List of Johannes Brahms Quotes

I Sometimes Ponder On Variation Form And It Seems To Me It Ought To Be More Restrained, Purer.

Never Criticize The Composition Of A Royal Highness. You Never Know Who May Have Written It.

In Him Converge All Previous Streams Of Tendency, Not As Into A Pool, Stagnant, Passive, Motionless, But As A Noble River That Received Its Tributary Waters And Bearss Them Onward In Larger And Statelier Volume.

What Would Become Of All Historical Biography If It Was Written Only With Consideration For Other Peoples' Feelings?

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.

Ah, That Tastes Nice. Thank You.

How Lucky Is The Man Who, Like Mozart And Others, Goes To The Tavern Of An Evening And Writes Some Fresh Music. For He Lives While He Is Creating.

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.

Straightaway The Ideas Flow In Upon Me, Directly From God.

For The Shallow Delights Of Matrimony And Opera I Have No Courage.

My Things Really Are Written With An Appalling Lack Of Practicality!

It Is Not Hard To Compose But It Is Wonderfully Hard To Let The Superfluous Notes Fall Under The Table. . . So Many Melodies Fly About, One Must Be Careful Not To Tread On Them.