19th-century Composer Quotes

To copy the truth can be a good thing, but to invent the truth is better, much better.

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

Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
When I am no more, you will hear said of my work: "After all, it is only so much..." You will detach yourself from it, perhaps... All that has no importance. I have done what I could... and so, judge, my God.

You conductors who are so proud of your power! When a new man faces the orchestra–from the way he walks up the steps to the podium and opens his score–before he even picks up his baton–we know whether he is the master or we.

Franz Strauss
Franz Strauss
Suddenly a mist fell from my eyes and I knew the way I had to take.

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

Artists live with God – but give their little finger to Satan. I sleep with the angels and dream of the devil.

Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone,
Dare to have a purpose firm!
Dare to make it known!

There are no compensations to weigh against advancing years – no, not one.

If nobody ever offers an opinion or takes the slightest interest in one's production, one loses not only all pleasure in them, but all power of judging their value.

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

Orchestration is part of the very soul of the work. A work is thought out in terms of the orchestra, certain tone-colors being inseparable from it in the mind of its creator and native to it from the hour of its birth.

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
Charles Albert Tindley
On music:
Should it not rather come from the heart as well as the brain?

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
I'm goin' to Tishomingo,
Because I'm sad today.
I wish to linger,
Way down old Dixie way.
Oh my weary heart cries out in pain,
Oh how I wish that I was back again.
With a race,
In a place,
Where they make you welcome all the time.

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!