Quotes by famous composers about Mozart. There are lots more quotes proliferating around, including those from my Mozart and classical music groups, but these are amongst favourites, and speaking of a favourite book of quotations about this wunderkind, I find Mozartiana by Joseph Solman the best.To Mozart lovers and enthusiasts, it is always fascinating to know what other composers say about him. Sometimes, one reads or hears about the quotes but is unable to identify the famous composer who said it. Mozart was Tchaikovsky's hero, who described his attitude to the wunderkind as one of "passionate worship." Here are some of these familiar quotations, reflective of how they relate to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
One of Mozart's most popular works, A Little Night Music (Eine kleine nachmusik), is a serenade of the 18th century which he wrote during a fateful year in his life. This was in 1787 when his father died in Salzburg, but Mozart was in Vienna and was too ill to attend it. This was also the same year that one of Mozart's greatest admirers, the 16-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven visited him, however, there is no evidence on this meeting.
Quote by Mozart:
"It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has became easy to me.
I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied ".
(Spoken by Mozart in Prague 1787, to conductor Kucharz, who led rehearsals for Mozart's famous opera DON GIOVANNI. Mozart the Man and the Artist, by Friedrich Kerst, p.17. Honestly, it doesn't sound like Mozart to me. Any comments from a Mozartian is welcome.)
Quotes on Mozart
"The marvelous beauty of his quartets and quintets, and of some of his sonatas, first converted me to this celestial genius, whom whence forth I worshipped." ~ Hector Berlioz, Memoirs
"It is hard to think of another composer who so perfectly marries form and passion." ~ Leonard Bernstein
"If we cannot write with the beauty of Mozart, let us at least try to write with his purity." ~ Johannes Brahms, In a letter to Antonin Dvorak
"Together with the puzzle, Mozart gives you the solution." ~ Ferrucio Busoni
"Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I’ve got only the keyboard in my poor head." ~ Frederic Chopin
"Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness." ~ Aaron Copland, Copland on Music, 1960
"I have never known any other composer to possess such an amazing wealth of ideas. I wish he were not so spendthrift with them. He does not give the listener time to catch his breath…" ~ Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Contemporary of Mozart, in his Autobiography
"Mozart’s music is particularly difficult to perform. His admirable clarity exacts absolute cleanness: the slightest mistake in it stands out like black on white. It is music in which all the notes must be heard." ~ Gabriel Faure
"In Bach, Beethoven and Wagner we admire principally the depth and energy of the human mind; in Mozart, the divine instinct." ~ Edward Grieg
"I tell you before God and as an honest man that your son is the greatest composer known to me; he has taste and in addition the most complete knowledge of composition." ~ Franz Joseph Haydn,to Leopold, Mozart's father, after hearing the six quartets Mozart dedicated to him in 1785
"The place in the center belongs to Mozart, due to the universality of his genius." ~ Franz Liszt, in a letter to Marie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, December 10, 1872
"I replied, however, that I should be only too happy to renounce all my virtues in exchange for Mozart's sins." ~ Felix Mendelssohn, Letters
"Beethoven I take twice a week, Haydn four times, and Mozart every day!" ~ Gioachino Rossini
"Give Mozart a fairy tale and he creates without effort an immortal masterpiece." ~ Camille Saint-Saens
"O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life have you left in our souls!" ~ Franz Schubert, Diary, 1816
"The most tremendous genius raised Mozart above all masters, in all centuries and in all the arts." ~ Richard Wagner
Anecdote: A bet between Mozart and "Papa" Haydn
Heard of this anecdot before? I picked this up from one of ourHaydn eGroup moderators... A bet was made between Mozart and Haydn regarding a composition that Mozart had just written. Mozart bet that Haydn won't be able to play it. Haydn played the few bars, but then stopped abruptly. The composition called for the pianist to play with his hands at the two opposite ends of the keyboard and simultaneously strike a note in the very center. Haydn admitted he was beaten. Mozart sat down and reaching the note in question, bent forward, and hit the key note with his nose. Smart Wolfgang won the bet, but Papa Haydn didn't mind.
To end this post, I'd like to share a great quote from author Nicholas Till that says a lot about Mozart, his genius, and his art.
"People living in societies undergoing the fundamental transition from closed, customary and religious patterns of organization to more open, individualistic, relativistic and secular systems experience with special intensity humankind’s otherwise universal (since all human beings must abandon infancy) sense of a lost past in which order, wholeness and certainty prevailed. It is in these periods that the characteristic modern experiences of deracination, alienation and doubt arise and in which people seek the new certainties of truth, virtue and beauty. No artist has been more acutely aware of the deeply unsettling nature of that transition than Mozart; (…). And no art has met modern humanity’s longing for wholesomeness and reconciliation as has Mozart’s music."
(Taken from the introduction to: Mozart and the Enlightenment, Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart’s Operas: 1992 pg. 6. By Nicholas Till)
Resources:
- Encarta Book of quotations, Macmillan (2000)
- Kerst, Friedrich.Mozart The Man and the Artist: As Revealed in His Own Words. p.17.
- Mozartiana, Two centuries of Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, by Joseph Solman, Macmillan (1990)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Quotes. Notable Quotes.
- Tchaikovsky. Great Composers. By David Mountfield. London: Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1990.
(c) July 2006. Updated August 15, 2020. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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