Composers From Germany

"Only sneaky people and impostors can oppose the progress of sciences and can discredit them, because they are the only ones to whom the sciences do harm."

"Avec toute l’algèbre du monde on n’est souvent qu’un sot lorsqu’on ne sait pas autre chose. Peut-être dans dix ans la société tirera-t-elle de l’avantage des courbes que des songe-creux d’algébristes auront carrées laborieusement. J’en félicite d’avance la postérité; mais, à vous parler vrai, je ne vois dans tous ces calculs qu’une scientifique extravagance. Tout ce qui n’est ni utile ni agréable ne vaut rien. Quant aux choses utiles, elles sont toutes trouvées; et, pour les agréables, j’espère que le bon goût n’y admettra point d’algèbre."

"Do you think I take any pleasure in this dog's life, in seeing and causing death in people unknown to me, in losing friends and acquaintances daily, in seeing my reputation ceaselessly exposed to the caprices of fortune, in spending the whole year with uneasiness and apprehension, in continually risking my life and my fortune? I certainly know the value of tranquility, the charms of society, the pleasures of life, and I like to be happy as much as anybody. Although I desire all these good things, I will not buy them with baseness and infamy. Philosophy teaches us to do our duty, to serve our country faithfully at the expense of our blood and of our repose, to commit our whole being to it."

"As to your Newton, I confess I do not understand his void and his gravity; I admit he has demonstrated the movement of the heavenly bodies with more exactitude than his forerunners; but you will admit it is an absurdity to maintain the existence of Nothing."

"But France's powerful armies, and a very large number of fortresses, ensure that the French Sovereign will possess the throne forever, and they do not have anything to fear now concerning internal wars or their neighbors invading France."

"A single Voltaire will do more honor to France than a thousand pedants, a thousand false wits, a thousand great men of inferior order."

"I think it better to keep a profound silence with regard to the Christian fables, which are canonized by their antiquity and the credulity of absurd and insipid people."

"Truth to tell, treaties are only oaths of deception and faithlessness. The jurisprudence of sovereigns is customarily the law of the strongest."

"But a prince, when he binds himself, does not bind himself alone, otherwise he would be in the same position as a private individual. Instead, he exposes great countries and great provinces to a thousand misfortunes. Therefore, it is better that he should break his contract rather than that the people should perish."

"Ich empfinde für das göttliche Wesen die tiefste Verehrung und hüte mich deshalb sehr, ihm ein ungerechtes, wankelmütiges Verhalten zuzuschreiben, das man beim geringsten Sterblichen verurteilen würde. Aus diesem Grunde, liebe Schwester, glaube ich lieber nicht, dass das allmächtige, gütige Wesen sich im mindesten um die menschlichen Angelegenheiten kümmert. Vielmehr schreibe ich alles, was geschieht, den Geschöpfen und notwendigen Wirkungen unberechenbarer Ursachen zu und beuge mich schweigend vor diesem anbetungswürdigen Wesen, indem ich meine Unwissenheit über seine Wege eingestehe, die mir zu offenbaren seiner göttlichen Weisheit nicht gefallen hat."

"Compare Holland with Russia; you see only marshy and sterile islands in the former, which rise from the center of the ocean: a small republic which is only 48 miles length by 40 wide. But this small body is the very nerve-center of the region: immense people live in it, and these industrious people are both powerful and rich. They shook the yoke of the Spanish domination, which was then the most formidable monarchy of Europe. The trade of this republic extends to the ends of the world; and new trade appears almost immediately; it can maintain in times of war an army fifty thousand men, without counting a many and well maintained fleet."

"It has been said by a certain general, that the first object in the establishment of an army ought to be making provision for the belly, that being the basis and foundation of all operations."

"To send light into the depths of the human heart -- this is the artist's calling!"

"Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything."

"The talent works, the genius creates."

"In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of."

"Perhaps genius alone understands genius fully. (Sometimes translated as: Perhaps only genius fully understands genius)"

"None investigated the Romantic’s obsession with feeling and passion quite so thoroughly as [Schumann]. Schumann died insane, but then some psychologists argue that madness is a necessary attribute of genius."

"Schumann’s piano settings mostly evolve around the middle range of the piano keyboard, and lastly also for that reason his music is much more difficult to play. Often enough the result is mediocre sound (in both senses of the word) if you do not work strongly on highlighting the individual lines of the texture."

"[A]lmost every simple piece of Schumann’s has a hidden secret (with few exceptions, for example the Arabesque). Such a seemingly easy piece like “Des Abends” or some of the pieces from “Kinderszenen” can only be played by accomplished musicians."

"Schumann’s writing for the piano is very orchestral, and sometimes does not lie so easily under the hands. But it is still very well written for the piano and the technique he demands perhaps suits me better than Chopin’s."

"Schumann‘s piano music is conceived more instrumentally, not necessarily for piano. This is true of Beethoven and Brahms too."

"Schumann is the most representative musical figure of central European Romanticism as much because of his limitations as because of his genius: in his finest works, indeed, he exploited these limitations in such a way that they gave a force to his genius that no other contemporary could attain."

"If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. therefore, respect every musician in his proper place."

"There was no more hard-working musician in Germany. Mahler was one of many to marvel at his energy, expressing open astonishment at Strauss's ability to produce such a wide-ranging body of music while, simultaneously, sustaining an opera house, an orchestra, conducting guest tours and a family."

"Once, he was sitting at his desk, with me behind him. He was working on the score of Daphne and discussing a Mozart interpretation with me. Upon which I said "But Herr Doktor, you can't talk to me about other things whilst you are working". He replied: "Don't worry, carry on my dear Böhm, I am able to think of the two things at once"."

"“What do I think of Jazz? Jazz is royal concert in the palace of King Attila! The original negro melodies from which it is derived are sublime, but Jazz —" said Dr.Strauss shrugging his shoulders."

"Here is another small indication of how Strauss saw himself primarily as a practising musician rather than as a big composer of his time – which he was. In the years leading up to the Second World War, when it was still not the fashion for famous people to give out their private telephone numbers, I would read for the first time in a Garmisch Telephone Book: Dr. Strauss, Richard, Kapellmeister, and not as one would suspect “Composer”."

"The greatest impression he made on me: whatever he said or did, happened – with greatest ease. One never had the impression of being in front of a person who was aware of his own significance or who acted upon it. There was never any trace of vanity, as with many when faced with the fate of considering oneself above average."

"He would write out the full score from the short score with everything, even new counterpoints in ink in the final draft;...he never crossed anything out. If he made a mistake he would take out a pen-knife, carefully erase it, smooth the spot with his nail and write the note over the spot. But there were very few corrections to be done, for he rarely made a mistake. Even with transposing instruments, where it is easy to go wrong. He would write just as the likes of us write a letter."

"German Music is unthinkable without Richard Strauss."

"I have met a great many artists in my life but never one who knew how to maintain such abstract and unerring objectivity towards himself. Thus Strauss frankly admitted to me in the first hour of our meeting that he well knew, that at seventy the composer’s musical inspiration no longer possesses its pristine power. He could hardly succeed in composing works like Till Eulenspiegel or Death and Transfiguration because just pure music requires an extreme measure of creative freshness. But the World could still inspire him!"

"Wagner's music is the most modern and the ultimate. Nobody is beyond that. Strauss's "Progress" is drivel."

"When it comes to the music of Richard Strauss, the bowing makes the fiddler grouse."

"I have enjoyed most particularly reading the correspondence between Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. The genuine friendship, competitiveness and support that thread through their communications are life lessons for us all."

"Work, as he practised it, was quite a remarkable procedure with Strauss. Nothing of the daemonic, nothing of the artist’s mad exaltation, nothing of those depressions and desperations we know from accounts of Beethoven and Wagner. Strauss works to the point and composes like Johann Sebastian Bach, like all those sublime craftsmen of their art, quietly and systematically. At nine in the morning he sits down to resume his work just where he left off the day before, always writing the first sketch of his composition in pencil, the piano score in ink, and continues thus without pause until twelve or one o’clock. In the afternoon he plays Skat, a German card game, transfers two or three pages to the final score and possibly conducts an opera in the evening. He does not know what nervousness is, by day and night his artistic mind is equally alert and lucid. When his valet knocks on the door to bring his evening clothes, he gets up from his work, dresses, rides to the theatre and conducts with the same assurance and calm with which he plays Skat in the afternoon, and the next morning inspiration again falls into its proper place."

"I can assure you sincerely: since Wagner we have not had such a great master as Strauss."

"Strauss played some from memory. He’s not a good by-heart player, and something extraordinary happened with ‘All mein Gedanken’. Already after the third bar he couldn’t remember the accompaniment anymore and composed an entirely new song. I leapt along with him, the words fitted perfectly, no one in the audience suspected a thing, and when we had made it to the end I turned my eyes to the right to see what his reaction was. All I saw was him grinning from ear to ear—it was really difficult for me to find the calm and seriousness needed for the next song, ‘Freundliche Vision’. After the group we couldn’t stop laughing in the artists’ room, and I asked him to write down the new ‘All mein Gedanken’ straightaway afterwards, but he replied ‘Oh, I’ve already completely forgotten it.’ What a pity! I liked it much more than the original."

"Even if he has many hard sides to him and often appears cold, in the seven weeks of our tour I have come to recognise him as one of the noblest of men. Every hour spent with him is gain, even when he is silent."

"I want to pick the old man's brains for my opera."

"I was aroused as by a flash of lightning by the first Budapest performance of Also Sprach Zarathustra. It contained the seeds for a new life. I started composing again."

"Salome and Pelléas et Mélisande are the most striking works in European music for the last fifteen years."

"He asked about Vienna and the Opera, listened with great interest, grumbled about the Italian dress rehearsals. He thought opera in German-speaking countries should be performed in German."

"The Symphonia Domestica was amusing and annoying by turns; but with some lovely bits."

"He definiteley thinks in colored images. Ein Heldenleben is a book of images, cinematography even."

"I can assure you, that the sun shines in Richard Strauss's music. It is impossible to resist the overwhelming power of this man!"

"Richard Strauss has neither a foolish wild curly mane, nor the movements of a madman. He is tall and in his free, resolute attitude he looks like one of those great explorers who, with a smile on their faces, cross the territory of savage peoples. Doesn't one need something of this attitude in order to be able to shake the well-mannered public?"

"When all is said and done, he was a giant - even if his feet were made of clay."

"His music stirs me to my very depths. To me the finale is a flood of strength and joy. One always wonders how that could have come out of this. There has been nothing like it in symphonic music since Beethoven."

"He is one of those musicians about whom it is difficult to write impartially or objectively, as his music is likely to arouse antipathy or admiration according to the temperamental outlook of the individual critic."