| |
|
I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung
up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with
its claws.
- Charles Baudelaire
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
- Igor Stravinsky
There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any
man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.
- George Bernard Shaw
Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding, sings.
- Ed Gardner
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
- Voltaire
Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour.
- Gioacchino Rossini
Assassins!
- Arturo Toscanin to his orchestra
Beethoven's last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened
to by a deaf man.
- Sir Thomas Beecham, on Ludwig van Beethoven
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
- Mark Twain
Wagner was a monster. He was anti-Semitic on Mondays and vegetarian on Tuesdays.
On Wednesday he was in favor of annexing Newfoundland, Thursday he wanted to
sink Venice, and Friday he wanted to blow up the Pope.
- Tony Palmer, on Richard Wagner
One feels that the composer must have made a bet, for all his professional
reputation was worth, that he would write the most hideous thing that had ever
been put on paper, and he won it, too.
- Boston Evening Transcript, on Tchaikovsky's 'Slavic March,' 1883
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a
cow for forty-five minutes.
- Aaron Copland
It's too late to apologize.
- Arturo Toscanini, retort to the insult "Nuts to you!" shouted at him by a
player he had just ordered from the stage during rehearsal
All Bach's last movements are like the running of a sewing machine.
- Arnold Bax, on Johan Sebastian Bach
Hell is full of musical amateurs.
- George Bernard Shaw
It is quite untrue that British people don't appreciate music. They may not
understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
- Sir Thomas Beecham
Debussy played the piano with the lid down.
- Robert Bresson, on Claude Debussy
Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.
- Gioacchino Rossini
A tub of pork and beer.
- Hector Berlioz, on George Frederick Handel
Brass bands are all very well in their place; outdoors and several miles away.
- Sir Thomas Beecham
Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment
with it, and that a very severe one.
- Hannah More
How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
- Giacacchino Rossini
I don't mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is the language I
don't understand.
- Edward Appleton
I hate music, especially when it's played.
- Jimmy Durante
I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else.
- Lily Tomlin
If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to
an osteopath, then there's something wrong
- Simon Rattle
Music helps not the toothache.
- George Herbert
Music is the brandy of the damned.
- George Bernard Shaw
Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding, he sings.
- Ed Gardner |
|
|
