Gustav Mahler Quotes
"A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: World)
"All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Detail)
"Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Beauty, Play)
"Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Destiny, Smiles)
"Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Existence)
"I live like a Hottentot. I cannot exchange one sensible word with anyone."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Word)
"I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Impulses, Man)
"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Music, Trying, Words)
"If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster."
- Gustav Mahler
"I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Giving)
"In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Music, Beginnings, Space)
"In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Love, Drama, Ending)
"If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies."
- Gustav Mahler
"I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Hope, Now, Understanding, Will)
"I have become a different person. I don't know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier."
- Gustav Mahler
"I beg of you... never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Disguise)
"I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Life, Brother, Talent, Man)
"Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle."
- Gustav Mahler
"It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Result)
"Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it."
- Gustav Mahler
"Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: People, Censure)
"I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas - I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Ideas, Day)
"The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Life, Content, Future)
"The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Music, Thoughts)
"Discipline, work. Work, discipline."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Work, Discipline)
"With the coming of spring, I am calm again."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Spring)
"When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one."
- Gustav Mahler
"What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized."
- Gustav Mahler
"To judge a composer's work, one must consider it as a whole."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Work)
"There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Difference, World)
"The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Life, Failure, Applause, Opinion, World)
"The real art of conducting consists in transitions."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Art)
"It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: First)
"You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Delusion, Superficiality, Vanity)
"The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Love)
"Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Spring)
"Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Opinion)
"Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Invention)
"It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Question)
"It should be one's sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew."
- Gustav Mahler
"The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Spirit)
"The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi."
- Gustav Mahler
(Related: Men, Difference, Will)