Brahms Quotes - Page 2

• ...stories about [the German composer Johannes] Brahms's rudeness and wit amused me in particular. For instance, I loved the one about how a great wine connoisseur invited the composer to dinner. 'This is the Brahms of my cellar,' he said to his guests, producing a dust-covered bottle and pouring some into the master's glass. Brahms looked first at the color of the wine, then sniffed its bouquet, finally took a sip, and put the glass down without saying a word. 'Don't you like it?' asked the host. 'Hmm,' Brahms muttered. 'Better bring your Beethoven!'

  Arthur Rubinstein

  Wine, Glasses, Dust

  48 Copy quote

• I'm too busy playing. When I'm playing I don't pay attention to who's listening. When I was listening I listened to symphony orchestras, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Stravinsky. You don't listen to one instrument; you listen to music.

  Charles Mingus

  Symphony, Listening, Attention

  10 Copy quote

• I don't believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos.

  Oscar Peterson

  Believe, Air, Long

  11 Copy quote

• Mostly your love is passionate force. But when this passionate force turns itself to be a compassionate force under the guidance of compassionate intelligence, that is where one becomes brahm giani. One knows all, one sees all, one says all.

  Harbhajan Singh Yogi

  Love, Family, Passionate

  4 Copy quote

• If you go to Japan for instance, you should know that they have a different way of playing Beethoven or Brahms. But if you play with them Mozart, Debussy, Mendelssohn, they have a wonderful light feeling for that.

  Kurt Masur

  Light, Japan, Play

  7 Copy quote

• Brahms believed that there was no need to publish absolutely everything that Schubert ever wrote.

  Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

  Needs, Schubert, Publish

  4 Copy quote

• That was one of the big problems when I was at Harvard studying music. We had to write choral pieces in the style of Brahms or Mendelssohn, which was distressing because in the end you realized how good Brahms is, and how bad you are.

  Elliott Carter

  Writing, Style, Pieces

  7 Copy quote

• Listening to my regular favourites - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and so on - I always feel, quite misguidedly, that nothing can be too bad if such beauty and brilliance exists in the world.

  Jane Asher

  Listening, World, Brilliance

  7 Copy quote

• The three greatest composers are Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. All the others are cretins.

  Hans von Bulow

  Three, Composer

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• Reviewer: 'One of your themes was very similar to one of Beethoven's!' Brahms replied, 'Of course it is. Everyone steals - the important thing is to do it brilliantly.

  Johannes Brahms

  Important, Copying, Stealing

  66 Copy quote

• Sometimes I have the feeling that you are not quite aware--and this honors you--of the historical greatness of your position, that you think too modestly about yourself. Everything you do is destined to be of historic significance. One day, your letters, your decisions, will belong to all mankind, like those of Wagner and Brahms.

  Stefan Zweig

  Greatness, Thinking, Decision

  Richard Strauss, Stefan Zweig (1977). “A Confidential Matter: The Letters of Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig, 1931-1935”, p.67, Univ of California Press

  16 Copy quote

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• I play a lot chamber music.As for something that's hard for me to play, before I leave this Earth I'm hoping to play Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

  Condoleezza Rice

  Play, Piano, Earth

  4 Copy quote