Classical Composers Quotes

• Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Music, Knowledge, World

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  79 Copy quote

  Show source

• A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

  Leopold Stokowski

  Inspirational, Music, Art

  Leopold Stokowski's address to an audience at Carnegie Hall, as quoted in The New York Times, May 11, 1967.

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Music, Wisdom, Philosophy

  Ludwig van Beethoven, Friedrich Kerst, Henry Edward Krehbiel (1964). “Beethoven, the Man and the Artist, as Revealed in His Own Words”, p.13, Courier Corporation

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.

  Frederic Chopin

  Music, Art, Simple

  "If Not God, Then What? Neuroscience, Aesthetics, and the Origins of the Transcendent". Book by Joshua Fost (p. 93), November 16, 2007.

  125 Copy quote

  Show source

• Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.

  Claude Debussy

  Art, Musician, Classical Music

  "Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought". Book by John Paynter, 1992.

  108 Copy quote

  Show source

• To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

  Leonard Bernstein

  Time, Stress, Humor

  76 Copy quote

• Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  Love, Marriage, Flower

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Metropolitan Opera (New York, N.Y.) (1971). “Chagall at the Met”, Leon Amiel Publisher

  258 Copy quote

  Show source

• Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.

  Johannes Brahms

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Music

  115 Copy quote

• 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

  Music, Appreciation, Humorous

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.

  Robert Schumann

  Inspiring, Art, Men

  75 Copy quote

• Music is the social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.

  Malcolm Arnold

  Inspiring, Communication, People

  46 Copy quote

• Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Musician, Jazz, Force

  "Cellist Yo Yo Ma: His career and music". www.cnn.com. March 15, 2001.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.

  Brian Greene

  Science, Avant Garde, Mathematics

  19 Copy quote

• I tend to listen to the classical composers: Rachmaninov, Satie.

  Enya

  Listen To Your Heart, Composer

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  Spiritual, Doing What You Love, Making Love

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Metropolitan Opera (New York, N.Y.) (1971). “Chagall at the Met”, Leon Amiel Publisher

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

  Leonard Bernstein

  Sound, Orchestra, Want

  23 Copy quote

• I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

  Richard Strauss

  Inspiring, Music, Second Chance

  57 Copy quote

• I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.

  Jascha Heifetz

  Writing, Play, Two

  1961 In Life.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Inspiring, Art, Architecture

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Competitions are for horses, not artists.

  Bela Bartok

  Inspirational, Funny, Inspiring

  79 Copy quote

• You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow. (Oscar trying to talk his way out of a speeding ticket)

  Oscar Levant

  Music, Trying, Movement

  14 Copy quote

• The only love affair I have ever had was with music.

  Maurice Ravel

  Love, Inspiring, Affair

  68 Copy quote

• Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Music, Writing, Thank God

  Letter to Ferdinand Ries, 20 Dec. 1822

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.

  Giacomo Puccini

  Inspiring, Art, Inspiration

  82 Copy quote

• I would prefer to listen to a French classical composer like Olivier Messiaen than to the pop hits of the day.

  Matt Groening

  Pops, Composer

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. April 26, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source