19th-century Composer Quotes

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Frédéric Chopin

Giuseppe Verdi

Franz Liszt

Johannes Brahms

Jean Sibelius

Antonín Dvořák

As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.

I never compose in the abstract; that is to say, the musical thought never appears otherwise than in a suitable external form. In this way I invent the musical idea and the instrumentation simultaneously.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Please accept a promise from me in his name that I will always live in the religion in which he died.

Giacomo Meyerbeer

I have departed from this planet and I have left behind my poor earthly ones with their occupations which are as many as they are useless; at last I am living in the scintillating splendor of the stars, each of which used to seem to me as large as millions of suns.

Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.

Gioachino Rossini

Roll on, thou ball, roll on! Through pathless realms of Space Roll on! What though I'm in a sorry case? What though I cannot meet my bills? What though I suffer toothache's ills? What though I swallow countless pills?

Arthur Sullivan

They want me to write differently. Certainly I could, but I must not. God has chosen me from thousands and given me, of all people, this talent. It is to Him that I must give account. How then would I stand there before Almighty God, if I followed the others and not Him?

We who stand on the threshold of a new century can look back on an era of unparalleled progress. Looking into the future an equally bright prospect greets our eyes; on all sides fruitful fields of research invite our labor and promise easy and rich returns. Surely this is the golden age of mathematics!

James Lord Pierpont

What good it does one to have a hearty, uncontrollable fit of laughter.

Charlotte Alington Barnard

When the storms of life are raging, stand by me. When the world is tossing me, like a ship upon the sea, Thou who rulest wind and water, stand by me.

Charles Albert Tindley

Oh! we don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go
For your King and your Country both need you so.

Paul Rubens (composer)

The most terrible thing of all is happy love, for then there is fear in everything.

Salvation Army Booth objected to the devil having all the good tunes. I object to jazz and vaudeville having all the best instruments.

The Prince of Wales' brother, along with some other,
Slaps me on the back, and says 'Come and see mother.'
I'm Bert, Bert, and Royalty's hurt when they ask me to dine,
I say 'No –
I've just had a banana with Lady Diana,
I'm Burlington Bertie from Bow.'

William Hargreaves

What a terrible revenge by the culture of the Negroes on that of the whites!

Of jazz

Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I dared much, but the next time, you will see, I will dare even more...

The melodic curves of speech are an expression of the complete organism and of all phases of its spiritual activities. They demonstrate whether a man is stupid or intelligent, sleepy or awake, tired or alert. They tell us whether he is a child or an old man, whether it is morning or evening, light or darkness, heat or frost, and disclose whether a person is alone or in company. The art of dramatic writing is to compose a melodic curve that will, as if by magic, reveal immediately a human being in one definite phase of his existence.

Leoš Janáček

In poetry there are two giants, rough Homer and fine Shakespere. In music likewise we have two giants, Beethoven, the thinker, and the superthinker Berlioz.

Modest Mussorgsky

It is improper, to expressly pursue the Urlinie in performance and to single out its tones... for the purpose of communicating the Urlinie to the listener." Rather, "for the performer, the Urlinie provides, first of all, a sense of direction. It serves a somewhat equivalent function to that which a road map serves for a mountain climber.

Heinrich Schenker

I'm becoming daily more and more misanthropic and misogynous…nothing worthwhile, good or useful to do… no one to devote myself to. My situation makes me horridly sad and wretched. Even musical production has lost its attraction for me for I can't see the point or goal.

Charles-Valentin Alkan

See, the night doth enfold us! See, all the world lies sleeping!

Giacomo Puccini

It's the soldiers of the King, my lads
Who've been, my lads, who've seen, my lads
In the fight for England's glory lads
When we've had to show them what we mean.

Having nothing to do, I am correcting the Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by those who are supposed to understand Bach (I have no pretensions to understand better, but I do think that sometimes I can guess).

Frédéric Chopin

All that I write whether poetry or music centred around God. This is an act of faith in me. Music is not worth its name otherwise.

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that art, as such, does not "pay," to use an American expression – at least, not in the beginning – and that the art that has to pay its own way is apt to become vitiated and cheap.

Antonín Dvořák