Fun And Interesting Classical Music Quotes

giovannimusica

Commodore de Cavaille-Coll
RoJo,

I, like you, vastly prefer the sound of a real piano but I like the pipe organ even more. I'm puzzled by your aversion to the word *fan*. Generally speaking, it means that you are an ardent supporter of something near and dear to you. Its the *unstable* individuals who, in the cause of being a *fan* let their passions get the best of them and thusly cause mayhem. I can freely say that I am a fan of yours - why? Because you give of yourself to teach that most noble of form of art and communication - MUSIC.


Cheers,

Giovanni :tiphat:
 
rojo

rojo

(Ret)
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular] 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[/FONT]
 

traveller

New member
I quite like Wagner but as rojo has pointed out, not everyone did. Another of his more notable detractors was Charles Baudelaire: "I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws."
 
rojo

rojo

(Ret)
Eww! What a horrible image that is. Shame on Baudelaire!

Ludwig van Beethoven - "To play without passion is inexcusable!"
 
rojo

rojo

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

dko22

New member
rojo said:
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]I find these two funny-

Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.
-- Gioacchino Rossini, 1867

:grin:
[/FONT]
Click to expand...

yes that is probasbly my absolute favourite as it perfectly describes my own attitude to him! And as Bach has been mentioned, Beecham's "too much counterpoint --and worse, Protestant counterpoint" springs to mind.
 

Kromme

New member
"To Strauss the composer i take my hat off to Strauss the man i wear it back on" Arturo Toscanini on Richard Strauss
"Brass bands are very well in their place outdoors and several miles away"
Thomas Beecham
 
Krummhorn

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
"The three "B's" of Organ Music are, Bach, Beethoven and SowerB" - Leo Sowerby
 

Drinklicafix

New member
Bach..

"To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervour, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time." -Pablo CASALS

"Study Bach, there you will find everything." -BRAHMS
 
robmcw

robmcw

New member
"That reminds me of another quote from Casals, from a little book called "Conversations with Casals' he was approached by a music purist who asked, 'Mr. Casals, how does one perform the works of Bach?' Story goes, Casals punched him in the nose and replied, "Precisely as the best pianist plays Chopin!"
 
Strunch

Strunch

New member
giovannimusica said:
Sir Thomas Beecham on Harpsichords:

The sound of a harpsichord is like two skeletons copulating on a hot tin roof.

:whistle: :banana: :nut: :ut:
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I use the harpsichord now and then, so leave my music alone! :)

I love this quote:

Handel is so great and so simple that no one but a professional musician is unable to understand him.

-- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
 
rojo

rojo

(Ret)
The goal of my life is to unify serious music and light music, even if I break my neck in doing so. - Alfred Schnittke
 
Wunderhorn

Wunderhorn

New member
"To R. Strauss the composer, I take off my hat. To R. Strauss the man, I put it on again." - Toscanini (refering to R. Strauss's Nazi past) :eek:

"I had my first cigarette and my first kiss from a girl on the same day, I haven't had time for cigarettes since." - Toscanini ;)
 

Kromme

New member
"When i tell Berliners to step forward,they step forward,when i tell Wieners to step forward,they step forward but then ask why?"Herbert von Karajan about his reason to prefer to conduct Berlin Phil rather than Vienna Phil
 
Ouled Nails

Ouled Nails

New member
Shostakovich:
"It's quite strange, but my tastes keep changing, and rather radically. Things that I liked quite recently I now like less, considerably less, and some I don't like at all. So how can I speak of music that I heard for the first time several decades ago? For instance, I remember Shcherbachev's piano suite, Inventions, written long ago, in the early twenties. At the time it seemed rather good to me. I recently heard it by chance on the radio. There's no inventiveness there at all.
And it's the same with Prokofiev. So many of his works that I liked once upon a time seem duller now."
 
Ouled Nails

Ouled Nails

New member
Silvestre Revueltas:
"As a small boy (and maybe as an adult) I always preferred banging on a washtub or dreaming up tales to doing something useful. And that is how I spent my time, imitating instruments with my voice, improvising orchestras and songs to accompaniments on the washtub, one of those round galvanized tubs that I always preferred to drum on more than to bathe in. I began to love Bach and Beethoven at a very early stage. It gave me much pleasure to stroll Chapultepec Park's romantic avenues, taking long strides, arms behind my back, long hair in disarray. Those lithographs and engravings of poor Beethoven, grim-faced, defying the storm, had a stong influence over me. I could do no less myself.
I have had many teachers. The best of them, with no degrees, knew more than the others. For that reason I have always had little respect for degress. Now, after many years I still study, have teachers, write music, dream of distant countries, and sometimes bang on washtubs."
 

Kromme

New member
"Beethoven's last quartets are written by a dead man and should only be listened by a dead man." Sir Thomas Beecham
 
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