H. L. Mencken Quotes About Music

• There are two kinds of music; German music and bad music.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Music, Humorous

• Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

  H. L. Mencken

  Music, Baseball, Italian

• The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Music, Singing, May

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.545, Vintage

• The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer's mistress.

  H. L. Mencken

  Music, Symphony, Mind

• Richard Strauss--Old Home Week in Gomorrah

  H. L. Mencken

  Music, Home, Musician

• Debussy--A pretty girl with one blue eye and one brown one.

  H. L. Mencken

  Music, Girl, Eye

• Chopin--Two embalmers at work upon a minor poetthe scent of tuberosesAutumn rain.

  H. L. Mencken

  Music, Rain, Two

• The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Music, House

  1925 Letter to Isaac Goldberg.

• The feelings that Beethoven put into his music were the feelings of a god. There was something olympian in his snarls and rages, and there was a touch of hellfire in his mirth.

  H. L. Mencken

  Music, Feelings, Mirth

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.524, Vintage

You May Also Like:

George Jean Nathan

Friedrich Nietzsche

Mark Twain

Clarence Darrow

Sinclair Lewis

Ambrose Bierce

John T. Scopes