German Composer Quotes

Ludwig van Beethoven

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johannes Brahms

Robert Schumann

Richard Strauss

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Carl Orff

To do good whenever one can, to love liberty above all else, never to deny the truth, even though it be before the throne.

Ludwig van Beethoven

According to my principles, every master has his true and certain value. Praise and criticism cannot change any of that. Only the work itself praises and criticizes the master, and therefore I leave to everyone his own value.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Like all music, the figured bass should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the recreation of the soul; where this is not kept in mind there is no true music, but only an infernal clamour and ranting.

Johann Sebastian Bach

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

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Must one become seventy years old to recognize that one's greatest strength lies in creating musical kitsch?

Richard Strauss

I am often asked why I nearly always select old material, fairy tales and legends for my stage works. I do not look upon them as old, but rather as valid material. The time element disappears, and only the spiritual power remains. My entire interest is in the expression of spiritual realities. I write for the theater in order to convey a spiritual attitude.

Music is mathematics, the mathematics of listening, mathematics for the ears.

Karlheinz Stockhausen

I sometimes lack confidence in public, although I am proud enough inwardly.

Robert Schumann

I wish I could write to you as tenderly as I love you and tell you all the good things that I wish you. You are so infinitely dear to me, dearer than I can say... If things go on much longer as they are at present I shall have sometime to put you under glass or to have you set in gold. If only I could live in the same town with you and my parents... Do write me a nice letter soon. Your letters are like kisses.

Johannes Brahms

But what have those colorful ballets to do with the opera's? Ballets, that do not concern the opera at the least. Do they not spoil all possible action, that they in their course violently interrupt?

Joseph Martin Kraus

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.

Wake, awake, for night is flying:
The watchmen on the heights are crying.

Philipp Nicolai

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.

Fanny Mendelssohn