Quotes About Brahms

Money is abstract, I said over and over, money is future time. It can be an evening just outside the city, or a Brahms melody, or maps, or chess, or coffee….

Classical pianist Awadagin Pratt. I first heard this eccentric and introverted performer when I was living in the Midwest. He was playing Brahms ballades - haunting.

When Brahms is in extra good spirits, he sings, "The grave is my joy".

Brahms stayed an extra day to hear my [Fifth] Symphony and was very kind ... I like his honesty and open-mindedness. Neither he nor the players liked the finale, which I also think rather horrible.

What elevates one and not another to the level of genius is not only talent and ambition and luck, but a gift for turning everything to the purpose. ... Perhaps that is a common element in the story of genius: beyond talent and ambition and luck, in some degree you have to be forcibly booted out of everyday life and everyday goals. In any case, it was like that with Brahms. The fulfillment of love was denied him so that other things might take wing.

Part of what Brahms and others could never quite get over was that Bruckner the composer of epic symphonies behaved, much of the time, like a nincompoop.

Classical music is not really my thing, and I know absolutely nothing about it. If you told me you saw Brendel play Brahms last night, I would ask you who won.

Deep down, classical Romantic music is what I love: Brahms, Tchaikovsky, the Romantics.

Sometimes I have the feeling that you are not quite aware--and this honors you--of the historical greatness of your position, that you think too modestly about yourself. Everything you do is destined to be of historic significance. One day, your letters, your decisions, will belong to all mankind, like those of Wagner and Brahms.

Nothing is so lovely as a quietly snoring dog and some evening Brahms, as you sit in a comfortably overstuffed chair with your feet on the footstool.

I think Bach is equally a romantic composer because he laid the seeds harmonically for people like Chopin and the great Romantics, Brahms, so it's difficult to you know all this like labelling and putting - I think Bach is attractive to musicians because he supersedes the labels.

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.

I cannot help recording that this illumination of my thought is for me only the extension of the Other, the only Light. I have never known such happiness. I have been playing Brahms for a long time, piano sonatas that were new to me. They will always remind me of this unforgettable time. How can I keep this feeling of being entered, of being absolutely safe—and also of being enfolded?

What makes a Beethoven symphony spectacular, what makes a Brahms rhapsody spectacular is that the patterns are wondrous.

In each letter I send to a Japanese friend, I have got into the habit of recommending one or another work by Brahms, She has just written that she is leaving a Tokyo clinic where she was taken by ambulance for having excessively sacrificed to my idol, I wonder which trio, which sonata was responsible. It doesn't matter. Whatever induces collapse is thereby deserving of being listened to.

Brahms believed that there was no need to publish absolutely everything that Schubert ever wrote.

The second number goes off like a top - so fast indeed that when suddenly the music ceases and the lights go up some are stuck in their seats like carrots, their jaws working convulsively, and if you suddenly shouted in their ear Brahms, Beethoven, Mendeleev, Herzegovina, they would answer without thinking - 4, 967, 289.

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.

To my mind and ear, there is simply nothing that compares to the musical sophistication of a late Beethoven, Bartok, Schubert or Brahms work for minimal forces.

sweet music It beats love because there aren't any wounds: in the morning she turns on the radio, Brahms or Ives or Stravinsky or Mozart.

It is important for the musician to learn as much about the composer as possible and to study the music he has written. Then, even a short piece by Brahms or Chopin can be played with much more understanding.

I think one of the reasons it ended was that his eyes never lit up for me the way they did for classical music. I realize that in the long run I may not be as wonderful as a Brahms symphony but I think I'm good for a Haydn quintet.

Every orchestra is different. Sometimes, you're blown away by a particular musician. If I'm playing the Brahms concerto, it's crucial to have a great oboe player, because we work in tandem.

The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost.