Best Mahler Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Even before the First World War there was a strain in European art and music – in Germany more than anywhere – that was turning from ripeness to over-ripeness and then into something else. The last strains of the Austro-German Romantic tradition – exemplified by Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Gustav Klimt – seemed almost to have destroyed itself by reaching a pitch of ripeness from which nothing could follow other than complete breakdown. It was not just that their subject matter was so death-obsessed, but that the tradition felt as though it could not be stretched any further or innovated any more without snapping. And so it snapped: in modernism and then post-modernism.”

Modernism Mahler Post Modernism Klimt Fin De Siècle Strauss

Book:The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam

Source: The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam

“It is time to remind Sharon that the star of David belongs to all Jews, not to his repulsive Government. His actions are staining the star of David with blood. The Jewish people, whose gifts to civilised discourse include Einstein and Epstein, Mendelssohn and Mahler, Sergei Eisenstein and Billy Wilder, are now symbolised throughout the world by the blustering bully Ariel Sharon, a war criminal implicated in the murder of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila camps and now involved in killing Palestinians once again.”

People World War Government Action Stars Blood Involved Murder Killing Jew Criminals Camps Palestinian Discourse Bully Civilised Ariel Wilder Sharon Mahler Mendelssohn

Author:Gerald Kaufman

“My favorite composers are the ones that tell the story. I love Wagner. I love Mahler. Prokofiev. The programmatic music. I listen more to classic rock because I don't like the contemporary music very much.”

Stories Rocks My Favorite Contemporary Classic Composer Wagner Classic Rock Mahler Contemporary Music

Author:Patti LuPone

“I have enjoyed most particularly reading the correspondence between Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. The genuine friendship, competitiveness and support that thread through their communications are life lessons for us all.”

Reading Support Communication Lessons Genuine Enjoyed Life Lesson Thread Correspondence Competitiveness Mahler Genuine Friendship

Author:Jessye Norman

“A Haydn symphony had a meaning for the social group that listened to it. A Mahler symphony had a meaning for the man who composed it. Here is the difference between the classical and romantic attitudes to art.”

Men Art Social Differences Attitude Groups He Man Symphony Social Groups Mahler

Author:Anthony Burgess

“I love Gustavo Dudamel and I love what he does for classical music, and I love what he comes out of, El Sistema and the old man Abreu. When we were in Venezuela, I had the chance to go to his building. He had, like, five or six orchestras playing of kids from the hood playing, like, Mahler's third symphony and Shostakovich fifth and Beethoven. Man, it's unbelievable. I mean, they could play.”

Men Mean Doe Play Kids Chance Five Building Six Thirds Old Man Unbelievable Orchestra Fifth Symphony Classical Music Hood Venezuela Mahler Shostakovich

Author:Wynton Marsalis

“I cannot work and listen to Wagner at the same time, nor Mahler, nor Beethoven's late quartets. I enjoy listening to Chopin's piano music when I work.”

Enjoy Listening Late Piano Quartets Wagner Piano Music Mahler

Book:Conversations with I. M. Pei: Light is the Key

Source: Conversations with I. M. Pei: Light is the Key

“To be passionate in today's world is not politically correct... Nowadays we are supposed to cope. This was not Mahler's problem. He saw it, he heard it, and he expressed it. He was a kaleidoscopic, Olympian figure.”

World Problem Today Saws Heard Figures Passionate Politically Correct Olympian Today's World Mahler

Author:Lorin Maazel

“I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of the Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the Kindertotenlieder and Wunderhorn for hours, we'd take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was gear.”

Used Turns Hours Influence Majors Singing Piano Gears Mahler

Author:Paul McCartney

“I like to sing to Verdi, I like singing to Sibelius, and Mahler maybe.”

Singing Mahler Verdi Sibelius

Author:Rufus Wainwright

“Presenting Aschenbach as a composer - based on Mahler - leads to some dreadful scenes (especially those in which Aschenbach is berated by his student), and it surely distorts the character Mann created. Yet, we know that Mann's novella was based on a holiday in Venice he took with his wife and brother, and that while he was there he followed the reports in the German newspapers, describing the dying Mahler's progress as he returned from New York to Vienna.”

Knows Character Wife Progress Dying New York Students Brother Scene Newspapers Reports Holiday Composer Describing Venice Presenting Vienna Mahler

Author:Philip Kitcher

“We know that he gave Aschenbach Mahler's first name, and also his facial features. So Visconti picks up on something interesting. That led me to think about ways of developing further the Aschenbach-Mahler connection.”

Thinking Knows Way Firsts Names Interesting Picks Connections Developing Features Facial Something Interesting Mahler Facial Features

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Using the Adagietto of Mahler's Fifth is one of the touches of pure genius in Visconti's film (even though Mahlerians complain very loudly that the piece has been ruined), since it corresponds perfectly to Aschenbach's yearnings and to his circling walks around Venice.”

Has Beens Film Walks Pieces Genius Pure Complaining Yearning Ruined Fifth Venice Mahler

Author:Philip Kitcher

“I found a deep kinship between Mahler's recurrent attempts to confront all sides of life and to affirm himself in the face of his own finitude, and Aschenbach's dedication to persevere in the literary evocation of beauty. Exploring this kinship led me to reflect on many of Mahler's songs and symphonies - and particularly his great masterpiece, Das Lied von der Erde. The end result was a way of reading Mann that I hadn't originally anticipated at all.”

Way Ends Faces Song Reading Found Sides Results Dedication Exploring Masterpiece Lied Symphony Persevere Kinship End Results Finitude Mahler

Author:Philip Kitcher

“I didn't know that Mahler would come to play so large a role, nor that music and literature and philosophy can interinanimate one another in the way I've come to think they do in this case.”

Thinking Knows Way Philosophy Play Literature Roles Cases Mahler

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Britten's opera tends to see things in simpler terms. It portrays an Aschenbach who wants a richer form of sexual fulfillment, and who is hemmed in by the social conventions to which he subscribes. But Visconti's use of the Mahler Adagietto is perfect for what I take to be Aschenbach's sexual desire.”

Want Use Form Desire Social Term Perfect Fulfillment Conventions Opera Sexual Desire Mahler

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Schopenhauer's thought that Will is insatiable, that once satisfied in one form it must be expressed in new desires, is inherited both by Mann and by Aschenbach (it's in Mahler, as well). So life is inevitably incomplete.”

Wells Form Life Is Desire Satisfied Incomplete Insatiable Mahler

Author:Philip Kitcher

“I like the way Mahler wandered about in his music and still retained his passion. He must have looked like an earthquake walking down the street.”

Way Stills Passion Streets Walking Earthquakes Mahler

Author:Charles Bukowski

“Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing through. His voice is deep, then he lifts it until it seems to fall from the sky. I am thrilled. I am grateful. Then, by the end of morning, he's gone, nothing but silence out of the tree where he rested for a night. And this I find acceptable. Not enough is a poor life. But too much is, well, too much. Imagine Verdi or Mahler every day, all day. It would exhaust anyone.”

Source: A Thousand Mornings: Poems

“Although, I am proud of all my Symphonies as they all have something special to say, my particular favourite is the Fifth. As the great Mahler expert Donald Mitchell said that if Mahler had written another Symphony, it would have been my Fifth!”

Ifs Has Beens Said Written Special Particular Proud Experts Favourite Fifth Symphony Something Special Mahler

Author:Malcolm Arnold

“He wanted us to play whatever we played in the most characteristic and appropriate style. Even it was the theme from 'The Godfather,' you needed to play that then the way that a Hollywood producer would expect it to be played. Whether it was that or the posthorn solo from Mahler's Symphony No. 3, he would expect that to be played in the way that Leonard Bernstein wanted to hear it. In retrospect, I think it was a sensational way to teach this particular group of students. By the time you graduated you could absolutely read anything with any trumpet.”

Thinking Way Play Wanted Teach Groups Style Students Particular Needed Hollywood Producers Characteristics Theme Appropriate Solo Symphony Trumpets Retrospect Sensational Mahler

Author:Manny Laureano

“I cannot listen to Beethoven or Mahler or Chopin or Bach when I write because those composers require you stop what you are doing and listen.”

Writing Composer Mahler

Author:Antonio Damasio

“Mahler wrote it as the third movement of his Fourth Symphony. I mean the fourth movement of his First Symphony. We play it third. The trumpet solo will be played by our solo trumpet player. It's named 'Blumine,' which has something to do with flowers.”

Firsts Mean Play Funny Player Movement Flower Thirds Fourth Solo Orchestra Symphony Trumpets Mahler

Author:Eugene Ormandy

“You should never trust anyone who listens to Mahler before they're forty.”

Should Forty Composer Never Trust Mahler Never Trust Anyone

Author:Clive James

“There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.”

World Differences Normal Notes Mahler

Author:Gustav Mahler

“For me to rehearse with a children's orchestra a Mahler symphony was to really work. We had three or four weeks of rehearsal with the orchestra, every day eight or nine hours, putting the First together. I had been conducting Tchaikovsky a lot and Beethoven, but Mahler was different.”

Firsts Children Different Together Three Hours Four Week Eight Nine Orchestra Rehearsal Symphony Conducting Mahler Tchaikovsky

Author:Gustavo Dudamel

“I love to read different books on completely different subjects at the same time. I cannot focus on one. I read a few pages of literature, then I jump to philosophy and at the same time I'm reading biographies of Mahler.”

Book Different Philosophy Reading Literature Focus Subjects Pages Biographies Love To Read Different Books Mahler Different Subjects Reading Biographies

Author:Gustavo Dudamel

“Perhaps, once I am gone, the one thing I might be remembered for is having sung a great deal of Mahler with a great many phenomenal conductors. It is wonderful music, very spiritual.”

Might Spiritual Deals Gone Wonderful One Thing Remembered Great Men Phenomenal Conductor Mahler

Author:Maureen Forrester

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Mahler Quotes