A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
All I ask of Providence is a secluded spot where, for a few weeks every year, I can be entirely my own master.
All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.
Am I, then, a wild animal, that everyone stares at me, as though I were in a zoo?
An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.
At times I feel such anguish that I should love to run away. I scarcely dare to think of home.
Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.
Before my eyes the Danube follows its eternal course and the gleam of the evening sun is caught by its waves.
Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.
Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.
Discipline, work. Work, discipline.
Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it.
Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
Every week I came back from the library with a briefcase full of symphonies, opera arrangements, and salon pieces.
Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.
I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life.
I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.
I am the second Kapellmeister at the theater in this city. I am anxious to leave my present post.
I beg of you... never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.
I believe that to raise the curtain again solely to present a frightening massacre lasting scarcely one minute is to commit an action offensive to all.
I can no longer stand seeing these gentlemen fall out of their chairs.
I cannot conform to the aesthetics in my daily life. This is a question of personality and temperament.
I cannot hold my own and maintain my honor in this cesspool.
I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas - I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.
I don't think that I ever experienced such a pleasant hour with my First Symphony.
I dread to return to Hamburg. At present I don't see a single post that I should accept.
I embark on this enterprise rather like a soldier who shoots arrows into the dark at an invisible target.
I have already been out in the pasture sitting close to Farkas, the shepherd, so as to listen to the sound of his pipe.
I have become a different person. I don't know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.
I have been working without interruption for two days now with the officials and counselors so as to acquaint myself with the way things are done.
I have completed the opus in two days, and I must tell you that I am very pleased with it.
I have terrible tenor troubles and the most absurd difficulties of all kinds, but I do not give in.
I have to restrict myself here again as much as I had during the Vienna period.
I have willingly let myself be loaded with innumerable chains.
I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.
I live like a Hottentot. I cannot exchange one sensible word with anyone.
I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment.
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.
If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster.
Immediately I found myself back with the Masters of yesterday, everything seemed so charming and beautiful.
In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.
In the church, everything was defined by ritual.
In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.
It is absolutely impossible to ask, from the podium, during a performance, for the authorities' consent to an encore.
It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.
It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going.
It seems my star is in the ascendant again in Hamburg.
It should be one's sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew.
It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.
Let us see what I will accomplish.
May the Devil take this worthless existence.
Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.
My companions have been love and sorrow.
My friends avoided me in terror. Not a single one of them dared to speak to me about the work or its performance.
Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way.
One fine day I'll suddenly take leave from here.
Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
Tempo is for me a matter of feeling.
The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.
The concert hall replaced the chamber and instead of the church with its new instrument, the organ, there was the opera house.
The degree to which the word sustains the sound can be measured when you pass from wordless music to text.
The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.
The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content.
The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi.
The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.
The pointer of a pair of scales always returns to the center.
The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.
The worst of it is, this kind of superficial performance becomes the tradition.
There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.
To judge a composer's work, one must consider it as a whole.
What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.
When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
With the coming of spring, I am calm again.
You cannot imagine the effort required to construct such a long movement, to support and control this whole edifice.
You know how meticulous I am in my work.
You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.
You can share a link to this page with your friend!