Austrian Composer Quotes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Joseph Haydn

Arnold Schoenberg

Anton Bruckner

Alban Berg

I too had to work hard, so as not to have to work hard any longer.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Composing is a slowed-down improvisation; often one cannot write fast enough to keep up with the stream of ideas.

Arnold Schoenberg

Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright.

The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.

To Sibelius

I don't like my music, but what is my opinion against that of millions of others.

Frederick Loewe

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

Give Him thanks, all ye His works so wondrous! Sing His honor, sing His glory, bless and magnify His Name! Jehovah's praise endures forevermore, Amen, Amen!.

The best music always results from ecstasies of logic.

Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it's not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape.

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?