Johannes Brahms
Birthdate: May 7, 1833
Birthplace: Hamburg, Germany
Date of Death: April 3, 1897
Occupation: Composer
Profile: Regarded as the last of the great classical masters. Best known for
Ein deutsches Requiem.
Website: http://www.johannesbrahms.org/
Number of Quotes: 34
A symphony is no joke.
A symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.
Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you.
Last words.
Any ass can play Beethoven.
Often reported from Brahms's
remarks about virtuosity versus musicianship; wording varies slightly in sources.
Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject.
Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and rhythms so beautifully.
Composing is not difficult. What is difficult is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.
Even if things went as I should wish them, I could not marry. I have thought about it
a good deal. I am too old for it now, and I have got too accustomed to being alone.
He is quite right to go in for song-writing; he has such a beautiful lack of talent for it.
A typically acerbic remark about the critic and composer Hugo Wolf, who was a fervent Wagnerite.
I could more easily reconcile myself to the thought of being robbed than of being considered a thief.
On accusations of plagiarism or lack of originality.
I have already tried drinking, but I can't stand it; it makes me sleepy, and then I'm afraid I might be missing something interesting.
Alcoholic drinks.
I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer.
If I feel inclined to study, I always spend half an hour over Bach's Wohltemperiertes Klavier.
If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.
Attributed to Brahms's famously blunt humor.
It is not difficult to write a piece of music; but it is infinitely difficult to write a simple one.
It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.
It's not easy to compose as well as that.
Brahms, known
for his rivalry with the New German School,
could still acknowledge Wagner's skill.
It's not hard to compose, but it is wonderfully hard to let the superfluous notes fall under the table.
Variation of the Composing
quote.
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
From correspondence; one of his most frequently quoted lines.
Music begins where the possibilities of language end.
Often paraphrased; this concise form is the standard English rendering.
Now I am consoling myself with the thought that I can easily omit the movements which displease you,
and, thank God, have the choice of supplying
others. For German
I can substitute human,
also easily leave out the rather weak Christian.
In a letter about the German Requiem.
One can't hold it against Wagner that he had no talent for comedy.
After seeing Die Meistersinger.
Straight-away the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God,
and not only do I see distinct themes in my mind's eye, but they are clothed in the right forms, harmonies, and orchestration.
Straightaway, one sees that he is not to be trifled with.
On hearing Beethoven; reported in recollections.
Study Bach. There you will find everything.
The best contribution I could make to your dictionary would be to take a blue pencil and cross out half the names you have included.
When asked to contribute to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
The idea is like a seed corn; it is nothing more than a seed corn.
Theory is good, but it doesn't prevent things from existing.
Those who enjoy their own emotionally bad health and who habitually fill their own minds with the rank poisons of suspicion, jealousy
and hatred, as a rule take umbrage at those who refuse to do likewise, and they find a perverted relief in trying to denigrate them.
We cannot conceive of a thing being at the same time beautiful and not beautiful, and
still less can we conceive of its being at the same time beautiful and not beautiful.
Expressing a belief in objective beauty, often paraphrased as a rejection of relativism.
We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it.
When half-tipsy Vienna wanted more, he took movement 4, threw it away, and wrote a new one.
Criticizing the display of Beethoven's
messy sketches, implying genius lies in the finished work, not the struggle.
Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.
Paraphrase from letters emphasizing discipline over inspiration.
You can't have any idea what it's like always to hear such a giant marching behind you!
Similar to the Beethoven quote, sometimes attributed to Mozart.
You have no idea how it feels to hear behind you the tramp of a giant
like Beethoven.
On the anxiety of composing symphonies after Beethoven.
Last on Earth
