Richard Strauss Short Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

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Never look at the Trombones, you'll only encourage them.

Richard Strauss
Always accompany a singer in such a way that he can sing without effort.

Richard Strauss
You should not perspire when conducting: only the audience should get warm.

Richard Strauss
Conduct 'Salome' and 'Elektra' as if they were by Mendelssohn: fairy music.

Richard Strauss
Remember you are making music not to amuse yourself but to delight the audience.

Richard Strauss
If you think that the brass is not blowing hard enough, tone it down another shade or two.

Richard Strauss
Never look encouragingly at the brass, except with a short glance to give an important cue.

Richard Strauss
Very fine, but why do you put so many wrong notes in? Basically, it is all built on simple triads.

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

Richard Strauss
Conducting is, after all, a difficult business – one has to be seventy years of age to realise this fully!

Richard Strauss
But never let the horns and woodwind out of your sight: if you can hear them at all they are still too strong.

Richard Strauss
As for the Rosenkavalier waltzes...how could I have done those without a thought of the laughing genius of Vienna?

Richard Strauss
It is clear to me that the German nation will achieve new creative energy only by liberating itself from Christianity...

Richard Strauss
Man (in B major) asks: When? When? Nature, (in C Major) answers from the depths Never, never, never will the weather improve".

Richard Strauss
In my opinion, Gustav Mahler's work is one of the most important and interesting products in the history of modern creative arts.

Richard Strauss
If you follow these rules carefully you will, with your fine gifts and great accomplishments, always be the darling of your listeners.

Richard Strauss
Melody as revealed in the greatest works of our classics is one of the most noble gifts which an invisible deity has bestowed on mankind.

Richard Strauss
Why don't people see what is new in my work, how in them, as is found only in Beethoven, the human being visibly plays a part in the work...

Richard Strauss
It is better to conduct with the ear instead of with the arm: the rest follows automatically.
Ten Golden Rules (for the album of a young conductor). page38. Originally published 1922.

Richard Strauss
When you think you have reached the limits of prestíssimo, go twice as fast. (1948 Today, I should like to amend this as follows: Go twice as slowly - addressed to conductors of Mozart).

Richard Strauss