#classical
47 quotes
“The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it. in a letter to his father, 1782”
“My fatherland has always the first claim on me. Letter to Leopold Mozart (24 November 1781), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906).”
“…passions, violent or not, must never be expressed to the point of disgust, and Music must never offend the ear, even in most horrendous situations, but must always be pleasing, in other words always remain Music… Letter to Leopold Mozart, (Vienna, 26 September 1781), from Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life: Selected Letters, ed. Robert Spaethling [W.W. Norton, 2000, ISBN 0”
“As I love Mannheim , Mannheim loves me. Letter to Leopold Mozart, (Mannheim, 12 November 1778), from Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life: Selected Letters, ed. Robert Spaethling [W.W. Norton, 2000, ISBN 0”
“A fellow of mediocre talent will remain a mediocrity, whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which without impiety I cannot deny that I possess) will go to seed if he always remains in the same place. Letter to Leopold Mozart (11 September 1778), from Wolfgang Amadé Mozart by Georg Knepler (1991), trans. J. Bradford Robinson [Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN 0”
“I must give you a piece of intelligence that you perhaps already know”
“The most stimulating and encouraging thought is that you, dearest father, and my dear sister, are well, that I am an honest German, and that if I am not always permitted to talk I can think what I please; but that is all. Letter to Leopold Mozart (Paris, 29 April 1778), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel”
“Letter to Leopold Mozart (24 October 1777), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906) [1]”
“Sie wird das nothwendigste und härteste und die hauptsache in der Musique niemahlen bekommen, nämlich das tempo, weil sie sich vom jugend auf völlig befliessen hat, nicht auf den tact zu spiellen.”
“I write as a sow pisses. Letter to his sister ( Milan , 26 January 1770), from Contradictory Quotations , Longman Group Ltd., 1983. Rendered as "as the sows piss" in Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , trans. Hans Mersmann, Dover Publications, 1972”
“Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess? Letter to Bettina von Arnim”
“Music is indeed the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life. Attributed to Beethoven by Bettina von Arnim in a letter to Goethe (28 May 1810); Goethe's Correspondence with a Child”
“Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde: Seinem Denkmal , Volume 2, Dümmler, 1835, p. 193.”
“As reported by Bettina von Arnim in a letter to Goethe , 28 May 1810.”
“Musik höhere Offenbarung ist als alle Weisheit und Philosophie. [1] Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.”
“Nur das Reine im Herzen kann eine gute Suppe machen. Only the pure in the heart can make a good soup.”
“Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear. Conversations”
“...thus do I take my farewell of thee”
“There ought to be but one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art”
“I want to seize fate by the throat. Letter to F.G. Wegeler, 16 November, 1801.”
“Much of the music is a Merzbild , put together from whatever came to hand. I mean, for example...the Alberti”
“The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co”
“The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead. Igor Stravinsky. "Subject: Music", New York Times Magazine , 9/27/64.”
“expressed in terms of”
“One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles. 1962, quoted in Andriessen and Schoenberger, The Apollonian Clockwork (1989). Oxford: Oxford University Press.”
“My music is best understood by children and animals . Igor Stravinsky. The Observer, Oct 8, 1961.”
“music, blamed for deserting”
“As for myself, I need music for hygienic purposes, for the health of my soul . Without music in its best sense there is chaos. For my part, music is a force which gives reason to things, a force which creates organization, which attunes things. Music probably attended the creation of the universe . The Musical Digest (1946) [1]”
“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”
“Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano! As quoted in Chopin and the Swedish Nightingale .”
“Time is still the best critic, and patience the best teacher. As quoted in Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils .”
“One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to [attain] certain unlimited dexterity... A well formed technique, it seems to me, [is one] that can control and vary a beautiful sound quality. As quoted in Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils .”
“I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them. As quoted in Chopin .”
“I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me. Quoted in Arthur Hedley , Chopin (1947).”
“My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos . . . in this respect this is a savage country. Letter to Camille Pleyel .”
“No one other than I has read your letter. As always, even now, I carry your letters with me. How blissful it will it be for me, having gone beyond the city walls in May, thinking about my approaching journey, to pull out a letter of yours and assure myself sincerely that you love me, or at least to gaze at the hand and the writing of him, whom only I am able to love! Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski, 27 March 1830”
“I'm glad that the secret is submerged in my heart, that in me is the end of what is for you the beginning. And be glad that you have in me an abyss into which you can cast everything without fear”
“Give me a kiss, dearest lover. I'm certain that you still love me, and I fear you always, like some tyrant over me. I don't know why, but I fear you. Upon my word, only you have power over me, you and... no one else. Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski, 5 October 1830”
“Music is the art of the soul and the science of the heart.”
“With Antonio Vivaldi, Italian Baroque music reached its zenith. The prosperous, cultivated world of contemporary Venice shines through all his works, composed with innate craftsmanship. Gramophone (April 28, 2022) [1]”
“Are you interested in the current revival of eighteenth”
“Caricaturists of all countries I have a great interest in; I like to observe what happens to an artist's vision when there is a deliberate distortion for the viewer. This is found in Italian art and in much Italian music. Vivaldi sometimes uses caricature in a very serious and grim sense, not at all comic.”
“Judging Composers: High Notes, and Low”
“Italians have such illustrious people they can celebrate, that everyone celebrates”
“An ironic note written upon an aria score of his opera Orlando Furioso (1727).”
“Quoted in: Michael Talbot (1978) Vivaldi, p. 90”
“Se questa non piace, non voglio più scrivere di musica. Translation: If you don't like this, I'll stop writing music.”