One Minute With....

Bach
There are many things in music which must be imagined without being heard.

Song is not only the servant of beauty, but also leads through the beautiful to the good.

What is good execution? It is simply the art of conveying musical ideas adequately to the ear.

A musician who wishes to think correctly when composing, should have melody and harmony simultaneously in his mind.

My idea is that music ought to move the heart with sweet emotion, which a pianist never will effect by mere scrambling, thundering, and arpeggios - at least not from me.

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Schumann
To master an art requires a lifetime.

Beethoven! How much lies in that word.

Music is the overflow of a beautiful mind.

Play always as if a master were listening.

The language of music is the most universal of all.

Brilliancy of execution is valuable only when it serves higher purposes.

If your music emanates from your very heart it will have a reciprocal effect on others.

You will be a musician when not only your fingers but also your mind and heart, are full of music.

Never judge a composition on a first hearing. What pleases extremely at first is not always the best, and the works of great masters require study.

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Mozart
It is time that is at once the most necessary, the most difficult, and the most essential requisite of music.

Of all of us, Handel knows best how to produce great effect; where he desires, he "crashes like thunder".

Of all of them, none can be jocose or serious, raise laughter or create profound emotion, and all with equal success, like Joseph Haydn.

No one has taken more trouble with studying composition than I. There is scarcely a single celebrated composer whom I did not study earnestly and repeatedly.

Passion, whether small or great, must never be expressed in an exaggerated manner; and music - even in the most harrowing moment - ought never to offend the ear, but should always remain music, which desires to give pleasure.

Why my productions take from my hand that particular form and style that makes them Mozartish and different from the works of other composers, is probably owing to the same cause which renders my nose so or so large, so aquiline, in short, makes it Mozart's and different from those of other people.

The Etude Magazine July 1921