# Musical Quotes



## the_emptier (Jan 27, 2011)

Well seeing as I'm a senior in high school I have to think of a quote to put in the yearbook. I have some ideas so far, but i'd love to see if you guys and gals have any particularly favorite quotes by composers,performers etc. anything is good, short and sweet though. My favorites have been the cynical and funny ones  Also anything relating to music is fine, i just need some ideas!! thanks


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

"Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est" ("Applaud, friends, the joke is over!") -- Beethoven on his deathbed.


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## the_emptier (Jan 27, 2011)

hahaha, Pagliacci much?  (referring to the last line of the opera)


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

A couple on Wagner:

"Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour." Gioacchino Rossini

"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." Mark Twain

Some more:

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

"Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence." Prog rock guitarist Robert Fripp

"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” Sergei Rakhmaninov


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Delicious Manager said:


> A couple on Wagner:
> 
> "Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour." Gioacchino Rossini
> 
> "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." Mark Twain


Here's one to add:

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

(Implying, don't like Richard Strauss)


I like this other quote by him:
"As for me I have to say that in general, I have scarcely changed my convictions at all and I am happy to remain a backwards musician."


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

"When a man is in despair it means he still believes in something." - Shostakovich


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

http://www.talkclassical.com/3874-quotes.html

http://www.talkclassical.com/1606-composers-quotes.html


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

“Let music speak for me the last kind words forgotten in the haste of living." Vaclav Nelhybel


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Rimsky-Korsakov, after seeing a performance of Debussy's opera _Pelléas et Mélisande_:

"Do not make me listen to all these horrors, or I shall end up liking them!"


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## the_emptier (Jan 27, 2011)

Hah, nice. I ended up using

"If they cut off both hands, I shall compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth"-Dmitri Shostakovich


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

the_emptier said:


> Hah, nice. I ended up using
> 
> "If they cut off both hands, I shall compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth"-Dmitri Shostakovich


This is one of the funniest one-liners I've ever heard as related to music:

_Music reporter: Have you conducted much Stockhausen? 
[attributed to] Sir Adrian Boult: No, but I've stepped in some.... _


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Well, this one is even better, about a mediocre female cello soloist, by Sir Thomas Beecham: "Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands - and all you can do is scratch it."


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