InspiringQuotes

Felix Mendelssohn Quotes:

Felix Mendelssohn quotes

Ocupation: Composer

Life: February 3, 1809 - November 4, 1847

Birthday: February 3

Death: November 4

famous quotes

The trombone is too sacred for frequent use.

Topics: Use, Sacred, Trombone

quote it s not that music is too imprecise for words but too precise felix mendelssohn Quotes

Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God.

Topics: Country, Blessed, Tasks, Worldly Things

These seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.

Topics: Soul, Misunderstood, Genuine

Life and art are not two different things....

Topics: Art, Two, Different

I dislike nothing more than finding fault with a man's nature or talent; it only depresses and worries and does no good; one cannot add a cubit to one's stature, all striving and struggling are useless there, so one has to be silent about it, and let the responsibility rest with God.

Topics: Depressing, Struggle, Responsibility

Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because no matter what public, or what pretty girl wanted it to be thus or thus; but to write solely as I myself thought best, and as it gave me pleasure.

Topics: Girl, Writing, Principles

People usually complain that music is so ambiguous, and what they are supposed to think when they hear it is so unclear, while words are understood by everyone. But for me it is exactly the opposite...what the music I love expresses to me are thoughts not to indefinite for words, but rather too definite.

Topics: Thinking, Opposites, People

And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal?

Topics: Strong, War, Animal

This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings, that it throw open the window of the soul.

Topics: Art, Thinking, Soul

I know perfectly well that no musician can make his thoughts or his talents different to what Heaven has made them; but I also know that if Heaven had given him good ones, he must also be able to develop them properly.

Topics: Heaven, Musician, Different

And do you agree with me, that the first condition of an artist should be to bear respect toward what is great, and to bow to it and acknowledge it and not attempt to extinguish great flames for the sake of making his own rushlight burn more brightly?

source: - Letter to Wilhelm Taubert, August 27, 1831.

Topics: Artist, Flames, Sake

The essence of beauty is unity in variety.

Topics: Essence, Unity, Essence Of Beauty

It's not that music is too imprecise for words, but too precise....

Topics: Music Is, Precise

Pray to God that He might create is us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us.

Topics: Heart, Might, Spirit, Clean Heart

These, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.

source: - Felix Mendelssohn's letter to Marc-Andre Souchay (October 15, 1842) as quoted in "Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from 1833 to 1847" edited by Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Dr. Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy (pp. 313-314), 1863.

Topics: Soul, Misunderstood, Genuine

First and foremost an artist should pay homage to grandness, honour and bow to it, and not try to extinguish the fierce flames of such, in an attempt to have his own feeble light shine brighter. When one isn't able to acknowledge greatness, I would really want to know how he endeavours to make me experience it.

Topics: Artist, Greatness, Light

Never mind, put any book on the piano, and someone can turn from time to time, so I need not look as though I played by heart.

Topics: Book, Heart, Piano

Such a divine profession is art! When everything else looks so stale and disgustingly vacuous, so enthralls even the littlest real effort of art our innermost and carries us from town, from country, from earth, as that it must be truely a blessing of the Gods.

Topics: Country, Art, Real, Vacuous

No one can bar me from joyfully proceeding on what the great masters have left us; after all, to rediscover everything again, should be understood to be unfounded. But one should however proceed on merit, and not simply repeat wat was. All genius, sincere, deserves his place, even though maybe later in life.

Topics: Later In Life, Bars, Genius

Related Authors

Alban Berg quotes

Alban Berg
Anton Bruckner quotes

Anton Bruckner
Anton Rubinstein quotes

Anton Rubinstein
Antonin Dvorak quotes

Antonin Dvorak
Benjamin Zander quotes

Benjamin Zander
Camille Saint-Saens quotes

Camille Saint-Saens
Carl Flesch quotes

Carl Flesch
Carl Maria von Weber quotes

Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Orff quotes

Carl Orff
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach quotes

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Cecilia Bartoli quotes

Cecilia Bartoli
Charles Gounod quotes

Charles Gounod
Charles Wesley quotes

Charles Wesley
Christoph August Tiedge quotes

Christoph August Tiedge
Clara Schumann quotes

Clara Schumann
Claude Debussy quotes

Claude Debussy
Clifford Bax quotes

Clifford Bax
Constanze Mozart quotes

Constanze Mozart
David Quammen quotes

David Quammen
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau quotes

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich von Hildebrand quotes

Dietrich von Hildebrand
Dmitri Shostakovich quotes

Dmitri Shostakovich
Dorothy DeLay quotes

Dorothy DeLay
Eduard Hanslick quotes

Eduard Hanslick
Edvard Grieg quotes

Edvard Grieg
Edward Elgar quotes

Edward Elgar
Edward Gardner quotes

Edward Gardner
Emanuel Geibel quotes

Emanuel Geibel
Emil Ludwig quotes

Emil Ludwig
Ernest Newman quotes

Ernest Newman
Ernestine Schumann-Heink quotes

Ernestine Schumann-Heink
Eugene Ormandy quotes

Eugene Ormandy
F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead quotes

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead
Fanny Crosby quotes

Fanny Crosby
Fanny Mendelssohn quotes

Fanny Mendelssohn
Franz Liszt quotes

Franz Liszt
Franz Schubert quotes

Franz Schubert
Frederic Chopin quotes

Frederic Chopin
Friedrich Ruckert quotes

Friedrich Ruckert
Fritz Kreisler quotes

Fritz Kreisler
Gabriel Faure quotes

Gabriel Faure
George Frideric Handel quotes

George Frideric Handel
Georges Bizet quotes

Georges Bizet
Gerald Finzi quotes

Gerald Finzi
Giacomo Meyerbeer quotes

Giacomo Meyerbeer
Gioachino Rossini quotes

Gioachino Rossini
Giuseppe Verdi quotes

Giuseppe Verdi
Gregor Piatigorsky quotes

Gregor Piatigorsky
Gustav Mahler quotes

Gustav Mahler
Hector Berlioz quotes

Hector Berlioz
Heinrich Heine quotes

Heinrich Heine
Henry Purcell quotes

Henry Purcell
Henry Wood quotes

Henry Wood
Hephzibah Menuhin quotes

Hephzibah Menuhin
Hilary Hahn quotes

Hilary Hahn
Hugo Wolf quotes

Hugo Wolf
Jack Brymer quotes

Jack Brymer
James Galway quotes

James Galway
Jascha Heifetz quotes

Jascha Heifetz
Jean Sibelius quotes

Jean Sibelius
Jean-Philippe Rameau quotes

Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jenny Lind quotes

Jenny Lind
Johann Pachelbel quotes

Johann Pachelbel
Johann Sebastian Bach quotes

Johann Sebastian Bach
Johannes Brahms quotes

Johannes Brahms
John Henry Mackay quotes

John Henry Mackay
Jon Schmidt quotes

Jon Schmidt
Joseph Haydn quotes

Joseph Haydn
Joseph Joachim quotes

Joseph Joachim
Joseph Parry quotes

Joseph Parry
Joshua Bell quotes

Joshua Bell
Jules Massenet quotes

Jules Massenet
Karl August Varnhagen von Ense quotes

Karl August Varnhagen von Ense
Kurt Masur quotes

Kurt Masur
Ludwig van Beethoven quotes

Ludwig van Beethoven
Max Reger quotes

Max Reger
Moses Mendelssohn quotes

Moses Mendelssohn
Nahum Tate quotes

Nahum Tate
Neville Marriner quotes

Neville Marriner
Niccolo Paganini quotes

Niccolo Paganini
Nigel Kennedy quotes

Nigel Kennedy
Nikolaus Lenau quotes

Nikolaus Lenau
Pablo Casals quotes

Pablo Casals
Paul Gerhardt quotes

Paul Gerhardt
Pepe Romero quotes

Pepe Romero
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky quotes

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Rahel Varnhagen quotes

Rahel Varnhagen
Ralph Vaughan Williams quotes

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Richard Strauss quotes

Richard Strauss
Richard Wagner quotes

Richard Wagner
Robert Schumann quotes

Robert Schumann
Ruggiero Ricci quotes

Ruggiero Ricci
Samson Raphael Hirsch quotes

Samson Raphael Hirsch
Sergei Rachmaninoff quotes

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Steve Tesich quotes

Steve Tesich
Theodor Billroth quotes

Theodor Billroth
Thomas Hampson quotes

Thomas Hampson
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart quotes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Yehudi Menuhin quotes

Yehudi Menuhin
Bedrich Smetana quotes

Bedrich Smetana

Authors starting with Letter

Topics starting with Letter