Funny quotes from Herbert von Karajan

  

Herbert von Karajan (April 5, 1908 – July 16, 1989) was one of the most famous Austrian conductor. 


Here are some quote from him:




"I can play with my seventy strings a pianissimo which is much, much more subtle than a chamber orchestra's."


"If you start with almost nothing, people concentrate much more on hearing you. Then when the outbreak comes, it makes a far greater impact."


"No music is vulgar, unless it is played in a way that makes it so."



"Sometimes, when I listen to some of my old recordings, I envy painters who can simply burn the pictures they don't like. I cannot."

 


Do you know Karajan was born at Salzburg same city as Mozart? Their house just opposite across the river! In front of Karajan's house has Karajan statue with baton action stand face to Mozart house. 

Karajan's Birthpalce, Salzburg
Karajan went to Mozarteum Conservatory, Salzburg, to study music.
Find more about Karajan check here http://www.karajan.org

Mozart Geburtshaus is Mozart's birth place at Salzburg, Austria. Mozart was born here on January 27, 1756. His family lived here from 1747 to 1773. Today, this place is a museum where present some of Mozart's instrument such as violin and harpsichord. Mozart's house become one of the tourist destination of Salzburg city.

The address of this place is Getreidegasse 9 5020 Sakzburg.

Funny quotes about Opera(2)

"In opera, there is always too much singing."
By Claude Debussy, French composer






"One can't judge Wagner's opera 'Lohengrin' after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend hearing it a second time."
By Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer

"I don't think an opera house is ever a place that can make you entirely happy."
By Bernard Haitink , Dutch conductor






"Even in today's opera world, the position of the black tenor is problematic."
By Bobby Short , American Cabaret singer and pianist






"A great opera house isn't run by a director, but by great administrator"
By Steven Berkoff, English actor

Funny quotes from Igor Stravinsky, Russian Composer

Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer, pianist and conductor. Here are some quote from him.


"The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead."


"I never understood the need for a 'live' audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one."



"My music is best understood by children and animals."



"A good composer does not imitate; he steals."



"Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. "



"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."

Funny quotes about classical music composer

"The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.”
By Benjamin Britten, British composer



"A good composer is slowly discovered and a bad composer is slowly found out."
By Ernest Newman



"A good composer does not imitate; he steals."
By Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer



"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
By John Cage



"It is not hard to compose, but it is wonderfully hard to let the superfluous notes fall under the table."
By Johannes Brahms



"A creative artist works on his next composition because he is not satisfied with his previous one.
By Dmitri Shostakovich, Russian composer

Funny quotes about music instruments

"Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune."
By Igor Stravinsky


"The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth."
By Andre Segovia



“The sound of a harpsichord is like two skeletons copulating on a hot tin roof.”
By Sir Thomas Beecham, English conductor



"Brass bands are very well in their place outdoors and several miles away"
By Sir Thomas Beecham, English conductor



"It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself. "
By J.S. Bach

Funny quotes from great conductors(2)

"I don't think an opera house is ever a place that can make you entirely happy."
By Bernard Haitink , Dutch conductor



"Napolean is dead - but Beethoven lives."
By Bruno Walter, German conductor




"If I have an orgasm, its good music."
By Leonard Bernstein, American conductor




"God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way."
By Arturo Toscanini, American conductor




"I don't want to repeat this a hundred times. When you see crecendo it means p."
By Eugene Ormandy, Hungarian conductor



"The notes are right, but if I listened they would be wrong."
By Eugene Ormandy, Hungarian conductor

Funny quotes about Johannes Brahms

"I have played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard!"
By Peter Tchaikovsky, Russian composer



"Brahms is just like Tennyson, an extraordinary musician, with the brains of a third rate village policeman."
By George Bernard Shaw, playwright




"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."
By George Bernard Shaw, playwright



"I once sent him a song and asked him to mark a cross wherever he thought it was faulty. Brahms returned it untouched, saying "I don't want to make a cemetery of your compositions."
By Hugo Wolf, Austrain composer



“Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.”
By Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer

Funny quotes about Wagner

“For me Wagner is impossible... he talks without ever stopping. One can't just talk all the time.”
By Robert Schumann, German composer



“Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour.”
By Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer



"One can't judge Wagner's opera 'Lohengrin' after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend hearing it a second time."
By Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer



"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."
By Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, French poet



"I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland."
By Woody Allen, American comedian



“I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds.”
By Mark Twain, American author



“Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.”
By Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer



"Wagner, thank the fates, is no hypocrite. He says out what he means, and he usually means something nasty."
By James Huneker, American music writer and critic

Funny quotes from classical music composer

“There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major.”
By Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer



"I was fifteen years old, and I hardly knew how to play a simple Bach prelude on the piano when I began to compose music, and at the most advanced level. I had never studied such things as harmony."
By Gyorgy Legeti , Hungarian composer



"A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one."
By Dmitri Shostakovich, Russian composer



"If a young man at the age of twenty-three can write a symphony like that, in five years he will be ready to commit murder."
By Walter Damrosh,German composer and conductor, Talked about Aaron Copland, American composer



"Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been put up to a critic."
By Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer

Funny quotes from violinist and cellist(2)

"The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency - half tiger, half poet."
By Yehudi Menuhin, Russian Violinist



"Child prodigy is a curse because you've got all those terrible possibilities."
By Itzhak Perlman, Israeli Violinist



"One of the most important elements in teaching, conducting, and performing, all three, is listening."
By Itzhak Perlman, Israeli Violinist



“The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.”
By Pablo Casals, Spanist Cellist



“The heart of the melody can never be put down on paper.”
By Pablo Casals, Spanist Cellist

Funny quotes about Franz Liszt

"I should like to rob him of his way of rendering my own Etudes."
By Frédéric François Chopin, pianist and composer,Liszt's friend.



"In comparison with Liszt, all other pianists are children."
By Anton Rubenstein, Russian pianist



"It's all in how you market it. Play a few fast scales, give'em a backup orchestra tapping the rhythm, light a few strobe candles, and they're all yours." 
By Niccolo Paganini, violinist, talked to Franz Liszt.



"Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his."
By Franz Liszt



“Liszt. This is Liszt. He's really a bad guy. It's really a bit scary. You're too nice.”
By Lang Lang , Chinese pianist.

Funny quotes from classical music pianists(2)

"My face is my passport. "
By Vladimir Horowitz, Russian pianist



"You need three or five hands to play Ligeti."
By Alfred Brendel , Austrain pianist
(Don't know Ligeti? Try this :P)



"I never practice; I always play."
By Wanda Landowska, Polish pianist



"An interpreter must give his blood to the work interpreted. "
By Claude Arrau , Chilean pianist



“Bad music disturbs me, but wonderful music disturbs me even more.”
By Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Italian pianist

Funny quotes from great conductors.

"Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra, not choreography to the audience."
By George Szell



"Music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable."
By Leonard Bernstein



"If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then there's something wrong."
By Simon Rattle


“Can't you read? The score demands "con amore," and what are you doing? You are playing it like married men!”
By Arturo Toscanini



"Life without music is unthinkable. Music without life is academic. That is why my contact with music is a total embrace."
By Leonard Bernstein



“When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.”
By Leonard Bernstein



“Everything is written in the score. Except from the really important things.”
By Gustav Mahler

Funny quotes about Opera

"When an opera star sings her head off, she usually improves her appearance."

By Victor Borge, Danish comedian

"How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers."

By Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer

"I don't mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is the language I don't understand."

By Sir Edward Appleton, English physicist

"No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me."

By Sir Thomas Beecham, English conductor

"In opera, there is always too much singing."

By Claude Debussy, French composer

 

"No opera plot can be sensible, for in sensible situations people do not sing."
By W.H. Auden, American poet

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."

By Voltaire, French writer

Funny quotes from classical music musician(3)

"I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous."

By Peter Tchaikovsky, Russian pianist and composer

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."

By Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer

"There is nothing more difficult than talking about music."

By Camille Saint-Saens, French composer

"Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth."

By Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer

"There is one god: Bach, and Mendelssohn is his prophet."

By Hector Berlioz, French composer

"Never look at the trombones. It only encourages them."

By Richard Strauss, Austria composer

"I never understood the need for a 'live' audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one."

By Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer

Funny quotes from violinist and cellist

“If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.”
By  Jascha Heifetz, Russian violinist




"Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere."
By Pablo Casals, Spain Cellist



"For 37 years I've practiced 14 hours a day, and now they call me a genius."
By Pablo de Sarasate, Spanish Violinist



"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons: first, to disourage the composer from writing anymore, and second, to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven."
By Jascha Heifetz, Russian violinist

"There are more bad musicians than there is bad music."
By Isaac Stern

 "You paid for the whole bow, you will use the whole bow."

By Henry Meyer (LaSalle String Quartet)

 

"You may be ready for Beethoven,but Beethoven is not ready for you!" 

By Jascha Heifetz, Russian violinist

Funny quotes from classical pianists

"Mozart died too late rather than too soon."

By Glenn Gould

"If the critics want me to play the moderns, wait till they hear the Khachaturian again. I'll make each dissonance groan, that's what I'll do! They'll leave the hall in the middle of the first cadenza."

By William Kapell

"The sonatas of Mozart are unique; they are too easy for children, and too difficult for artists."

By Artur Schnabel

"The Liszt rhaposdies must be protected, firstly, against musicians of the 'serious' breed who look down on them as showpieces, and secondly, against the piano maniacs who abuse them as showpieces."

By Alfred Brendel

"If you think I'm something, wait 'til you hear Richter!"

By Emil Gilels

"There are three kinds of pianists - Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists."

By Vladimir Horowitz