

soul, spirit, etc


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> en espanol?
> 
> soul, spirit, etc


Exactly, so when I wrote fillet of Alma, it was fillet of "sole" in disguise.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Exactly, so when I wrote fillet of Alma, it was fillet of "sole" in disguise.


you reminded me the James Bond film "Live and let die",

where there is this restaurant in New Orleans called "Fillet of Soul", really

It could be read "Fillet of Alma"


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> you reminded me the James Bond film "Live and let die",
> 
> where there is this restaurant in New Orleans called "Fillet of Soul", really
> 
> It could be read "Fillet of Alma"


Ha! Ha!

I was in New Orleans a few months ago, but I missed that restaurant. There are so many! Good jazz. Hardly any classical music! I couldn't live there despite the high energy.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Ha! Ha!
> 
> I was in New Orleans a few months ago, but I missed that restaurant. There are so many! Good jazz. Hardly any classical music! I couldn't live there despite the high energy.


yes, New Orleans jazz

very strong music

Louis Armstrong and many others from there

I am sure you had a good time


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> yes, New Orleans jazz
> 
> very strong music
> 
> Louis Armstrong and many others from there
> 
> I am sure you had a good time


I liked the architecture of the French Quarter buildings, with the terraces. The food was very good. I was on a tour, so I was only there for 3 days. There were 2 jazz concerts, but the music they played was old fashioned jazz-"When The Saints Come Marching In", etc; I'm used to Miles Davis and more modern jazz, so I was a bit disappointed. "Touristy music".
If I ever go there on my own, I would research where the modern jazz clubs are.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> I liked the architecture of the French Quarter buildings, with the terraces. The food was very good. I was on a tour, so I was only there for 3 days. There were 2 jazz concerts, but the music they played was old fashioned jazz-"When The Saints Come Marching In", etc; I'm used to Miles Davis and more modern jazz, so I was a bit disappointed. "Touristy music".
> If I ever go there on my own, I would research where the modern jazz clubs are.


the world famous french quarter of New Orleans!

I am sure they have the traditional jazz music, which is old fashioned, but its the mark of the city

Miles Davis is good and i like contemporary jazz as well

Pat Metheny, Diana Krall, Michael Brecker etc


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> the world famous french quarter of New Orleans!
> 
> I am sure they have the traditional jazz music, which is old fashioned, but its the mark of the city
> 
> Miles Davis is good and i like contemporary jazz as well
> 
> Pat Metheny, Diana Krall, Michael Brecker etc


Ahhh! Very Nice! I used to live in a flat and whenever i played Miles Davis, my underneath neighbor would bang up my floor with a broom handle. I guess he/she preferred more "traditional jazz"!!


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Ahhh! Very Nice! I used to live in a flat and whenever i played Miles Davis, my underneath neighbor would bang up my floor with a broom handle. I guess he/she preferred more "traditional jazz"!!


I can imagine this great theatrical scene with the broom handle as the "star" hahaha

i had a friend when i was in the University, who used to climb on the roof of the halls of residence and play saxophone

great times with nina simone songs and george gershwin's "porgy and bess"


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> I can imagine this great theatrical scene with the broom handle as the "star" hahaha
> 
> i had a friend when i was in the University, who used to climb on the roof of the halls of residence and play saxophone
> 
> great times with nina simone songs and george gershwin's "porgy and bess"


That sounds very nice! As for me, I moved out! If I can't play Miles Davis at a decent volume, I'm out!!!


----------



## hpowders

"When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy" from Beethoven's letter to Goethe, 1810.


----------



## Flamme




----------



## hpowders

^^^^When I attend a concert, THAT is how I want my conductor to look!


----------



## MozartEarlySymphonies

ahammel said:


> Poor Clara. She wasn't half bad.


Speaking of Clara's talent, I once heard a story that after a great performance from her, a man walked up to her and Robert and congratulated her. The man felt that her husband might had something to with her talent so he asked Robert if he was musical.


----------



## hpowders

*George Szell on Glen Gould:*

_"That nut's a genius!"_


----------



## hpowders

^^^^One of my favorite quotes of all time!!!


----------



## Donata

"After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own."
-- Oscar Wilde 1891 

(On Chopin) "He came not with an orchestral army, as great geniuses are wont to come. He possesses only a little cohort, but it belongs to him wholly and entirely, even to the last hero."
-- Schumann


----------



## KenOC

"The Bohemians are born musicians. The Italians ought to take them as models. What have they to show for their famous conservatories? Behold! their idol, Rossini! If Dame Fortune had not given him a pretty talent and amiable melodies by the bushel, what he learned at school would have brought him nothing but potatoes for his big belly."

--Ludwig van Beethoven, Mr. Nice Guy


----------



## ahammel

KenOC said:


> "The Bohemians are born musicians. The Italians ought to take them as models. What have they to show for their famous conservatories? Behold! their idol, Rossini! If Dame Fortune had not given him a pretty talent and amiable melodies by the bushel, what he learned at school would have brought him nothing but potatoes for his big belly."
> 
> --Ludwig van Beethoven, Mr. Nice Guy


It's been suggested that Ludwig might have been just the tiniest bit jealous of Rossini.


----------



## hpowders

Beethoven wasn't a nice guy according to the references. He was a real piece of work.


----------



## Itullian

Didn't he praise Cherubini?


----------



## hpowders

Okay. One good thing he did.


----------



## KenOC

Itullian said:


> Didn't he praise Cherubini?


Beethoven was a indeed a fan of Cherubini.

To a friend leaving for France: "Say all conceivable pretty things to Cherubini -- that there is nothing I so ardently desire as that we should soon get another opera from him, and that of all our contemporaries I have the highest regard for him."

At another time: "Among all the composers alive Cherubini is the most worthy of respect. I am in complete agreement, too, with his conception of the 'Requiem,' and if ever I come to write one I shall take note of many things."


----------



## KenOC

ahammel said:


> It's been suggested that Ludwig might have been just the tiniest bit jealous of Rossini.


Beethoven certainly had his issues with Rossini. From 1824, as reported:

"No one has a mind any more for what is good, what is vigorous -- in short, for real music! Yes, yes, that's how it is, you Viennese! Rossini and his pals, they're your heroes. You want nothing more from me! Sometimes Schuppanzigh gets a quartet out of me, but you've no time for the symphonies, and you don't want Fidelio. It's Rossini, Rossini above everything. Perhaps your soulless strumming and singing, your own shoddy stuff that you take for real art -- that's your taste. Oh, you Viennese!"

He met Rossini shortly after this and they got along just fine, although there wasn't much real communication.


----------



## hpowders

Cherubini wasn't bad. Toscanini championed him too!


----------



## Blake

hpowders said:


> Beethoven wasn't a nice guy according to the references. He was a real piece of work.


It's difficult to bear the presence of inferior beings.


----------



## tdc

Found a couple of interesting quotes from a Book called _Ravel: His Friends Said_

"They had played the Prelude de Tristan and, what a coincidence, as I was thinking, terribly moved, that there was nothing in the world as so sublime and divine as this Prélude, at that moment, Ravel touched my hand, telling me : "It is always like that, each time I hear it..." and, indeed, he who looks so cold and cynical, he, Ravel, the super-eccentric decadent, Ravel was shaking convulsively and was crying like a child, but deeply, because spasmodically, tears slipped out of him. Until now, despite the high opinion I had about Maurice Ravel's intellectuality, as he is so uncommunicative for the most little things of his life, I believed that, perhaps, there was a bit of bias on his part and of elegance in his opinions and literary taste; but since this afternoon, I see that this man is born with inclinations, likings and opinions and that, when he expresses them it is not to look snobbish or to follow fashion, but because he really feels them and I take advantage or this occasion to declare that Ravel is a most ill-fated and unrecognized being, because he's taken for a failure whereas he's in fact an intelligence and a superior artist who would deserve a wondrous destiny. He's, moreover, very complex; there is in him a mixture of medieval catholic and satanic ungodly, but with also the love towards Art and Beauty that guides him and makes him feel ingenuously, as he proved today, crying at the hearing of the Prélude de Tristan et Yseult."

Ricardo Vines diary entry 1896


----------



## tdc

"It is under the influence of women that Ravel worked best. Lots of them were hanging around him, and he was very happy about it. They were many, and various [??]of character."

Manuel Rosenthal


----------



## PetrB

*on composing exercises in imitation of a period or style*

"It is a good idea to do imitation exercises once and a while in order to find out why Schumann and Brahms were so good and you are so bad at being Schumann and Brahms."

~ Elliott Carter


----------



## scratchgolf

A quote from Georg Franz Eckel about his friend Franz Schubert. One of the many reasons I adore Schubert can be seen below.

'Even in boyhood and youth, his life was primarily one of inner, spiritual thought, which he would seldom express in words but almost only in music. Even with his close friends he was generally silent and uncommunicative. On the walks which the pupils took together, he usually kept apart, walking with lowered eyes and with his hands behind his back, playing with his fingers (as though on keys). He seemed entirely lost in his own thoughts. I seldom saw him laugh; more frequently I saw him smile, sometimes for no apparent reason, as if it were a reflection of the inner life of the soul.'


----------



## PetrB

tdc said:


> Found a couple of interesting quotes from a Book called _Ravel: His Friends Said_
> 
> "They had played the Prelude de Tristan and, what a coincidence, as I was thinking, terribly moved, that there was nothing in the world as so sublime and divine as this Prélude, at that moment, Ravel touched my hand, telling me : "It is always like that, each time I hear it..." and, indeed, he who looks so cold and cynical, he, Ravel, the super-eccentric decadent, Ravel was shaking convulsively and was crying like a child, but deeply, because spasmodically, tears slipped out of him. Until now, despite the high opinion I had about Maurice Ravel's intellectuality, as he is so uncommunicative for the most little things of his life, I believed that, perhaps, there was a bit of bias on his part and of elegance in his opinions and literary taste; but since this afternoon, I see that this man is born with inclinations, likings and opinions and that, when he expresses them it is not to look snobbish or to follow fashion, but because he really feels them and I take advantage or this occasion to declare that Ravel is a most ill-fated and unrecognized being, because he's taken for a failure whereas he's in fact an intelligence and a superior artist who would deserve a wondrous destiny. He's, moreover, very complex; there is in him a mixture of medieval catholic and satanic ungodly, but with also the love towards Art and Beauty that guides him and makes him feel ingenuously, as he proved today, crying at the hearing of the Prélude de Tristan et Yseult."
> 
> Ricardo Vines diary entry 1896


zOMG the writing style and subjects were drippingly gushy back then -- they seem downright _runny,_ 
like Brie Cheese


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## PetrB

Vesuvius said:


> It's difficult to bear the presence of inferior beings.


Especially if you are an out their major misfit sociopath


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## PetrB

Stephen Stills (extract from Wikipedia article):

Several of Stills' songs, including _Suite: Judy Blue Eyes_ and _You Don't Have To Cry_ on the debut album [Crosby, Stills & Nash) were inspired by his on-again-off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. In a 1971 interview in Rolling Stone the interviewer noted "so many of your songs seem to be about Judy Collins." Stills replied,

*"Well, there are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature. I've had my share of success and failure at all three."*


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## spradlig

I don't know who said it. Some composer:

_"A harp in an orchestra is like a fly in soup."_

Does anyone know the source?


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## hpowders

"Mozart's piano concertos are the most personal of all his creations: arias he wrote for himself to sing, symphonies for himself to play." Nicholas Kenyon


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## GreenMamba

spradlig said:


> I don't know who said it. Some composer:
> 
> _"A harp in an orchestra is like a fly in soup."_
> 
> Does anyone know the source?


Carl Nielsen, I think.


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## Richannes Wrahms

"A piano is a harp inside a torture chamber"

Incidentally, this explains the odd behaviour of many famous pianists as well as the popularity of the piano concerto.


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## Andreas

In a documentary, Karl Böhm related this:

Schubert once said to a friend: "Do you know any cheerful music? I don't."


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## KenOC

Nothing is of more use to man than the arts which have no utility. --Ovid


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## hpowders

When an orchestra wasn't exactly "playing together" in a rehearsal, Leopold Stokowski would stop the orchestra and say,

"Am I going too fast? Sometimes I forget that I'm not in Philadelphia."

OUCH!!!!


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## GreenMamba

I think there are people who use classical music to say, ‘I am better than you, because I know all the rules and you don’t.’ You’re not allowed to have fun or entertain. 

-Andre Rieu


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## StephenTC

Glenn Gould in conversation with Bruno Monsaingeon: 
"You and I have often argued about middle period Beethoven, and I do not intend to reopen that argument again…no no no… I've given that up as a lost cause…I don't ever expect to persuade you of the *pomposity* of the Fifth Symphony, or the *banality* of the Violin Concerto or the *empty rhetoric* of the Appassionata sonata…"
I can't agree with Glenn on those three, however,I will say that I find a *triteness* in much of the LVB 7th Symphony that denies to me the enjoyment many others find in it.
Go to here and you will also see Bruno's response to Glenn…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AirAT7gN6A0#t=1910


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## Skilmarilion

_"I despise living in a world that doesn't feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy"._

- LvB


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## hpowders

Probably the most famous musical quote of all and the reason why Arturo Toscanini was one of the greatest conductors of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. 

Speaking of the first movement:

"To some, it is Napoleon; to some it is a philosophical struggle; to me it is allegro con brio."


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## KenOC

Franz Liszt labored for years on his solo piano transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies. He wrote, "The name of Beethoven is sacred in art. His symphonies are nowadays universally recognized as masterpieces. No one who seriously desires to extend his knowledge, or create something new himself, can ever devote sufficient thought to them, or ever study them enough."


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## Skilmarilion

"A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his last."

*-- Dimitri Shostakovich*


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## jenspen

Christian Zacharias - "When I came to play Schubert, Chopin faded away, because they don't work together." Why? "Just do a simple test. Sing their pieces - sing a Chopin waltz or nocturne, then sing a Schubert melody. You will find Chopin sounds incredibly corny and kitschy, but the Schubert is from the heart - he knows what a sung line means."

And on J. S. Bach - The predictability of his fugues bores me...[and, of a line of Bachian passage work] "Why does it have to go on for 18 minutes? Why can't it stop after three?"


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## jenspen

Christian Zacharias on Brahms's 3rd Symphony - "The reason no conductor wants to conduct Brahms's third symphony as a last piece in any programme is because it ends pianissimo, and they're afraid that no one will clap. Stupid! I love it if something ends, leaves you satisfied, and fades away. Thirty seconds of applause is nice, but 30 seconds of silence is better."...


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## jenspen

Samuel Johnson (perhaps regretfully) "All animated nature loves music - except me!"

Samuel Johnson's dry response to his friend (the musical historian Dr Burney) who wanted to draw him into the conversation, which was about a concert - "And pray, Sir, who is Bach? Is he a piper?" [A bit less funny when you realise Johnson was referring to J. C. Bach, then the musical toast of London].


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## jenspen

Nikolaus Harnoncourt on being a young orchestral cellist under the correct and highly polished baton of George Szell - "He should be happy that I didn't kill him... there was not one minute of music making"


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## jenspen

I keep thinking of more.... For instance, I have recently been reading the mesmerising prose of Sir Thomas Browne - a widely travelled, well-educated, devout Puritan with an interest in science. In his "Religio Medici" (written while Newton was barely out of baby clothes) Sir Thomas has this to say about music:


" Whatsoever is harmonically composed delights in harmony; which makes me much distrust the symmetry of those heads which declaim against all Church-Musick. For my self, not only for my obedience, but my particular Genius, I do embrace it: for even that vulgar and Tavern-Musick, which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the First Composer. There is something in it of Divinity more than the ear discovers: it is an Hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole World, and creatures of GOD; such a melody to the ear, as the whole World, well understood, would afford the understanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of GOD. It unties the ligaments of my frame, takes me to pieces, dilates me out of myself and by degrees, methinks, resolves me into heaven. I will not say, with Plato, the soul is an harmony, but harmonical, and hath its nearest sympathy unto Musick."


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## KenOC

A great quote, and thanks!


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## KenOC

"Prokofiev wouldn't grant an encore. The Russian heart may be a dark place, but its capacity for mercy is infinite." -- James Huneker, NY Times, 1918


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